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Michael Jackson was Not all That |
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“Michael Jackson made culture  accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama, Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics and in television," Sharpton said to the crowd in front of him and watching on television, setting himself up as the definitive social historian on the progress of racial advancement in America. In the words of an earlier crossover black artist, the Godfather of soul, “Please, please, please,” Al, slow down.
Listening to Al Sharpton, if you didn’t know any better, you would think that white people didn’t know black entertainers existed or subscribed to their music, entertainment fare, watched them on television, noticed their involvement in sports, and never voted for them as politicians, before Michael Jackson.
David Gregory asked Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod a question near the end of their interview on Meet the Press Why, Gregory asked Axelrod, did President Obama not say anything publicly about the death of Michael Jackson, given that "some African-American leaders say the significance of this popular cultural icon was significant. I mean, before there was Barack Obama, before Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey there was Michael Jackson crossing over, breaking barriers."
Professor Paul Levinson, in his blog, observed accurately that the only person offering this particular racial pioneering assessment of Michael Jackson was Al Sharpton. Gregory chose to the attribute the remarks to “African American leaders.”
The danger of Sharpton’s characterization of Michael Jackson’s Martin Luther King like achievement was manifest a few days after the “King of Pop’s” death. Taking a queue from Sharpton’s revisionist interpretation of history, TJ Holmes a CNN young black on-air host did a segment in which he talked about white kids being introduced to black culture by Michael Jackson. Considering that Holmes is at least fifteen or twenty years younger than Michael Jackson, his sources have to be considered hearsay.
Before this Sharpton line of thinking gets too far down the road of acceptance, let’s introduce a reality check. In the euphoric celebration/morning of the passing of Michael Jackson, Sharpton is assigning too much credit to Michael Jackson for racial trailblazing. Less we forget, before there was Michael Jackson, there was Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Junior, Johnny Mathis, Little Richard, and the Godfather of soul, James Brown. Arguably, all of these artists had more Caucasian supporters than African Americans as far as sheer numbers are concerned.
Even when segregation was widespread in America, black artist had long since crossed over. “A tisket a tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald was the number one hit tune on radio in the forties. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, were not dependent on black audiences for their success. Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Bill Bo jangles Robinson, Stepin Fetchit, the list is extensive of black entertainers who were successful in the white entertainment world and with whom black people were proud to identify with their success. You want to talk serious crossover, what about Sammy Davis Jr?
Regarding professional sports, how quickly we forget that before Tiger Woods the racial divide had already been crossed, OJ Simpson had already run through airports for Hertz, flaunted his white bride, and achieved iconic status as the “Mr. Crossover” black man. Magic Johnson was out there in his time getting his share of major product commercials. However, it was Michael Jordan that took the black super athlete appeal to new commercial levels and made his brand race included as part of its appeal. And finally, let’s not forget Arthur Ashe, and hadn’t Mohammed Ali become a national and international iconic figure in the 60’s?
While America was involved in its insular struggle to allow black athletes to enter professional sports the rest of the world was idolizing a black man who was so special in the world of soccer that he was known by one name, “Pele.” He remains the most famous soccer player ever.
As far as introducing white people to black culture Michael simply can’t be assigned that accomplishment, there are too many means by which “black culture” has been exposed and assimilated cross culturally and internationally. Bill Cosby has to be given considerable credit for making middle class black life visible, debunking some stereotypes, and showing that it was not particularly distinguishable from general American middle class life .
Gregory chose to promote Sharpton’s version of history, elevating it as a sentiment among a number of black leaders. Maureen Orth, Tim Russert’s widow, appearing on “Morning Joe” was chastised by John Ridley for suggesting that Michael Jackson would consider it a great ending to his life--going out dramatically with his sudden death. Ridley objected saying that Michael would not like this ending but would have preferred making his comeback tour and resurrecting his career and then exiting the scene.
Maureen, who has done several in depth investigative-reporting articles on Michael Jackson for Vanity Fair, apologized, saying if she had offended anyone she apologized. One couldn’t help thinking her apologizing was in deference to Ridley being black and her feeling that she should be sensitive to that racial consideration as if being black gave Ridley some special insight on Michael Jackson.
Ironically, the very next day consistent with Orth’s assessment of Michael’s preference, there was Joe Jackson out there in front of the cameras and mikes promoting his “new record company” and commenting on how Michael would love to see the way the world was responding to his ultimate departure.
This is not at all to take away from the enormous unprecedented accomplishments’ of Michael Jackson but rather to repudiate the unintended consequences of Al Sharpton’s hyperbole, which unfortunately tended to totally discount the trailblazing accomplishments of so many black people who paved the way for Michael Jackson.
Nevertheless, the one accomplishment that Jackson can take full credit for is breaking down the discriminating practices of MTV and to paraphrase those immortal words from another American music icon who had an even shorter life of 39 years, George Gershwin, “ we can’t take that away from him.”
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