Introducing Michael Jackson
a new tour and maybe a new album. but what do you say to the kids?
2009-03-17
By Eric Easter

The elusive superstar Michael Jackson recently announced a round of ten concerts in London scheduled for this summer, with the tease of more in Asia and the United States if the first are successful. For longtime Michael Jackson fans this is amazing news, a chance to once again experience the magic if they can indeed get a ticket. 

But for Jackson’s newest fans, little kids like mine who are just now getting the Michael bug, this new development opens up a whole new round of questions to parents. At least in my household, the questions this time around– “Can we go? Can we see him? Can we talk to him?” are a lot easier to answer than the more troubling ones they’ve asked already.

Like a lot of parents, I have aggressively managed the flow of music to my children’s ears, much in the same way I have managed eating habits. It’s not a matter of being controlling, but I believe strongly that an open mind is the first critical step to intelligence, and the best way to develop an open mind is to build an appreciation for the tough things before you get to the simple stuff.  That’s meant cultivating in them an appreciation and taste for vegetables before they tasted fruit. And musically it has meant turning them on to many pleasures of classical, jazz, African and Latin rhythms and classic rock and R&B before allowing too much of the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana junk food they will be fed at their classmates’ birthday parties.

I’ve been introducing music to them in the order I thought made the most sense, baby-friendly classical to Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan, then on to Miles and Coltrane to samba and Jobim to reggae to fusion to doo wop, early Motown and  the Beatles and most recently the next logical toddler-friendly step, The Jackson Five.

Sharing the music of Michael Jackson was an easy decision to make. Whatever you might think of the man, take nothing away from his undeniable musical legacy and his incomparable talents as artist and performer. And let’s face it, there are few moments in pop music that are as purely and innocently exciting as the first few bars of “I Want You Back.”  For a child, the fact that such great music is being sung by a child opens up a whole new world of possibilities. They were hooked instantly. As a result, for the better part of six months, Michael Jackson has been the soundtrack to school drop-offs and pickups, with only the occasional break for my own sanity.

Until a month ago, all of this was a purely audio experience, all music, no pictures. Michael Jackson and his brothers looked however my kids were imagining them to look. For all I know, he may not have even been Black to them. Perhaps he was Asian, or Latino, maybe an alien. Then one day while surfing YouTube I stumbled onto footage from the Diana Ross special introducing The Jackson Five, complete with all the dance moves I remembered and could still mimic. The kids saw it, loved it, and demanded more.

That’s where things got more difficult, in several ways. The first problem was that the early visual record of Michael Jackson (the Michael I would be most comfortable showing) is not as significant as you might imagine. Most of YouTube’s offerings are redundant or of poor quality. To my surprise, there was also next to nothing of Jackson’s very early years available in the retail market.

For good or ill, the only serious visual record of Michael Jackson’s career are his music videos. That, of course, means a much older Michael Jackson and all the attendant questions that come with his visual transformation. Was I ready for that? Were my children?

This is no trivial matter. All children, regardless of background are vulnerable to issues of self-identity and self-pride. For children of color that problem is doubled.  Even at a time where a President named Obama is a given for kids at toddler age, they are still beginning to notice and question the differences between themselves and others. Interjecting someone who gets progressively lighter and dramatically different within the course of a compilation DVD seemed like an unnecessary addition to an already complicated situation.

On the other hand, we live in a diverse world where a child’s self-image and confidence will be tested repeatedly. In that regard, Michael Jackson is either an avoidable issue or a teachable moment. I opted for the latter.

It turns out I did not have to do much teaching at all.

I bought Jackson’s DVD, The Number Ones, a collection of Jackson’s top-selling music videos starting with “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” to the groundbreaking “Beat It” and “Thriller,” and on through appearances with Chris Tucker on his most recent Invincible album. The videos are at once a visual affirmation of Jackson’s supremacy as a talent and a deeply disturbing record of Jackson morphing from one face to the next.

Interestingly, the children started questioning at the point that we all of a certain age started questioning – at the video for the song “Bad.” Prior to that, the changes were relatively subtle and could be attributed to lighting or hair style. The first question was simple and blunt – “Which one is Michael Jackson?”

Not only did the questions start coming, but the dancing had stopped. By the video “Black or White” they had become simple spectators and were becoming visibly uncomfortable. By “You Are Not Alone” my daughter had begun to cry and ask if I could put Michael Jackson back on. She was in fact, less afraid of the ghouls and goblins in “Thriller” than the actual Michael.

By the end of the DVD, the children had developed a strong preference for, in their words “Brown Michael Jackson” as opposed to “White skin Michael Jackson.”

We didn’t soft pedal any of the questions that came our way. No mealy mouthing about acne or illness. We got straight to the point about some people not liking their looks and opting for surgery to make changes. We explained how it was done and we did not gloss over the possible consequences. But we did it without judgment or indictment, just the facts as we knew them. The children, to their credit, filled in the blanks themselves.
“But I like how he looked. Why did he want to change?”
“He should have loved himself.”

I don’t recall teaching that kind of thinking, outside of showing my children they are truly loved and part of a broader world. Their level-headedness regarding that is either the result of upbringing or the outgrowth of a new generation much more comfortable with diversity.

Either way, my children have stopped asking for that particular DVD, opting instead for the Live in Bucharest concert video, featuring a still recognizable Michael in a single snapshot in time, sans the troublesome transformations. In the car, it’s back to the Jackson Five, without pictures, and back to their own imaginations. Back to Michael being Asian, or Hispanic, or an alien.

Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. He writes about politics, culture and technology for EbonyJet.com.