[Marxism] Behind the headlines on Michael Jackson

[Gary Wilson <gary@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 4, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
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BEHIND THE HEADLINES ON MICHAEL JACKSON

By Leslie Feinberg

The plight and suffering of children and teenagers who are subjected to
sexual and other forms of abuse cannot be relieved by a reactionary
campaign to foment racism, anti-gay bigotry and hatred of gender and sex
variance.

It's imperative to keep this reality in
the political forefront as sensationalized media coverage about Michael
Jackson's arrest dominates the news.

On Nov. 19--the day Epic Records released a collection of Jackson's
greatest-musical hits--police armed with a search warrant carried out a
12-hour raid on Jackson's ranch and amusement park. The next day,
Jackson turned himself in to authorities, was booked on felony charges
of sexual abuse of a 13-year-old, and was released after posting bail.

The facts about the case have not yet been fully revealed. Nevertheless,
Jackson has already been virtually tried and convicted by the media.

The Santa Barbara County prosecutor's office will not file formal
charges until late November.

The 45-year-old African American, a child star as the lead singer of the
Jackson Five, is a legendary, internationally renown ed pop star. Since
the late 1980s, he has been the brunt of public ridicule in the media
for having an increasingly "womanly" appearance and complex gender
expression.

He has been dogged by tabloid scandal and a district attorney since
1993. At that time, Tom Sneddon, the district attorney of Santa Barbara,
Calif., tried to bring charges against Jackson, alleging sexual abuse of
a 13-year-old boy.

Sneddon, a prosecutor nicknamed Mad Dog, "first came to international
prominence when he investigated child molestation accusations against
Jackson in 1993-94. The singer was reportedly stripped naked and
photographed as part of the investigation." (AFP, Nov. 21)

But no charges were ever filed. Jackson settled financially with the
boy's family, saying he wanted to avoid a long court battle.

However a Lexus search of keywords "Tom Sneddon" and "Michael Jackson"
between 1994 and 2001 reveals that the district attorney has continued
to hound Jackson in the media. (talkleft.com/ archives)

The perception of a vendetta by the district attorney and demonstrable
media bias have led Jackson's family, many prominent African American
entertainers and political leaders, and fans of all nation alities to
voice their outrage.

In a statement by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Rev. Jesse Jackson
said that Michael Jackson was being tried by the media and expressed his
organization's "grave concerns" about how the Santa Barbara district
attorney's office is handling this case.

The civil rights leader described the raid of the Neverland ranch by
more than 70 police--some in flak jackets--accompanied by doctors and an
ambulance as "overkill." Jesse Jackson added that during the Nov. 19
news conference by the sheriff's department about the arrest warrant,
Sneddon "proceeded to make several jokes which were completely
inappropriate."

Jermaine Jackson said his family supports his brother Michael. "This is
nothing but a modern-day lynching."

The singer's mother, Catherine Jack son, told the online version of
Germany's Bunte magazine on Nov. 24 that there are two interpretations
of the law in the United States: "one for whites and one for Blacks."

ODIOUS CAMPAIGN

Media coverage of Michael Jackson, both before and after these formal
charges, has been damning, lurid and seemingly unending. Television
stations pre-empted normal broadcasts for live coverage.

After Jackson voluntarily turned himself in to authorities at the Santa
Barbara airport, media helicopters hovered in the air as a convoy of
police cars and other vehicles escorted him to the county jail. More
than one pundit referred to the procession as reminiscent of the slow-
speed car chase that preceded O.J. Simpson's 1994 arrest on murder
charges.

Over 100 reporters and photographers thronged outside the county jail as
sheriffs brought in the 120-pound singer with his hands manacled behind
his back.

A Nov. 22 New York Times editorial judged that "there is no doubt that
Mr. Jackson is guilty of trying too hard to protect his innocence,"
which it defined as a child-like "infantilism."

An inordinate amount of prejudicial cover age focused on Jackson's
appearance.

Reporting by the New York Daily News was characteristic of tabloid
treatment of the case. A four-page feature on the "Jack son sex scandal"
on Nov. 21 taunted Jack son for a mug shot "that showed him wearing more
makeup than a prom queen." A caption under a photo of Jackson flashing a
"peace" sign outside the jail said the singer was doing "his best
Richard Nixon impersonation." And an article described Jackson's bedroom
as his "creepy lair."

Perhaps the adjective the media use most frequently about Michael
Jackson is the word "freak." That epithet needs to be confronted head-
on. It lifts a rock on this odious and right-wing campaign and shines
light on it.

National Basketball Association super-star Dennis Rodman was also the
target of this poisonous barb when he came out publicly as a cross-
dresser.

How is it possible for such a dehumanizing slur to be so widely used
against internationally acclaimed and popular Black stars in
entertainment and sports? Because even with celebrated skills, money and
prominence, they are African Amer icans in an economic and social system
permeated with racism.

The term "freak" has always been steep ed in racism, anti-transgender
bigotry and the dehumanization of disabled people.

From 1840 to 1940, "freak shows" were heavily marketed to rural areas,
towns and large urban areas in the United States. They were considered
one of the most popular forms of entertainment in this country--and they
were lucrative.

Bearded women and those billed as mixed sex--"half-man, half-woman"--
were among those displayed in dime museums, world's fairs and circus
side shows. With the rise of colonialism and the expansion of
imperialism, people from Africa, the Pacific Islands, Asia and South
America were captured and "exhibited" in these shows.

"The presentation of imported non-Westerners was big business," notes
author Robert Bogdan in his book "Freak Show." Bogdan stresses that this
business was saturated with an imperialist world view and did not
confront racism. "On the contrary, what [the public] saw merely
confirmed old prejudices and beliefs. ... These attitudes also provided
good support for the United States' exploitation of the non-Western
world during the late 19th century."

The depictions of African peoples in particular, Bogdan writes, "arising
as they did from racist attitudes, helped sustain first the institution
of slavery and later systematic, unfair, and unequal treatment of
nonwhites."

And Bogdan concludes, "Whenever we study deviance we must look at those
who are in charge--whether self-appointed or officially--of telling us
who the deviant people are and what they are like."

TURNING DOWN THE VOLUME

The volume and intensity of coverage of Michael Jackson's arrest
virtually drown ed out all other world developments, includ ing news
about the Penta gon unleash ing massive bombing raids on the civilian
population of Iraq in its "Operation Iron Hammer."

Jackson's ranch was raided the day after the Massachusetts Supreme Court
ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.

Reactionaries have long tried to justify their bigoted crusades with the
groundless accusation that all people who are sexually attracted to
those of the same sex, or are perceived as gender variant, "prey" on
chil d ren. Progressive people need to deny the right wing an
opportunity to use the high-profile coverage of the Jackson case as a
propaganda weapon against the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender people to teach school, coach sports teams, adopt or gain
custody of their children.

The biased publicity against Jackson has done nothing to reveal the
depth and breadth of child sexual exploitation and abuse in this
country, much of which takes place within families. A 1986 interview of
930 women in San Francisco by sociologist Diana Russell, for example,
demonstrated that 16 percent of these women were incest survivors. The
most common offenders were uncles, male first cousins, fathers, brothers
and other male relatives.

Defending the bodies and lives of children requires a political movement
that can raise public consciousness about the fact that child abuse is
institutionalized. It is an outgrowth of class society in which women
and children are considered private property within the patriarchal
nuclear family.

Right-wing scapegoating lets the government and legal branch off the
hook for stripping children and married women of so many basic rights.

HANDS OFF JACKSON'S BODY!

A torrent of mocking about Michael Jackson's reported plastic surgeries
has been unleashed by this case. He is labeled "bizarre" and
"monstrous."

If undergoing plastic surgery were a crime, a bevy of socialites-and not
just women, either--would be forced to endure the "perp walk" in
handcuffs on prime-time news. The jails and prisons in this country
could not hold everyone who has undergone body and facial alterations.
"Nose jobs," face-lifts, liposuction, weight lifting, dieting, hair
replacement--the list is long.

Cosmetic surgery cannot be extricated from shame in an economic and
social system as oppressive and unequal as capitalism. But the bottom
line is the right of individuals to make decisions about their own
bodies and identities. That's at the heart of the struggle, for example,
for women's reproductive rights. It's not the right of the state or the
church--or the media--to determine.

Sex reassignment, like tatooing and piercing, is an ancient feature of
human society. Even before the rise of class society and all the
oppression it brought, there were people who, through physical
alteration and/or social acceptance, lived in a sex that appeared to
contradict genital sex.

The public derision of Michael Jackson for a "womanly" appearance is
anti-woman. It obscures the reality of sex and gender variance in the
human population. And it's an attempt to further cleave human diversity
into "difference"--the essence of "queer" baiting and the distillation
of divide-and-conquer strategy.

- END -

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