After we mourn... What Will We *LEARN*
BWC is a True *GIFT*, giving us a chance to all connect on the REAL issues surrounding Michael's amazing life & untimely passing. I am **SO** proud of the sisters on BWC -- we are rising to the occasion, and I believe (tearing up just thinking of him - again!) I believe Michael is PROUD OF US right now.
Sidebar: Good point to Rev. Al's comment yesterday - which I just *LOVE* about, "... before Oprah, Tiger, Jordan, or Barack, MICHAEL made the culture accept Blacks..."
But I wonder -- in a week - in 2 weeks, when we are back to our jobs, our children, our neighbors... what will "Michael Jackson"s life mean?
Will he just have been "The world's greatest entertainer"? Or will we Black folks be able to get the BIGGER issue of his death at 50. Doesn't that seem odd that a 50 year old man, who's -- for essentially his ENTIRE LIFE -- had the best foods, best medical care, always exercised -- dies of a heart attack at age 50.
HECK YES that's odd -- that's *** STRESS**.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sister that WS (white supremacy) is the EXACT cause of Michael's (and soooooooooo many other good brother's (and sisters)) tortured lives & early deaths. I am proud, proud, PROUD to have met you all on BWC, and thrilled to see that someone else is out there like me just SICKENED by what they did to him.
These wolves ate from Michael's plate, left him weakened emotionally, and as you said -- a Virgo cannot live for long in that emotionally stressful state. I know this firsthand.
Michael held on with us as long as he could. He deserved so much more than the bull* treatment he was given. I suspect not many of us who are NOT in the public eye have ANY POSSIBLE idea of the turmoil Black celebs go thru. They are pimped, treated with disdain, ignored if possible, and lied about. Are they perfect? No - they are human like us...
We don't know what Michael did in those speculated moments.
We don't know why Michael needed/wanted to sleep in chambers, play with monkeys, and went so deep into plastic surgery.
>> BUT <<
We *DO* know that people got rich off of *HIS* hard work & vision.
We *DO* know that his SKILLS (did Elvis write ANYthing?) beat Elvis & Sinatra - hands down.
We *DO* know he was AN ORIGINAL, which is tough to do these days.
We *DO* know that he forever --- C-H-A-N-G-E-D --- the music industry.
We *DO* know that he gave his passion & gifts to make the world better.
Hopefully, what we will learn is that OUR OWN BEHAVIOR - right now - may be showing signs of SELF-DESTRUCTION as a result of how we are forced to live in this world as Blacks. Hopefully, Michael's death will have us all say,
"Ok, what self-destructive behaviors am **I** doing that are HIDDEN SYMPTOMS of being Black in this world?"
Hopefully, more of us will notice & understand that much of the - as my Grandmother would say - "foolishness" that Black folks are still doing is because of severe **INTERNAL** damage >>ALREADY<< done to our:
(1) spirits and
(2) REASONING skills.
It takes a TOLL ...
... to watch TV and rarely see sisters be STRONG, (not just LOUD),
... to never see a Black woman as the damsel in distress or be "rescued"
... to regularly see tv shows, ads, commercials encouraging the white women/black man couple,
... to watch news stories about Rawanda, & see images of brown people laying sprawled dead in the street,
... to have to deal with the passive agressive treatment on our jobs from people threatened by our skills, and to know that we are NOT protected like white women, that if something happens to us we are probably on our own,
... to push ourselves to find the beauty in our lives -- because we MUST.
And more to the point, it takes a TOLL to be a Black man and ... hell, I don't even KNOW that part, but I know brothers have a type & level of bull* to deal with that we cannot even IMAGINE.
We've all heard the story about training a baby elephant with a small cord around it's leg so that WHEN IT'S GROWN it will not even **try** to escape because it's psychologically beaten down to even WANT to. The DAMAGE done to us >> is already in place <<. Michael was another horrible example of the toll this silent stress puts on EVERY ONE of us. It's not always a bad diet that leads to our racially high hypertension -- OUR STRESS AS BLACKS ON THIS PLANET IS **DAILY*** -- even on good days!
Sure we press on -- we find release valves where we can -- but not of of them healthy. And the HIDDEN MENTAL torture & torment we all experience EACH day, right now TODAY -- is very, very real. It's why we do the self-destructive things we do. We act WHACKED because of the **CURRENT DAY WHITE SUPREMACY POLICIES & INSTITUTIONS*** that silently guide and control...
... where we live,
... what we choose to put into our bodies as "food",
... who we date, what we think "pretty" is,
... what jobs we take,
... which leaders we choose to follow/listen to/give money to,
... what religious institutions we spend our precious spare time in,
... what businesses we give our grocery & clothing dollars, EVERY month (yet wonder why black business districts don't survive...
Personally, I believe he's glad to be gone from this - sometimes sweet - but always tenuous nightmare.
RIP Michael - you more than deserve it!
Sidebar: Good point to Rev. Al's comment yesterday - which I just *LOVE* about, "... before Oprah, Tiger, Jordan, or Barack, MICHAEL made the culture accept Blacks..."
But I wonder -- in a week - in 2 weeks, when we are back to our jobs, our children, our neighbors... what will "Michael Jackson"s life mean?
Will he just have been "The world's greatest entertainer"? Or will we Black folks be able to get the BIGGER issue of his death at 50. Doesn't that seem odd that a 50 year old man, who's -- for essentially his ENTIRE LIFE -- had the best foods, best medical care, always exercised -- dies of a heart attack at age 50.
HECK YES that's odd -- that's *** STRESS**.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sister that WS (white supremacy) is the EXACT cause of Michael's (and soooooooooo many other good brother's (and sisters)) tortured lives & early deaths. I am proud, proud, PROUD to have met you all on BWC, and thrilled to see that someone else is out there like me just SICKENED by what they did to him.
These wolves ate from Michael's plate, left him weakened emotionally, and as you said -- a Virgo cannot live for long in that emotionally stressful state. I know this firsthand.
Michael held on with us as long as he could. He deserved so much more than the bull* treatment he was given. I suspect not many of us who are NOT in the public eye have ANY POSSIBLE idea of the turmoil Black celebs go thru. They are pimped, treated with disdain, ignored if possible, and lied about. Are they perfect? No - they are human like us...
We don't know what Michael did in those speculated moments.
We don't know why Michael needed/wanted to sleep in chambers, play with monkeys, and went so deep into plastic surgery.
>> BUT <<
We *DO* know that people got rich off of *HIS* hard work & vision.
We *DO* know that his SKILLS (did Elvis write ANYthing?) beat Elvis & Sinatra - hands down.
We *DO* know he was AN ORIGINAL, which is tough to do these days.
We *DO* know that he forever --- C-H-A-N-G-E-D --- the music industry.
We *DO* know that he gave his passion & gifts to make the world better.
Hopefully, what we will learn is that OUR OWN BEHAVIOR - right now - may be showing signs of SELF-DESTRUCTION as a result of how we are forced to live in this world as Blacks. Hopefully, Michael's death will have us all say,
"Ok, what self-destructive behaviors am **I** doing that are HIDDEN SYMPTOMS of being Black in this world?"
Hopefully, more of us will notice & understand that much of the - as my Grandmother would say - "foolishness" that Black folks are still doing is because of severe **INTERNAL** damage >>ALREADY<< done to our:
(1) spirits and
(2) REASONING skills.
It takes a TOLL ...
... to watch TV and rarely see sisters be STRONG, (not just LOUD),
... to never see a Black woman as the damsel in distress or be "rescued"
... to regularly see tv shows, ads, commercials encouraging the white women/black man couple,
... to watch news stories about Rawanda, & see images of brown people laying sprawled dead in the street,
... to have to deal with the passive agressive treatment on our jobs from people threatened by our skills, and to know that we are NOT protected like white women, that if something happens to us we are probably on our own,
... to push ourselves to find the beauty in our lives -- because we MUST.
And more to the point, it takes a TOLL to be a Black man and ... hell, I don't even KNOW that part, but I know brothers have a type & level of bull* to deal with that we cannot even IMAGINE.
We've all heard the story about training a baby elephant with a small cord around it's leg so that WHEN IT'S GROWN it will not even **try** to escape because it's psychologically beaten down to even WANT to. The DAMAGE done to us >> is already in place <<. Michael was another horrible example of the toll this silent stress puts on EVERY ONE of us. It's not always a bad diet that leads to our racially high hypertension -- OUR STRESS AS BLACKS ON THIS PLANET IS **DAILY*** -- even on good days!
Sure we press on -- we find release valves where we can -- but not of of them healthy. And the HIDDEN MENTAL torture & torment we all experience EACH day, right now TODAY -- is very, very real. It's why we do the self-destructive things we do. We act WHACKED because of the **CURRENT DAY WHITE SUPREMACY POLICIES & INSTITUTIONS*** that silently guide and control...
... where we live,
... what we choose to put into our bodies as "food",
... who we date, what we think "pretty" is,
... what jobs we take,
... which leaders we choose to follow/listen to/give money to,
... what religious institutions we spend our precious spare time in,
... what businesses we give our grocery & clothing dollars, EVERY month (yet wonder why black business districts don't survive...
Personally, I believe he's glad to be gone from this - sometimes sweet - but always tenuous nightmare.
RIP Michael - you more than deserve it!
...to never judge a book by it's cover cause it's what's on the inside of a person's heart that really counts... that is what i will take from this moment