One Year Later Michael Jackson Still Provokes Controversy

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Pop king Michael Jackson has been dead exactly one year. But the controversy that surrounded his life didn’t end with his death. On the eve of the first anniversary of his death June 25, Latoya Jackson loudly declared that her brother was murdered. Why, because he had grown to rich, powerful, and posed a threat. Sister Latoya didn’t say who or whom the unknown he posed the threat too. But then she didn’t have to. The charge that Jackson was the victim of foul play has been bandied about by Jackson family members, legions of fans, and hotly discussed and debated on blogs and websites since that fateful day a year ago.

The murder conspiracy theories are just the tip of the iceberg of the Jackson controversy. On the eve of the first anniversary of his death, news reports were filled with rampant speculation and guesswork about Jackson’s financial woes, squabbles between his attorneys and former attorneys over who represents who and what in divvying up Jackson’s estate, and reports of more finger-pointing by Joe Jackson about Jackson’s death. This is no surprise. Jackson made news even when he didn’t do anything to make news during his life.

Jackson's infamous child molestation trial in 2005 for a time was the centerpiece of much of the chatter back and forth about Jackson’s actions. The acquittal didn’t end that. Debate still rages over whether Jackson was an innocent victim of greedy, media hungry parents, or of his own actions. Then there was Jackson's on again, off again, quirky, ambivalent relationship with African-Americans and his seemingly confused racial identity. For many blacks, Jackson was little more than a Casper-the-ghost-looking bleached skin, nose job, eye shade, straight hair and gyrating hips ambiguous black man who had made a ton of money and had been lauded, fawned over, and adored by whites. This was more than reason for some blacks to view him with a jaundiced eye.

Jackson for the most part stayed about the controversy. He always seemed to want much more, and that was to be thought of as much more than an entertainer, a musician, and certainly not a polarizing figure. Jackson was much more. A year later it’s worth remembering what exactly that was. The first inkling that Jackson was more than just a pampered, oddball recluse came after the burn accident he suffered while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Jackson quietly forked over the $1.5 million the Burn Center at Brothman Hospital in Southern California that he got in the accident settlement. He drew accolades in 1985 when he and Lionel Ritchie wrote "We Are the World" and performed the music as part of an all-star cast of singers and celebrities to raise money for African charities. But that was pretty much what was known about the other Jackson.

Few knew then, and many still don’t, about Jackson's charitable giving and the list of the peace and social justice related activities he was involved with. The list numbered more than fifty known charities and organizations that he gave to during the 1990s, both individually and through his expansively named Heal the World Foundation. The foundation was mired in a messy organizational and tax wrangle that briefly made headlines in 2002. Yet, there was virtually no press mention when Jackson jumpstarted the Foundation again in 2008 with a fresh wad of cash.
In the months and years after his 2005 child molestation trial acquittal debate raged over whether he was a washed up, health challenged, damaged goods, and financially strapped one time pop star who desperately wanted to snatch back a glimmer of his past glory. Or, whether he still had some of the trademark Jackson flare and talent left. Even that debate, though, seemed to pass Jackson by since he knew that his every word and act was still instant news, and that there were still hordes of fans who would heap dreamy eyed adulation on him.

The quest to seal a legacy as more than just the Pop King told much about Jackson's desire that the small but unseen and much neglected part of his life, that is his charitable work be known and remembered. That he be remembered as more than just a black man who made his living grabbing his crotch before millions. Or a man who's other claim to notoriety was that he delighted in surrounding himself with packs of children.
A year later Jackson’s reported financial troubles, the murder-conspiracy allegations, the looming manslaughter trail of Dr. Conrad Murray, and the occasional faint whispers about his alleged questionable child relations, still badly cloud the Jackson legacy. There’s still the other Jackson, though. ; The Jackson who unselfishly gave his money, time and name for humanitarian causes. A year after his death this is undoubtedly the Jackson that he wanted the world to know and remember. It’s the Jackson that we should remember too.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
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Lots of Cooks Prepared the Compton Cookout Racial Insult Stew

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

University of California, San Diego chancellor Marye Anne Fox, the president of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, UCSD student leaders, and a bevy of civil rights leaders, and black and minority California lawmakers leaped over each other to lambaste the now infamous Compton Cookout at UCSD as racially insulting, insensitive, and demeaning. On February 24, days after the furor broke, UCSD officials held a campus racial sensitivity teach-in to quell racial tensions on the campus.

The Compton cookout, of course, was the bone headed stunt by a handful of white and non white students at an off campus to mock, poke fun at, and revel in what’s presumed to be the sway and swagger of ghetto life. There’s a problem, actually, two problems with this. The air head students couldn’t conjure this up from whole cloth. They aren’t that imaginative. They lifted the wording for the invitation for the cookout from the online urbandictionary web site. The site has parlayed an online commercial empire out of irreverent lampooning of slang words and phrases, and then hustling some slang laced products at a pretty penny. There are nine Compton cookout mugs, banners, tee shirts and mouse pads scrawled with inscriptions and jive talk on the items, some with a hefty price tag. There’s also evidence that the UCSD racial spoofery is not isolated, that students at other campuses have had their own versions of Compton Cookouts.
“Naw, `hoe’ is short for honey.” (Dr. Dre, “Housewife”)

That’s the minor problem. The bigger problem is that urbandictionary, as the UCSD students, couldn’t conjure up the Compton Cookout inanity from whole cloth either. They’ve had overgenerous help from the endless parade of gangster rappers, some black filmmakers, and comedians continue to routinely reduce young black women to “stuff,” “bitches” and “hoes.” Their contempt reinforces the slut image of black women and sends the message that violence, mistreatment and verbal abuse of black women are socially acceptable. Despite lawsuits, protests and boycotts by women’s groups, gangster-themed films and rap music still top the popularity charts. Hollywood and music companies rake in small fortunes off them, and so do a few rappers.
“Bitch choose with me” (50 Cent, “P.I.M.P”)
The verbal demeaning of black women and the pile on of stereotypes of young black males as gang bangers, drive by shooters and dope dealers has made them the scapegoats for many of the crisis social problems in American society.
Some blacks cite a litany of excuses, such as poverty, broken homes and abuse, to excuse the sexual abuse and violence (both physical and rhetorical) by top black male artists. These explanations for the misdeeds of rappers and singers are phony and self-serving. The ones who have landed hard on a court docket are anything but hard-core, dysfunctional, poverty types. The daunting puzzle, then, remains why so many blacks storm the barricades in fury against a handful of harebrained students at a college, but are stone silent, or utter only the feeblest of protests, when blacks bash and trash. Or even worse, tacitly condone their verbal abuse. There are two reasons for that.
“Watch Your Bitches” (Beanie Sigel “The Reason”)

Blacks have been the ancient target of racial stereotypes, negative typecasting, and mockery. This has made them hypersensitive to any real or perceived racial slight from whites. That’s totally understandable, and civil-rights leaders are right to criticize the Don Imus’s, the Rush Limbaughs, and the legion of celebrities, politicians and public figures for their racial gaffes, slips or broadsides.
But many also fear that to publicly criticize other blacks for their racial attitudes, such disagreements will be gleefully twisted, mangled and distorted into a fresh round of black-bashing by whites. This is a lame reason for not speaking out, and speaking out loudly, against blacks who either out of ignorance or for profit, or both, routinely commercialize racial and gender trash talk.
Such failure fuels the suspicion that blacks, and especially black leaders, are more than willing to play the race card, and call white people bigots, when it serves their interests, but will circle the wagons and defend any black who comes under fire for bigotry—or anything else, for that matter.
“Can U Control Yo Hoe” ( Snoop Dogg, “R&G: Rhythm and Gangsta: The Masterpiece”)

The same standard of racial accountability must apply whether the racial and gender offender is a Snoop Dog or UCSD students. When it doesn’t, that’s a double standard, and that always translates into hypocrisy. The UCSD officials, lawmakers, and civil rights leaders were right to condemn the students for their blatant racial insult. However, be mindful that urbandictionary and the offending UCSD students aren’t the only cooks who prepared the Compton cookout racial insult stew.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).