To Spite Our Face

By Kleinheider Posted on June 26, 2009 at 1:37 pm

Excuse the non-political interlude but everyone else is talking about it so here we go.

Can someone explain to me when Michael Jackson joined respectable society again? I seem to have missed it.

Last time I checked I remember Jackson flagrantly flouting inviting children into his bed and barely beating a charge of child molestation by the skin of his teeth. This, of course, after he paid another alleged victim off ten years previous for dropping a similar charge.

Now, of course, I understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty. I do. But I thought that we all had come to the conclusion that Jacko was about as innocent of child molestation as O.J was of killing Nicole.

Was I wrong?

Because if O.J dies and I have to watch film of him playing football and people honoring and mourning his death, I’ll lose it. I’m gonna need a heads up on that one, so let me know.

Hell, wouldn’t you forgive a murderer sooner than a child molester, anyway?

At least with murder, the victim is dead. It’s over. Done. Being sexually victimized, especially at a young age, can be akin to a living death.

Honestly, sometimes (let me emphasize sometimes) I think child rapists would be more humane if they killed all their victims. At least they would save them the life of pain and prevent the start of a cycle of abuse that can extend generationally and exponentially.

A few folks in Knoxville cheered the man’s death? And?

Don’t get me wrong. Celebrating death of anyone, even a mass murderer or a child rapist, is not a healthy activity. But is it absolutely appalling? Honestly, given the givens and assuming the assumptions, I simply cannot muster up a whole bunch of outrage.

You can call it judgmental if you like. It most certainly is. After all, I don’t know for a fact that the man molested a child. I have seen no evidence, I have sat on no jury and I am not God.

But I thought, as a society, we had a healthy suspicion that Jackson had more than likely sexually misbehaved with children. Maybe I’m wrong. But if, gun to your head, you would bet that the man touched a child rather than didn’t, how can you honor him?

Yes, he had a horrible childhood. Yes, he was robbed by his father and the public of a proper upbringing. He was taught to sing about things he didn’t understand and become a sex symbol before he was prepared. He faced very debilitating and horrible obstacles on the road to maturation.

But, you know, so do a lot of people. And not all those people have the money to insulate themselves with lawyers and pay off victims. They don’t have the people running around explaining their weird predilection for children away and chalking it up to eccentricity.

They just go to prison — and likely don’t have the best time there. Again, I don’t know Jackson was guilty of anything. To assume that he is guilty is judgmental. But that’s not exactly something we as a society never do. We do it all the time.

What I don’t understand is when talent, money and fame trumped the very strong suspicion of child molestation.

What is the difference between O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson? Because I don’t see one. How can the charges of child molestation be the sidebar to a story about a gifted singer, dancer, marketer and producer?

Because I don’t see it as the sidebar, it’s the mothergrabbing lede.

Help me out here.

REACTION: Mark Mays says I’m grandstanding.

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Tags: child molestation, Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson