on Jackson

I was watching Michael Jackson’s Memorial show on CNN yesterday afternoon. It was a lavish spectacle, a star studded galaxy, if you will. The program featured a rainbow of great musical stars from Smokey Robinson to Jennifer Hudson, from Mariah Carey to little Shaheen Jafargholi. All were celebrating the life and the musical career of the emperor of pop, Michael Jackson. Jackson was commemorated and his followers legendised his talent. It is true that Jackson was a credit to his race, master of his talent but in his lifetime he also had had several ups and downs and mortal controversies. But the way congresswoman Sheila Jackson exonerated Michael of his earthly follies (that are nor proven), it made me feel that in order to be exculpated of our guilt and mistakes is dying a respectable death the only option? Jackson, who only a while back was scathed and calumniated by media and his fans, is now raised to sainthood (ref Sheila’s lofty speech). Are we afraid of being sardonic; is it that human beings hate to criticize? Or is it that once a person dies the need to criticize him doesn’t exist. Will that be the fate of all of us, or is it the chosen few who will be blessed with such an honor? Several such questions can be raised but are there any answers to them? Or is it that the whole charade that we saw yesterday, and are still seeing around, another gig of the media to show us only the bright side of existence. Are we endlessly guzzling the stale food we are given by the deiphnosophists and invariably losing our ability to arrive at a deduction. It doesn’t seem strange to me, since we are so used to promotional shibboleths and avant garde gizmos that we feed on whatever we are given without the slightest thought. The same thing happened yesterday, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson’s sugar coated words only brought out the dark side of the world she wanted to hide. The same side that brought charges on Michael Jackson, that calumniated him, that uttered disgraces and now, since he is dead, that darker counterpart would also fade into in existence. All the charges be it true or false would be obliterated, and we would sing in our minds “Heal the world” while we would question in our minds in hush hush tones, “Who is the real Jackson? Did we really know him?”