COLUMN: What happened to the Mike we knew

Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, Michael Jackson was the maestro of cool.

He could do no wrong.

The erstwhile Peter Pan of Motown turned King of Pop had us all tapping to the tune of Billie Jean, living Off the Wall, wearing white gloves and even grabbing our crotches while doing that infamous pelvic thrust. The man was a demigod, and we were all loyal subjects.

That was then.

Today, the world has a different view of that cute black kid with the Afro. We don’t recognize him altogether.

“Oh my heck, Mom! I didn’t know Michael Jackson used to be black,” the son of a coworker’s friend said quizzically as television cameras last month flashed images of the handcuffed superstar.

The King added child molestation charges to his steadily lengthening list of indiscretions, resurrecting the banshee of a decade-old scandal involving a 13-year-old boy and a multimillion-dollar settlement.

And yet, Michael remains oblivious: “When you say bed, they make that sexual. It’s not sexual. We’re going to sleep,” the singer told British journalist Martin Bashir.

Again, as he always has, Jacko sees himself as the victim of a society out to get him. He’s felt this way since 1983, when he crooned Somebody’s Watching Me, in which he sang: “All I want is to be left alone in my average home. But why do I always feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone?”

Then, we regarded these questions and others in his music as the shrewd ruminations of a popular social commentator.

But now, in retrospect, those questions may tell the story of the storm brewing in the maestro’s head, bringing about the dramatic changes manifested most visibly in his face.

Which begs the question: Is Michael as he is today the product of real social problems or his own hyperactive imagination?

There’s evidence to suggest more of the latter.

Consider his loud censure of what he described as Sony Music’s relentless exploitation of black artists. Jacko derided his label’s chief, Tommy Mottola, as “the devil,” accusing Sony of inadequately promoting his latest album.

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page points out that the singer’s finger-pointing came despite Sony’s investment of more than $25 million in promoting Invincible, on top of $30 million in production costs.

“If that is ‘racism,'” Page, who is also black, notes, “it is the kind many people would be delighted to suffer.”

So is it irrelevant, then, to think of Michael – and particularly his ever-changing face – within the context of racial discrimination?

I’m not so sure.

The singer undoubtedly had to battle tremendous prejudice on his way to stardom in an America that was – and still is – fairly racially intolerant.

That Michael may have perceived a need to appear white in order to be accepted therefore does not confound all logic. What is tragic is that he went too far.

He slipped into the trap of hypersensitivity. Us versus Them. Michael versus World. And in so doing, our beloved Michael became a caricature of his cause, a poster child for what not to do.

There is a lesson in this story, one that can be applied to virtually every debate currently afoot.

We ought to avoid hypersensitivity – no matter how difficult the situation. Not doing so could cost us our sanity – our ability to tell when we’re far off base. When things are dreadfully wrong.

Leon D’Souza is a senior in journalism. Comments can be sent to leon@cc.usu.edu.