Killer

In the music video for Killer MJ stood on the roof of a sedan and with a sledge hammer took out the windshield with repeated blows. Later, that business was deleted. Unlike the improvised business of taking the baby out to the balcony and pantomiming dropping the little bundle of joy, the sledge hammer sequence was prepared for, props assembled and camera positioned. So, why was the latter removed? I think it should have been allowed to stay. That was theatrics, and in keeping with the menace implied by the title of the video, Killer. 

It shouldn't be a shock to anyone that an artist is into violence. Now that the MJ thing is over, at least for the time being, I feel an unease, an embarrassment; I posted here months ago that MJ was guilty and should be locked up. Back then defending him was unthinkable, but now that it's all over I want to back off and look at the broader picture. What has family and society done to Michael Jackson? Sure there is such a thing as individual culpability, but there is also societal reponsibility. If all Michael Jackson did was walk backwards he'd be as nothing, a mild amusement we pay money to watch and listen to. He's more than that. Disfiguring himself, over and over, is a kind of walking backwards, an attention getter, an accusation, a rebuke, a cry for help, and a warning that the ship has sprung a leak. He holds up a mirror for us to gaze into. What we want to see is lilly white.

In an interracial marriage, myself and my wife have varying degrees of brown, gorgeous children. What will their world be like, say, a half century from now? Will the world still be embroiled in the same ol' race stuff? God help us.

Here's what I regard as an unusual, but sweet signal that maybe there is hope. Standing with my Filipina wife at a busy restaurant cash register, the beauteous Black (African American if you prefer) very young female cashier/waitress asked me if I wanted "cream and sugar." I said no. "You like it black, eh?" she said smiling. Now, if I had not been standing with my wife that question would have had an entirely different ring to it. As it was, in my hearing, it was a celebration of mixing. Ultimately young people are going to go with what works. As William Faulkner wrote in his novel, Absolem Absolem, "...bleaching out like rabbits" is the only possible solution to race divisions.

I'm very glad they're finally trying that goon in Mississippi. Wasn't that a truly great performance Gene Hackman gave in Mississippi Burning?

Barry