Comments on: The Greatest American Worker of My Time was a Black Boy from Gary who Performed in White Face

By: John Baker

John Baker — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:57:40 +0000

Best essay Ive ever read on Jackson. This essay is why he matters.
I read it three times over to see how you manage to critique him and hold his work out as the best we have ever seen. All entertainers work for us in a way. He was just the best to ever entertain. That is what I have been trying to say for a month now. Thank you.

We should have to pay to read this.

By: Teresa M.

Teresa M. — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:08:51 +0000

thank you for writing this. and thank you for not getting lost in all the mess about if he was or wasn’t a pedophile or was or wasn’t beaten or was or wasn’t black or was or wasn’t in debt. you gave me language to say what i been feeling for days. his work brought me out of depression over and over again. his work connected me to other people when i felt the most alone. he cared what we thought so much and i feel it. thank you.

By: Preston

Preston — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:47:44 +0000

I’ve read this everyday since he died. Something about the tone brings me peace. Thank you for this. It is so honest without being sappy or showy. I keep hearing “he worked for us” in my head. you’ve got a gift. where can i read more?

By: LaJane Galt

LaJane Galt — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:16:43 +0000

I don’t think the child star background should be minimized. Can you imagine being 6 years old and responsible for putting food on your table? Not to mention the tables of your employees.

By: zippy

zippy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:56:30 +0000

just hit me hard what this man gave us and how i didn’t really feel his work til now. he worked us. thanks for this. it’s so much more honest that these posts about his craziness or his dancing or his fans. work is personal if people let it be personal. you made me feel, laymon.

By: Meg

Meg — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:22:48 +0000

Thanks for writing this. I’m sad about the loss of Michael Jackson and I’m even sadder at how we made him so fucked up. All that pressure he had to endure, hardest working man in sho biz and all that.

By: Napalm Nacey

Napalm Nacey — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:22:59 +0000

Oh, this is such a wonderful post. I feel such sadness. I loved his work so much, it’s been so inspiring to me in my own music and has been the soundtrack to so many wonderful moments in my life. Off the Wall reminds me of my first trip to LA, of the smell of my luggage and the excitement of going to another country for the first time. I was excited as that song sounded.

And now I’m older, tireder, damaged. I’m angry at his weaknesses and angry at the world for pushing him so hard. When I hear “Off the Wall” the nostalgia chokes me. But the song makes me so damned happy. His music always makes me so damned happy.

By: ozma

ozma — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:05:20 +0000

“Thank you, Michael. You were so fucked up, and so are we. We see you, really. And we love what we see. We know you were tired, and now maybe you wanna go take care of yourself. But please don’t worry. The work ain’t going nowhere. Get your rest, brother.

Your work is here.”

This is the best thing I’ve read to express why this is so hard to ignore. I was not a Michael Jackson fan but I’m not dumb–I could see and feel that remarkable thing he had.

But it is personal in this way–it’s personal because somehow his humanness came through as he was destroying himself. Maybe what made it sadder was that you could see him as a child–his childhood was also visible. There’s a tragic trajectory there that is hard not to identify with, even though the ordinary person seems to have almost nothing in common with the life he lived. Especially not his gift, which I can’t help but wish hadn’t given him quite so much fame and money.

I don’t express it as well as you. Just the strangeness of his gift and his odd lovability and fragility also with that power. Some kind of poignant combination.

One clip on youtube absolutely killed me–it was an early one of a family party. Redd Foxx was there…And there was a young Michael, holding a baby. The parents said: Michael loves babies. He’s always holding the babies. His father speaks in it. You might look for it. It’s such a very different moment.

By: Charles Edwards

Charles Edwards — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:32:11 +0000

Gen X’ers didn’t really “know” Michael Joseph Jackson, no more than we knew that he probably lost his voice each night after getting his ass beat by a 200lb man for missing a cue or ad libbing too much on the Ed Sullivan show. Ain’t nothing like losing your ability to breathe or catch your breath when you get caught off guard by a searing belt or open-handed smack across your naked eight year old body. Some of us know that feeling intimately, we even joked and reminisce about how long our mouths remained a gape without a single sound coming out. But of course, we grew up in the 80′s, when talking about getting your ass kicked at home was a no-no; we were even the first generation to be armed with the power of calling “child abuse.” I threatened it once or twice, before my mother finished me off.

We generation X’ers didn’t know Michael Joseph Jackson, we knew the “The Michael Jackson Experience”. We were amazed by his morphing, as we were by Transformers, Tranzor Z and the Justice League. Our generation was much harder to please than those growing up a generation earlier. We were obsessed with “Close Encounters” and little ugly muthafuckas called “ET”. Michael Jackson doesn’t need our forgiveness, on the contrary, we need his. How dare you be just another Chris Brown! the two most celebrated artists of my day were Prince and Michael Jackon, come the fuck on! We X’ers wouldn’t allow our idols to be anything less than a caricature, any less would have been a dissapointment. What’s next? That was all we really wanted to know.

“There’s something “funny” about Michael Jackson? Wow, we Xer’s created your current style of skinny jeans and neon shirts. Weren’t we all funny? Don’t forget we juiced our hair, and “eccentricities” were celebrated in the most fad-oriented decades know as the 70′s and 80′s. Or did you mean “funny” as in limp your wrist motion, fag? Some us were so obsessed with making him a “fag” that we years later would pimp our kids in hopes that they would get fucked for a 14 million dollar pay day. Pimpin’ ain’t easy, but my generation did it so well.

I am glad Kiese is the writer, thanks man, your words resonate.

By: Linc

Linc — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:03:01 +0000

nice essay, especially the part about his being our boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time. everyone is sending this essay across the internet. good writing.

i gotta say though that the essay is a little too melodramatic for my tastes. you didn’t know the man. why act like you did? it hurts and sucks that he is not alive but he lived a foul life. why not make a post like this for someone who was proud to be black and did not inappropriately touch kids? maybe michael did all the things you even say are “fucked up” because he knew fans like you would forgive him no matter what.