TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table Of Contents
Introduction: MOVING FORWARD
Chapter 1: Janet, The Last Black Jackson
Billie Jean music video
Beat It music video
Thriller music video
Chapter 2: Understanding Michael Jackson
Bad music video
Bad album
Chapter 3: The Gloved One Is Not A Chump
Black or White music video
Chapter 4: Sibling Song
Word to the Badd!! single
Chapter 5: “How Deep Is Your Afrocentricity?”Ask Michael & Iman
Remember The Time music video
Chapter 6: Michael Takes a Bow for Jam
In the Closet music video
Jam music video
Chapter 7: Father Figure
The Jacksons: An American Legend TV movie
Chapter 8: Videos Change the Style of “Black Film”
Chapter 9: Jackson’s TV Ad Makes Rhetorical History
HIStory teaser promo
Chapter 10: Screaming To Be Heard, Book I
HIStory album
Scream music video
Chapter 11: Screaming To Be Heard, Book II
HIStory album
Chapter 12: Montell and Michael Exploit/Explore Happy-Negro Fallacy
This Is How We Do It single
Chapter 13: Earth Song Moves Music Video Mountains
Earth Song music video
Chapter 14: Jackson and Jam-Lewis Hope Louder in New Remix
You Are Not Alone music video
You Are Not Alone/Scream Louder Remix single
Chapter 15: Lists & Prizes in the Arts for 1995
City Sun Year’s Best Excerpt
Chapter 16: Hear, My Dears
Blood on the Dance Floor album
Chapter 17: Remembering “Ben”
Willard film
Chapter 18: Song of the Day: Man in the Mirror
Chapter 19: Jackson Pop: Music Video Artists and Hollywood Influence
Chapter 20: In MJ’s Shadow
Chapter 21: Twenty-First Century Renaissance
Bibliography
Index
We are millions.
ReplyDeleteAnd we will not be silent.
Not this time.
Something beyond vicious was done to Michael Jackson, and everyone knows it. Even now after his death, the same people who went after him for no greater reason than personal ambition, seek to justify their persecution by painting him as a cheap drug addict. Yes, Michael was taking an extreme drug at the end. The effect of such a drug however, is not to heighten consciousness - but to obviate it.
But what got him there? What made a young man known for his abstention - to the extent that he didn’t even drink pepsi, end his days in a made-to-measure trauma room? Does anyone care that a little boy from Gary, Indiana who grew up in front of the world's lens, worked for every cent he ever made by dint of his own blood, sweat and tears, dazzled millions of people with his craft and passion; was so ill-served and abused by first - his father, then the American criminal justice system and a collusive media, that oblivion was his best case scenario every night.
Life has a way of moving you on, even from the most painful of things. But I know I will carry the summer of 2009 inside me forever. Actually I want to carry it, I am honoured to carry it. As a reminder of what we have lost collectively and what I personally will never forget. I am not ashamed to be heartbroken. Show me someone who can remain unmoved in the face of the epic trajectory of this unfeasibly talented human being, the seemingly ambivalent legacy of that which he leaves behind, the sheer magnitude of what Michael Joseph Jackson achieved here - and I will show you a stone.
For this is legend. We have witnessed legend. Other generations had theirs.
This is ours.
And I will show respect.