RIP Michael Jackson
27 June 2009
A few months ago, my 3-yr-old daughter Izzy learned about Michael Jackson from her 5-yr-old friend Maya. Maya’s mom is a big fan of MJ.
Since Izzy’s discovery of the King of Pop, we’ve been regularly watching “youtube” videos of all MJ’s hits. Since Thriller was one of my first cassettes, I felt like I’ve had the chance to re-experience the magic of Michael Jackson’s legendary talent through my daughter.
I remember breakdancing to songs in my friend’s kitchen in 1982, and just two days ago, I was singing along to, it don’t matter if you’re black or white… with my daughter. Izzy sat mesmerized by the costumes, the dancing, and especially the faces of humanity blending into one another at the end of the video.
Michael Jackson is one of the greatest singers, dancers, and performers our world has ever seen. Because of my daughter, I was able to able to put down the cynicism and cruel opinions that have been promoted by the media circus surrounding MJ’s later life.
Whether or not Michael Jackson behaved dangerously with children we will never know; but we can all at least agree that he was never given the chance to be a child himself, and that a life like his has psychological repercussions.
The day before Michael Jackson died, Izzy was at pre-school talking about her “boyfriend”–an entirely new topic for everyone–and one of the teachers asked her who her boyfriend was. She said it was Michael Jackson. It felt pretty weird that he was the talk of our household on Wednesday, and on Thursday, he left the world.
Fortunately, the music lives on, and we can always visit MJ on Youtube; today however, I write these words to honor the King of Pop, and Izzy’s first boyfriend:
Michael Jackson, thank you for inspiring my daughter Izzy, and for all the memories–especially Billy Jean, hearing that song’s baseline and beat was a religious experience! Thank you for your message of peace, hope, brotherhood and sisterhood across creeds and colors; thank you for your dedication to the craft of song and dance; and thanks for giving my MTV generation some of the best music videos the world will ever see.
