Beat It! Al Sharpton Interjects Himself Once Again

Taking advantage of the media furor over the death of Michael Jackson, the fame and fortune scavengers are taking their fill of the carcass, and Sharpton has somehow forced his way to the spotlight once again.

by Michael Naragon

As a society, we generally find vultures disgusting, and not simply because they are physically unattractive.  The entire life of the vulture depends on its search for death.  As one of natures most successful scavengers, they are usually seen hovering on the wind, gliding through the air on their large outstretched wings as they survey the ground for the dead or dying.

In human society, we have our vultures as well, those who profit from death and misery.  Very few human beings have been as successful a scavenger as the *ahem* Reverend Al Sharpton.  His latest victim?  Michael Jackson.

Immediately following the death of the 1980s pop icon, news organizations began following the story day and night, to the detriment of far more important national news.  His funeral, a celebration of the life and career of the singer, was broadcast throughout the world.

Someone not familiar with the Jackson legacy–and it’s hard to imagine anyone that would not be–would assume from the attention that the nation had lost a president or the world had lost a king, rather than a man who had changed pop music and recorded 13 #1 hits, his last coming fourteen years ago.

Despite Jackson’s recent insignificance, or perhaps because of it, African-American artists and leaders have tried to turn his death into a point of racial division.  Jamie Foxx, in an oft-replayed statement from the BET Awards show honoring Jackson’s life, said, “We want to celebrate this black man–he belongs to us–and we shared him with everybody else.”  Interesting that this “black man” spent the better part of his life attempting to bleach his skin, but that’s an analysis for another day.

Sharpton, not to be outdone, has shoved his way squarely into the center of the story in an attempt to perform that task to which he must believe God has called him: cause racial divide in America.  At an all-day celebration of Jackson’s life at the famous Apollo Theater, Sharpton delivered a “sermon” on the treatment of the pop star.

“There’s been an unprecedented allowance of negative, exaggerated and scandalous stories told about Michael Jackson and the Jackson family,” Sharpton told the obviously sympathetic crowd, referring to the stories about Jackson’s drug use and acquittal on charges of child molestation.  “In the temple of black entertainment on the stage that produced the Sarah Vaughns and the Ella Fitzgeralds, and the Jackie Wilsons and the James Browns we want to send a message around the world that you can write what you want and say what you want, Michael Jackson was ours and we are Michael Jackson and we love Michael Jackson!”

Again, this was a man who sang and danced, right?  He was successful for a time, yes, and he changed his industry.  But to make him an icon of racial possession seems a little extreme.  Jackson himself sought to break from racial stereotypes, which is one reason for his wild success in his heyday.

Restricting himself to the black community of Rev. Sharpton would have restricted his success.  Instead, like sports stars Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Jackson expanded his influence to the point where race was not an issue.  He achieved what Martin Luther King, Jr. wished–when record buyers purchased his albums, they didn’t consider his race.  They only knew that they loved his music.  Meritocracy, rather than discrimination.  Jackson needed no affirmative action.  But don’t tell the good Reverend.

“The reason we don’t listen to what you [the press] tell us on the news is we remember the time when nobody heard our culture, nobody would listen to our words… You can scandalize him, but we know better!  Michael wasn’t no freak.  Michael was a genius. Michael was an innovator.  You can’t take someone with extraordinary skill, extraordinary talent and make them an ordinary person.”

Sharpton’s fiery speech at the Apollo, as well as his well publicized call for a national day of mourning and postage stamp in honor of the singer, succeeded in getting him placed front and center at Jackson’s public memorial service.  In front of an international audience, he toned down the racial rhetoric in favor of a convoluted one.

“It was Michael Jackson that brought blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos together. It was Michael Jackson that made us sing ‘we are the world,’” Sharpton told the crowd.  “It was that comfort level that kids from Japan and Ghana and France and Iowa and Pennsylvania got comfortable enough with each other so later it wasn’t strange to us to watch Oprah on television.  Those young kids grew up from being teenage comfortable fans of Michael to being 40 years old and being comfortable to vote for a person of color to be the president of the United States of America.”

So let me get this straight.  Kids from Japan, Ghana, and France watch Oprah and voted for Obama because of Michael Jackson?  No wonder Obama was able to pull off an improbable win in November.  And perhaps some of candidate Obama’s record-breaking credit card contributions came from places like Ghana from the large contingent of Oprah viewers there.

Once again, however, even though he didn’t make a second reference to Jackson being the property of black culture–an interesting position to take on a man, given the black leadership’s position on reparations–Sharpton still made race an issue.  If Michael Jackson worked so hard to bring the world together, why would Sharpton not celebrate Jackson as simply a talented showman?  Bringing race into the discussion goes against all that Jackson stood for as an artist, it would seem.

Unless, of course, you feed off the bad feelings and racial tensions that can be artificially created from a situation like this.  Unless you’re one whose ego benefits from death and destruction.  Unless you’re a vulture, like Al Sharpton.