AP: Michael Jackson has died

[ShadowBrain]

I think it's the elephant in the room at this point that those probably aren't actually his genetic offspring. Sperm donation and covert adoption happen.

[CrossEyed7]

It's just genetics. Whites are dominant, I guess. Gregor Mendel loves to keep the little guy down.

[Luigison]

I think darker pigmentation is dominate in most cases.  Besides, there is no such thing as a black or white race.  Those are generalized terms that are not based on genetics.  The terms Sub-Saharan African and European are probably more appropriate, but I haven't kept up with genetic ancestry since I'm more concerned with genetic predisposition for disease.  However, the white elephant in the room, so to speak, may be Dr. Arnold Klein.

[Weegee]

Sub-Saharan African = Black
European = White
Political correctness = Tyranny with manners

Happy now? Besides, it don't matter if he's black or white. On that note, I believe it would be appropriate to share CrossEyed's heartfelt call for sympathy towards MJ's passing here:

If we don't have the compassion to remember MJ sympathetically, a tragic figure whose childhood was stolen from him by a violent, avaricious father, whose pleas for help were ignored by those who should have known better and gotten him therapy, and whose attempts to reclaim his youth were perverted by opportunists and sensationalists, then I hope we can at least have the restraint and respect to remember him for being among the greatest music performers in human history, and not take the easy road of making hackneyed jokes about accusations that probably aren't even true  -- accusations that, along with the popular belief in them, contributed greatly to the stress that may well have killed him. It's the same courtesy we extend to Elvis.

Molesting children is certainly heinous, but if there's one thing that's worse, it's falsely accusing someone of it for your own benefit, knowing that a mark like that can never be erased from someone's public record. I don't know which of those happened, but taking into consideration the entirety of MJ's life, attested to by multiple sources, as well as the fact that he was acquitted of all charges, I'm leaning toward the latter, enough so that I don't want to risk being on the wrong side. I mentioned this before, but there's a guy who lives near us who, when he was about 19 years old, slept with a girl who said she was 18, while happening to be carrying his gun that he was fully licensed to have and everything. Turns out the girl lied; she was actually 17, and because of that one lie, he is now registered as a level 3 sex offender for the rest of his life. He has to stay a certain distance away from schools, he has to register his location every time he moves, his name shows up on that big online database with equal footing to people who've actually done horrible things, with no further explanation, and he will never be looked at the same way, not by employers, not by parents, not even by his friends. Crap like that can completely ruin someone's life. He's pretty optimistic about it, I think largely because he's gotten saved now, as we say, is really active in his church and has some hope to look to and hold onto, but for a lesser man than him, something like that could just totally destroy you. One person lied and got a label slapped on him, and most people only see the label. If MJ really was innocent, then he was in the exact same situation, except a thousand times worse. He was accused of far worse acts, he was found not guilty in court but no one cared, he had the whole world looking at him, most of them scorning him, and he fell from a much higher height. I know firsthand a small taste of what it's like to have you childhood stolen from you, and I now know secondhand a bit of what it's like to have the lies of someone you thought was your friend destroy your reputation. If those are what MJ went through, then I really feel for him, and I hate that I wasn't mature enough to do so when he was alive. Everything about his life, it seems, was a classical tragedy.

If we aren't open-minded enough to remember him that way, then I at least hope that 50 years from now we'll remember him for his contributions to the entertainment world. Elvis isn't remembered for being fat, he's remembered for being the biggest sensation of all time. Likewise, MJ should be remembered for inventing the modern music video, selling nearly a billion albums, transcending racial boundaries (though not knocking them down permanently, unfortunately; society today is far more segregated today, largely by choice) and being probably, thanks to the internet and the fragmentation of society, the last true cultural phenomenon -- the last star whom everyone loved, everyone wanted to meet, everyone knew all the words to all his songs without even trying. The closest thing we've had to him since then is Obama, and even he hasn't been too great at curbing racial divisiveness or getting everyone to like him.

It's really pretty amazing that back when he was real big in the 80s and early 90s, and even back into the 70s to a certain extent, race was never really an issue. White kids didn't think it was scandalous that they were listening to songs sung by a black guy, as kids from the 50s and 60s may have, but nor did they think it was specially cool just because of that, unlike so many Fubu-wearing rich white kids today who like to pretend they're gangsters because they listen to music made by other people pretending to be gangsters. People just listened to MJ because they liked his music, and even though I was too young to appreciate his music back then, I think he was still a major reason why I, a middle class whiter-than-cheap-flavorless-generic-rice kid born in North Carolina, grew up watching TV shows with mostly black casts and never gave it a second thought. It seems like most of that air of racial irrelevance is gone now, sucked away by those of the older generations whose careers depend on division thriving, but for a while there, it never felt weird or uncomfortable or forced or unnatural that we were all watching Sister Sister, the Cosby Show, Family Matters, and the one where my mom got scared and said you're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air. I begged and pleaded with her day after day but she packed my suitcase and sent me on my way. She gave me a kiss and then she gave me my ticket, I put my walkman on and said might as well kick it. First class, yo this is bad, drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass? Is this what the people of Bel-Air Living like? Hmm, this might be alright. But wait I hear there're prissy, bourgeois and all that, is this the type of place that they should send this cool cat? I don't think so, I'll see what I get there, hope they're prepared for the prince of Bel-Air. Well, the plane landed and when I came out there was a dude looked like a cop standing there with my name out. I ain't trying to get arrested yet, I just got here! I sprang with the quickness like lightning, disappeared. I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I can say this cab was rare, but I thought nah forget it, yo homes to Bel-Air. I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8, yelled to the cabbie yo homes smell ya later. I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air.

[Glorb]

Getting Bel-Aired hurts my feelings.

And Keenan & Kel was the best show of all time. I watched it as a kid before even knowing that there were such things as race.

[Kojinka]

Awesome Mario Paint Composer version of Thriller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gc-1Dq3uQQ&

[TEM]

I got that special tingly feeling when it resolved. Fav'd.

[Weegee]

All it's missing is Vincent Price's ghoulish outro. Tres magnifique.

[nensondubois]

Getting Bel-Aired hurts my feelings.

And Keenan & Kel was the best show of all time. I watched it as a kid before even knowing that there were such things as race.

I stopped watching them when I realized that show was not real life.

[Luigison]

[PaperLuigi]

Wow.

[Weegee]

The irony is enough to make anyone cringe... Wow indeed. However, such speculation is nothing new in terms of the Jackson saga:

[ShadowBrain]

If Luigison, there's anything else that's ever made me feel so happy and so sad simultaneously, I can't recall it.

[Lizard Dude]

So Michael Jackson was predicted to at age 40 turn into Lando Calrissian?

[ShadowBrain]

My subconscious mind = read.

This is all even more ironic considering 1986 was about when he started going white.