the one woman apollo!

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 98)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by jamilah

you are free from so much… or are you?

today is dia de los muertos- the day of the dead, and still, everything seems unreal right now. i suppose only the body leaves this earth, and one’s spirit or memory forever remains with those who continue to honor the spirit. i have been trying to write this to you for a month, and now, on this day, am i getting some space to do so. and i find it hard to do.

and because of everything going on, i have no qualms with saying you are not yet free from the earthly bondage. because so many of us are keeping you here, in how we choose to focus on the image, and not the teachings. because we still continue to have expectations of someone who was never able to meet them, even when you were here.

the thing which is hard for many to grasp is that you were never to be defined by anyone… so we have to hold on to something which makes us comfortable. it was not completely a case of ‘i don’t want to be defined as black or white’… that is a bit too simplistic. we are so conditioned to define/label ourselves that when someone exceeds, evades or transcends labels, we don’t know what to do with those people. so, even though, from what i saw (due to family, spiritual or other structural beliefs) you actually did adhere to some social traditions, there is only so far one can go with that, particularly if in the line of work you were in. and from my perspective, childhood trauma is a major factor in why you did the things you did in your life. as society doesn’t necessarily measure how one is affected by childhood trauma, those who have experienced it are ‘weird’ if they have not gotten over it after a particular age.

i mean, come on… you were a black man who loved the concept of disney world, and had a connection with peter pan… you owned a piece of land you called neverland and you let thousands of people a year in your home unconditionally, at the same time securing your home like a fortress. you hung out with kids and didn’t trust adults. you were a voracious reader and were knowledgeable in political issues, yet you were only somewhat public with that. you wore jackets with rhinestones and regal symbols, with pajama bottoms and run-down loafers. you were schooled by travelling around the world and at the same time scared to leave the house (for obvious reasons). you were like a big kid and at the same time, a parent. in a world which did observe skin colour, you were the most famous black celebrity who lost his pigment. in continents where racism/prejudice surely exists for folks of a darker complexion, those continents recognized you as a black man. for someone who was conscious about what he put in his body, you consumed KFC and a number of pharmaceutical drugs.

it’s IMPOSSIBLE to define who you were as a person. i don’t see the point in even attempting, which is why i choose to focus on the teachings.

and of course, because of the trial of conrad murray, you are still connected to this earth. never will there be a day in this lifetime where your name will be uttered fully in relation to the teachings. it will, as far as i am concerned, forever be uttered in connection with: (a. thriller. (b. your sexuality. (c. plastic surgery. (d. drug use. with that, it’s difficult to know where to go as a student, in a world which doesn’t see you as a teacher.

within the month, of course, much has happened, making it even more difficult to navigate life as a student. my mind stays on one thing regarding your transition- how you were essentially left to die. you see, to die is different than to transcend. on earth, to die is to not be able to exude light wherever you are. to transcend is to move on to another world, where that light still exists.

even though i absolutely love hearing your voice- that midwestern cadence which never disappeared, and tone which deepened and slowed down with age; i do my best to remain distracted, so i don’t think of your voice… that voice which remains shrouded in death. i do my best to just laugh as much as i can, to dance, to sing loudly, to write… because if i stop the voice returns. whenever the voice returns i yell silently, i make sounds out loud; i clench my fists, squeeze my eyes shut and hit myself upside the head. i just want it all to STOP. if it doesn’t stop i start to cry. i try to remain distracted, but because of this trial people continue to ask me about it. frankly, i have not been following the trial because it’s too painful to follow… to see the images, to hear the tones. to relive the day.

the image i saw of you- the one i said that gave me closure… the one i told you was filled with such beauty: that image of you post-transition, which i’m sure people were frightened or saddened by… where there was no hair, no makeup, no affectations… that image now, by hearing your voice has opened everything back up, returning to that day the world stopped, if only for a moment…. to all the confusions, arguments and theories surrounding what happened, when no one really knew for sure.

i can’t even say i know what has been going on. everything seems so wrong now.

i can’t remember the words verbatim if you asked me, but the tones, the cadence remain lodged there. and i hate it.

“We have to be phenomenal. When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Go. Go. I’ve never seen nothing like this. Go. It’s amazing. He’s the greatest entertainer in the world. I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world, Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”

listening to your voice actually reminded me of the time i went to visit my grandmother in a home many years ago, shortly before her transcendence. i wanted so badly to speak with her about our family history but whenever i went to ask her, she nodded off. the little she told me was so interesting. i knew there was so much to learn from her, but i didn’t want to interrupt her rest. i also remember at the same time i was reading a book about the correlation between human slavery and treatment of non-humans.

in my grandmother’s calmness and wisdom though, i heard only a shadow of your former self in your speech. it was as if you tried your best to hold on, but could not. there was a defiance in your last days as you worked to keep up appearances, but were dying outside, and even inside. no one could EVER know what you were actually experiencing.

hearing this audio, it’s as if everything we previously believed is washed away. again, i don’t even know what to believe right now. every time i hear your voice it’s a waking nightmare. it’s ringing louder and louder and i can’t get rid of it.

you were on ‘unknown’ drugs, it has been said. if you actually were, what are the reasons for conrad murray recording you on his phone? some have said it’s evidence in order to not criminalize himself, due to the argument that you were taking a lot of other drugs other than what was given to you by murray. if this is the case, why not do a basic check to see if everything is running well? instead of recording you, could he have made sure you did not choke on saliva, or check your pupils to see if you were okay?

some people say to me that because you desired to take all of these drugs, there is no need to be hard on murray. whether or not you were dependent is not the point for me. if indeed you WERE dependent, then it is supposedly murray’s job to ween you off the drugs. if indeed you were taking drugs behind his back, murray should quit, as his relationship with you as a doctor no longer granted him the opportunity to protect you as a patient; since if you WERE taking drugs behind his back, the patient then had control over the doctor. clearly you did not need him. if indeed he was aware you were on other substances before he distributed propofol or anything else to you he should have quit his role as your doctor, in order to echo the values on the first credo of the hippocratic oath of doing no harm.

knowing the little i know about this case, and about the events surrounding your transition, my views have not changed: SOMEONE WAS THERE TO MAKE SURE YOU DID NOT MAKE IT. i thought i was so sure who it was at some point. now i am not so sure.

what you said on this recording made me very sad for two very distinct reasons: one is, the fact that you even said what you had to say is a shame. it was as if you had very little faith in yourself and your talents. you had to openly assure YOURSELF that you were the greatest entertainer in the world. i mean, you sold out 50 SHOWS IN A NUMBER OF HOURS! the way this economy is, i don’t think people would shell out some of their money for nothing. i think people had confidence you would put on the best show you could. i don’t think there would have been a need to outdo yourself, or compete or compare yourself with anyone else. as much of a perfectionist you were, people would not expect anything less.

again, this is coming from me as a student, so i give credit to the teachings more than your performance. the performance to me, is simply a method of bringing the teachings to the world. i acknowledge you having the same sentiments in interviews you gave, but the recording was like an off the record comment you most likely would never want revealed to the public- the idea that you were scared, or had little confidence in your abilities. this ‘drug induced truth’ is far from surprising; it’s just sad.

i acknowledge i could be ‘reading too much into things’ regarding what you said… i’ve also never been in your position of influence- nor would i ever want to be. though again, in studying you, my thoughts on it don’t seem to be too far off.

the other reason why the recording made me sad is that around the time i heard it, was the time troy davis was murdered (by the hands of the u.s. government (via the supreme court) and the georgia parole board). despite evidence that could have proved his innocence he was on death row for 19 years and murdered on 21st of september- the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE. he was pronounced ‘dead’ at 11:08 pm. the man who witnesses stated most likely was the killer of police officer mark macPhail (sylvester ‘redd’ coles) is most likely still walking around. i don’t think i’ve ever been that invested in watching televised footage as i have been on that day, to hear this news. i stayed around at work hours after i was finished, to watch it. it was absolutely devastating. there were people around me who comforted me, and showed signs of sadness and anger as well.

days after the murder, i went to work, not able to get my mind off this event. not surprisingly, most people were not aware of the event. i ended up crying at work, getting hugs and comfort from strangers.

even though both your situations are vastly different, i know you know what it feels like to be accused of something and dragged through the system, despite evidence contrary to the accusation.

the dreams you had of creating a hospital with the money you’d make from your tour, and the hopes you’d always had of world peace were not unlike the hopes troy davis had. somehow though, he seemed to be more at peace with himself than you. he said before he left this earth:

“the struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. this struggle is for all the troy davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. i’m in good spirits and i’m prayerful and at peace.”

contrast his words with your own:

“don’t have enough hope. no more hope. that’s the next generation…” i cannot tell if you’ve given up on yourself, or the existing generations. it was as if you were saying this was the last of what you can offer the world was this series of shows. it was as if you were looking for one last glimmer of trust in anyone. i’m receiving a lot of mixed signals, but one of them is not optimism.

and to know that you never came to terms with any sort of true healing with your trauma… that hurts. it hurts to hear you say you still hurt (especially in your slurred speech) because you “didn’t have a childhood. i had no childhood….” despite openly saying in, for instance, your oxford speech, that you were working towards healing. you said that sick “children are depressed” because they don’t have game rooms or theatres to take their minds off of their sicknesses, so you wanted to provide that for them.

people don’t understand how difficult it is to heal from trauma. it is an extremely long process, where it’s possible to go through relapses. we’ve already discussed this. like, right now i am doing okay, but what if next week, the ‘visitor’ comes back?

what you said makes me think of these words, from an unreleased (in the states, anyway) song you did, ‘shout’:

Ignorance of people purchasing diamonds and necklaces,
And barely able to keep the payments up on their lessons,
And enrolled in a class and don’t know who the professor is,
How low people go for the dough and make a mess of things,
Kids are murdering other kids for the fun of it,
Instead of using their mind or their fist, they put a gun in it
Wanna be a part of a clique, don’t know who’s running it,
Tragedy on top of tragedy you know it’s killing me.
So many people in agony, this shouldn’t have to be,
Too busy focusing on ourselves and not His Majesty,
There has to be some type of change for this day and age,
We gotta rearrange and flip the page,
Living encaged like animals and cannibals,
Eating each other alive just to survive the nine to five,
Every single day is trouble while we struggle and strive
Peace of mind’s so hard to find.

The clock is ticking, the end is coming, there’ll be no warning,
But we live to see the dawn.
We’re disconnected from love, we’re disrespecting each other
Whatever happened to protecting each other
Poisoned your body and your soul for a minute of pleasure,
But the damage that you’ve done is gonna last forever.
Babies being born in the world already drug addicted and afflicted,
Family values are contradicted.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the pressure is building and I’ve had enough.

and of course, there is ANOTHER glimmer of the teachings, even in moments of despair:

“i’m gonna do that for them. that will be remembered more than my performances. my performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. “

kenny ortega actually stated something similar under oath during this conrad murray trial:

“(you)… wanted to do it because (you) felt now more than ever, that (your) music applied to our world situation. ‘earth song’, ‘will you be there’, ‘heal the world’ and other songs and (you) wanted to use the stage as a platform to remind people the importance of us doing whatever we can to take care of this planet and each other.”

unfortunately, i don’t think most people WILL remember or acknowledge you outside of performance. with all the people who consistently ask me to ‘moonwalk’; whose faces display confusion when i tell them i am a student; to those who say they love you and are not even aware of the majority of your art or works… and those who say you CANNOT be a teacher simply by the nature of you being a performer- it’ll be a VERY long time before the world recognizes what you intended and hoped to do with your talents and gifts.

it’s unfortunate that so many moments of clarity you had were OFF the record, and were in moments of despair, sadness or under the influence of something like propofol.

i’m gonna be honest with you, michael. one of the main teachings is to question your teacher, right? okay. sometimes… well, MORE than sometimes, it upsets me that you tried so hard to please so many people. you had these brilliant moments like the second half of the ‘black or white’ film, or much of the HIStory album, and then you made some sort of public apology for the art you made. those who loved and appreciated what you did understood. there was no need to apologize for anything. that got you into some trouble in some ways.

you were so fearless in some ways (particularly in NOT defining yourself and answering to people), and fearful in many more ways throughout your life (because you did answer to people WHEN YOU DID NOT HAVE TO). it’s so sad that in the few years and moments before you left this earth, you saw the fear melting away- a sort of coming to terms with your impermanence, which is a symptom of losing that fear. perhaps it’s because it became clear what the industry has done and was continuing to do to you, that you felt you had nothing to lose. perhaps it was fatherhood. perhaps it was the culmination of the 1993 and 2005 trials. i don’t know what was going on in your mind. but the last few years of your life were certainly interesting.

i will always ask you this question: you spent so much time trying to ‘heal the world’ and take care of all the children in the world, did you spend time actually taking care of yourself? yes, as much as i respect you as a man and learn so much from you i have no problem with telling you that you upset me so much of the time. looking at you though, i do end up looking at myself and knowing i have to work harder to deal with whatever traumas i have experienced. again, it’s VERY hard. and i know i am extremely hard to deal with at times. and i know YOU were difficult to deal with. anyone who denies that about you has never had to intimately deal with anyone who has not healed from childhood trauma. it’s pretty easy to tell just from watching your body language and manner of speaking that you were.

i also have no problem in saying that because you hadn’t truly dealt with your trauma, people were able to take advantage of you throughout your whole life. seeing your body language with quincy jones during the period where you were seemingly most influential in the industry, it was as if he were a geppetto to your pinocchio (to use an example you may be familiar with). i can’t help but continue to think about you winning all those awards in 1984, and jones embracing you… he picked you up as if you weighed nothing. also seeing him sit next to you as you were interviewed- it was as if you spoke on command. just like when you were at motown.

the period where your speech publicly seemed to be freest was right after you left motown for epic, and after the invincble album. the period where you appeared most free musically was during the dangerous to HIStory periods. after that, it was as if you used your art to warn people about what was happening to you, and the world. your art became sort of apocalyptic and dark. the innocuousness of ‘beat it’ was gone. even the paternity suit tale of ‘billie jean’ seemed innocuous in comparison to, say, ‘superfly sister’. it was as if you were prepping yourself to say, ‘i’m not really going to compete with the type of entertainment folks really want today. i am only going to go there so much.’

the whole concept of ‘this is it’ made sense in that way. however, i see it as unnecessary and excessive. AGAIN, i am speaking as a student who is perfectly fine seeing you give a speech on how you view the world. i respect you more as a political voice (and a man outside of song and dance) than as an entertainer. you really did not need to present a spectacle to show how important you were, particularly as a social and political figure.

to me, the fact that people in the fan base focus on media describing your perceived ‘strangeness’ or calling you ‘jacko’ is distracting; and continues to give that very media power. it’s more important to pro-actively strive towards the teachings, and not focus on words any media organization will conjure up. you will always be considered strange, by virtue of not being able to be defined by any one standard. a focus on the words is a continuation of the spectacle: one i cannot utilize energy on focusing on.

“i’m gonna do that for them. that will be remembered more than my performances. my performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. “

my hope is that those who truly love and respect you will acknowledge this. if in fact, ‘THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT US’, why would we not work to create NEW media which speak to true healing, as opposed to simply complaining about how media don’t care about us?

with that, i return to ‘this is it’… i already boycotted watching the film (or dealing with anything regarding your name posthumously) due to the SONY association- i STILL consider it disrespectful for those running the estate to sign a large $250 million deal with the company, after the antagonistic relationship you ended up having with them. after akio morita (head of sony in japan and major advocate for you) transcended, it was as if those who worked for the company dove in like hawks and utilized every chance they got to squeeze whatever you had dry. anyone who researched the history of SONY is also aware of the history john branca (current co-executor of the estate) has with the company. also, in actually READING THE AEG CONTRACT, i knew something was off. i SERIOUSLY do not think you read the thing, because if you did and signed it, then i’d SERIOUSLY question that.

and BECAUSE the contract was incredibly off, there was an initial CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT in order to safeguard against anyone questioning the validity of the contract. i don’t concur with everything in this piece; however, there’s some stuff on the legal terminology on this contract:

http://vindicatemj.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/michael-jacksons-agreement-with-aeg-a-contract-or-a-letter-of-intent/

i’m not an expert on contracts, but i read the AEG contract before i was even aware of the above piece, and i could see inconsistencies immediately. i immediately thought it was thome who read it, or was aware of the details, and had you sign it. this article actually states what my hunch was when i read the contract.

“Since a hypothesis that AEG didn’t know how to make contracts doesn’t hold water, the only other explanation why this agreement was masquerading as a letter is that it was an intentional and fraudulent method to force Michael Jackson to put his signature under it.

Someone wanted very much to pass this document for a piece of preliminary correspondence and make the Artist think he was signing a letter of intent only – the terms of which are far from being final and can be renegotiated at any time – while in reality the follow-up text included many details which made the obligations taken by the signor of the document legally binding on him.”

from reading the piece and comparing it to reading the contract- i STILL maintain that you got cheated and were forced into doing these shows. IT WAS ALL A SHOW, and i wonder if you were even aware of it.

like… how many of us get fooled into believing in this facade of a two-party system? or the myth of this nation actually being a democracy? the situations are different but the message is the same: THEY. DON’T. CARE. ABOUT. US. you said it, you lived it. we are ALL living it.

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 97)

Posted on July 31, 2011 by jamilah

all of these fluctuations are entirely frustrating. to never know when the depression is going to come on; and to not know when you’re going to fall to the bottom. and when you fall to the bottom, it’s as if you’re never going to get back up. you’re relatively happy, and the next moment anxiety has taken over, where it’s impossible to deal with day to day interactions.

i hate this feeling so much, the unpredictability of it all. people have suggested meditation, therapy… i have done these things, and they may calm things slightly, but the anxiety is so high it cannot be contained. the part of the brain which gives one the ability to cope just shuts off. this can happen from a couple of days, to weeks, to months.

i saw this thing the other day- it read something to the effect of ‘are you seeing a therapist, yet are still depressed?’ i read that and thought to myself, someone understands… i’ve seen various therapists and counselors over the years, and the same pattern happens. the only way i can describe all of this is that you become two different people… i don’t exactly recognize myself when i am this other person, despite this person existing in my life for years. she is like an unwanted visitor.

when she shows up, there’s not much i feel… everything is hollow. when the ‘visitor’ shows up, the person who usually resides gets evicted, and is essentially a ghost. so i have to do things to myself in order to know someone else is there.

And who gave you the right to scare my family?
And who gave you the right to scare my baby? she needs me
And who gave you the right to shake my family tree?
And who gave you the right to take intrusion, to see me?

and so, i hate this period, where you have to start your life all over again. you take second-by-second steps to make sure you never return to the bottom, knowing very well there will be a time you will. you just don’t know when, since anything can trigger it. you have to again, pick yourself up in a world which does not understand. you have to move in a world and pretend nothing has happened. this can be, and has been another trigger which has sent me to relapses. i’m just not good at pretending.

i saw a film yesterday, about a man who wanted to cut off his arms… he spent most of his life feeling this way, in secret. when he became upset he went in the closet and whispered to himself, “there’s nothing there”… the closet (of course) lends to a double meaning: not only was the closet a place of safety and familiarity to him in, again, a world which does not understand, but the closet also represents the secret he’s had to keep, in order to not be ridiculed by even those he loves.

he met with rejection from people, who said he was ‘crazy’ and ‘weird’. his mother was in the picture, but we are never aware if she is aware of how he felt. he spoke of the desire to have no arms since the age of 8; and those feelings would go away every once in a while, but he would enter relapses. everything he said sounded very familiar to me… right on down to the body language.

his distrust of most people and his fear and anger at being touched a certain way were familiar to me. to live with this fear for so much of your life… for people close to you to be familiar with some semblance of it (like his wife was in terms of him going in the closet to hide), but never know the extent of your fears.

the film alluded to the main ‘protagonist’ as having body integrity identity disorder (or BIID), but this was not the main focus. the film was more about acceptance, and love. to be loved and accepted by someone without the fear of, as he said, “say(ing) the wrong thing”… not losing anything if he said “too much”. it was important for him to know he could “lose those things (job, house, car, marriage, etc.) and be okay.”

again, i recognize this fear of revealing “too much”. of never knowing if people are going to truly understand and accept you, even though they say they do.

i’m not familiar with BIID at all, and wondered if it was the same or similar to body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). it is not. while BIID is solely about a desire to amputate (or lose use of) one or more limbs to feel ‘whole’:

Individuals with such desires to have a limb amputated, unlike those with BDD, are not concerned about the limb’s appearance. They do not perceive their limb as inherently defective, and they are not ashamed or selfconscious of it. Rather, the distress appears to center on the feeling that the limb is not congruent with their sense of self.

http://biid-info.org/BODY_DYSMORPHIC_DISORDER:_SOME_KEY_ISSUES_FOR_DSM-V

The term Amputee Identity Disorder, suggested by Furth and Smith was a precursor of the term Body Integrity Identity Disorder, although the later is more accurate and representative of the condition.

Most people who have BIID report memories related to the condition going back to early childhood, often before the age of 5.

It should be noted that people who have BIID do not chose which impairment they desire. They don’t wake up one morning and think “Oh, I want to be a LAK today.”, or “I think it would be dandy to be an L1 paraplegic”. For most people, the body image far precedes the understanding of what an amputee, or a paraplegic, etc is.

http://biid-info.org/Body_Integrity_Identity_Disorder

…someone with body dysmorphic disorder is preoccupied with a body part, and wants to change it. the preoccupation with that body part may lead to depression and, alas, suicidal thoughts and attempts. here are some of the symptoms (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/body-dysmorphic-disorder/DS00559/DSECTION=symptoms):

Preoccupation with your physical appearance
Strong belief that you have an abnormality or defect in your appearance that makes you ugly
Frequent examination of yourself in the mirror or, conversely, avoidance of mirrors altogether
Belief that others take special notice of your appearance in a negative way
The need to seek reassurance about your appearance from others
Frequent cosmetic procedures with little satisfaction
Excessive grooming, such as hair plucking
Extreme self-consciousness
Refusal to appear in pictures
Skin picking
Comparison of your appearance with that of others
Avoidance of social situations
The need to wear excessive makeup or clothing to camouflage perceived flaws

i do not know for sure if BDD is something i have, but i do know that if i had access to a bunch of money years ago, i would have done a rhinoplasty procedure… i used to hear so much about my features when i was a kid, that i ended up hating my nose, and other things. i also wished i had a longer neck. for years i used to obsess over photos of, say, women in the ndebele tribe in south africa. the women are just so beautiful.

but most of all, i hated (and still do) the parts which ‘identify’ me as ‘female’. i have no problem with being a woman, i just want all the parts to go away. this is really difficult to explain. you see, i also obsessed for years over that initial post-supremes album cover of diana ross, where she looks like a starving child, or a little boy. i still obsess over it to this day.

this is where it gets tricky, or why i don’t like to talk about it… because i know people would not understand, or call me ‘sick’… why i have been ‘in the closet’ about all of this. i don’t think how she looks there is in any way attractive. i don’t intend to starve myself (because i know i would never get to the point that photo is at, even if i tried). but ever since i encountered puberty, i wanted everything to disappear. i don’t mind people hugging me, but there is a certain way some people do it, and it makes me move away. i hate when people want to hold on to my waist. or when people comment on how i look. i always wanted to be flat-chested and skinny, with no evidence of ‘womanhood’, so no one would look at me. if i was, i could just disappear. that’s how i always felt, and still feel. granted, there are people who fit that description who are happily married, have jobs they like, are healthy, have friends who support them… still, more than anything, i harbor a (not so secret anymore) desire to look like the woman on that record cover.

i do not know if you’ve ever been technically diagnosed with BDD. what i do know is that you’ve worked to maintain a certain image of yourself, in terms of age and character…. with the heavy pancake stage make-up, ala vaudeville and silent film performers… the need to change how your features look, as you’ve said, to please your father… it is sad that those who are ‘supposed’ to love us find ways, in our minds, to prove the opposite.

with that, even if you haven’t been diagnosed, it’s easy to see how you could be. people always want to accuse someone of hating oneself in terms of ‘race’, before looking at how it comes down to how one feels about oneself. sometimes, in the body you were given, it feels like a shell. this is not always about vanity. those who criticize may not acknowledge how obsessed they are with, as i spoke about before, the ‘externals’… those who criticize do not necessarily look at the effects of familial and societal abuse.

it’s not easy to live in a world, where you feel like a ghost some of the time. when you never know when the ‘visitors’ are going to come back. you just say ‘it will be better tomorrow’ and just hope that is actually the case. you sit and take baby steps. you hope that, if the ‘visitor’ does come back you are in a place where people understand, and that they help you to walk through it.

right now i’m in a very sensitive place, where she left to go impatiently sit in a corner of my body. she’s rocking back and forth, waiting for a trigger to happen. sometimes you can tell when she’s completely gone… right now she is not.

one thing i like to do is sing, in order to know things are still there…

i practised more singing before i went to bed the other day, thinking maybe this would help get rid of the visitor… when i sing, i acknowledge that much of what i experience is fear. i have a paralyzing fear of singing in front of people. my voice freezes up. that time we did the show for you and i sang, i was not there. there was someone (or something) else which took over, in order for me to do what i did. in my everyday interactions though, when someone asks me to sing for them, i cannot do it. i need to know there is no one else around in order for me to use my ‘true’ voice.

that said, i haven’t yet found my ‘true’ voice, but i still like to practise, to work on my breathing. working on it serves as a sort of catharsis.

if only the visitor will come down and sing with me, that would be the best thing. whenever you’ve had ‘visitors’, did you sing to them? what was your way of communicating with them?

i’m still trying to navigate this whole thing.

love, jamilah

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michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 96)

Posted on July 28, 2011 by jamilah

michael, i can’t shake the feeling that you’re upset with me somehow. it goes to two things: the first being your insistence that you have never had a desire to end your life (that is, of course, unless you were told there were no more children in the world). thew other being that there actually HAVE been some who either committed suicide or attempted it, upon hearing of your transcendence. as you know, i was heartbroken by it all, but i never once thought of ending my life because of it.

it’s hard to live in a world which continues to stigmatize suicide; where it’s thought of as selfish or done just to get attention. rarely is there an actual discussion of how unbearable life can be for some… the same aspects of life others can just deal with. i don’t know anyone (and i’m including myself here) who takes the consideration of ending a life lightly. it can be something thought about for months or years- and no one else would even know.

no one else would even know how lonely it is in a world you can’t even make sense of.

How does it feel
When you’re alone
And you’re cold inside

when no one even knows, and just assumes you’re ‘having a bad day’. so they laugh it off and say, ‘oh, it’ll get better.’ when you want to be able to talk to someone, but you work and live in a place which is not necessarily conducive to asking for any sort of help of this nature… where people drift away at the mere inkling of despair.

Mask of life, feelin’ insane
Swift and sudden fall from grace
Sunny days seem far away

where every day is a struggle to even leave the house… where every day is a struggle to even say ‘hello’. where you DO seem insame, and wrong for feeling this way, when everyone else is smiling and laughing. where you think you will never see the sun. people talk all around you and yet you are absolutely alone. you have not isolated yourself from the world, and yet, you are alone.

Happy days will drown the pain

when will those happy days return… when you can get out of bed and look forward to doing whatever it is you always love to do. when you can laugh with the rest of the world around you.

when you’re down it’s so hard to get back up; trying hard but running into doors that shut

i keep trying, i really do. i never want to be one of those people who ruin everyone’s mood, where they never want to be around me. i want to try so hard, and then the triggers happen. and it’s like everything i worked so hard for just disappears within seconds. to watch it all melt away is devastating. it becomes an unpredictable cycle. you learn to cope most of the time. but then you are triggered by past events, and you learn to disassociate.

you learn by either shutting down, or taking everything out on yourself.

i have indeed done both, but right now i am dealing with the latter. this is why i can’t stop thinking you’re upset with me.

How does it feel
When you’re alone
And you’re cold inside

i don’t know if you’ve ever experienced taking a knife to yourself and cutting. but it’s a feeling that gives you so much warmth and calm, when you feel so cold, in your spirit and in your body. to look at your wrists, your arms, and know that you actually feel something… that you’re not that alone… the scars show the life within you.

i never knew how to manifest my feelings or sensations in relation to what i was doing… “While self-injury may bring a momentary sense of calm and a release of tension, it’s usually followed by guilt and shame and the return of painful emotions.” (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/self-injury/DS00775 )

ultimately, i feel conflicted about what i do, primarily because i am reacting to something that just will not go away. “self-injury has some addictive qualities, making it hard to overcome on your own.” (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/self-injury/DS00775/DSECTION=symptoms) i have only told a handful of people about this. i suppose now, in this very public conversation with you, others will know.

indeed, it is very addicting. whenever i do it, all of the anxiety i had melts away. it literally melts away. i can feel all of the energy sliding to the floor, and i breathe a sigh of relief. the endorphins it releases- in even just thinking about doing it again- is addicting. for just those moments, even though you are deliberately causing pain to yourself… you have no pain.

this is what’s commonly known as self-harm (or self-injury), in terms of the mayo clinic page:

Severe scratching
Cutting
Burning
Poisoning
Carving words or symbols on the skin
Breaking bones
Hitting or punching
Piercing the skin with sharp objects
Head banging
Biting
Pulling out hair
Interfering with wound healing

i have done about five of these things at different points in my life; but predominately have stuck with the second and third act. i do it where people don’t even know. this is what i do whenever i’m facing an excessive amount of anxiety, or have the (suicidal) relapses. everyone tells me not to kill myself, but i’m not sure of where to go. people won’t talk to me. so i just do this in order to deal with my thoughts.

sometimes i wonder if any of this has to do with a chemical imbalance. i found this (http://www.brainphysics.com/self-injury.php ) along my journey to find some semblance of an explanation: “People who self-injure are often found to have higher rates of anxiety than those who do not and research has reported that most people who self-injure have a diagnosable anxiety disorder. Research has also reported that people who self-injure have reported higher rates of physical and emotional abuse in childhood than those who do not. ”

it makes me wonder if others in my family have dealt with self-injury for years, without informing anyone about it. this is something i had been doing for years, and now i’ve made the decision to be public about it, in this conversation with you.

so why do i think you are upset with me then?

some would argue that, because of your experiences with rhinoplasty (as well as opting for a cleft in the chin) you are performing some type of self-mutilation. even though i think those operations were directly related to whatever trauma you experienced as a child; there is a fine line between altering you appearance (which is a very public announcement of your decisions) and say, cutting or bruising yourself (which in many instances is very private). altering the looks you came on this earth with are not necessarily connected with depression.

but have you ever starved yourself? have you ever used food as a means of control? i have a bit of trouble thinking there was some way you didn’t try to ‘control’ the pain you’ve felt due to trauma. sometimes i watch you when you speak, and i could tell you have not pro-actively dealt with what you went through; and such a figure as public as you, knew you couldn’t reveal every detail. but you spoke about what you could, and STILL the world did not understand. people defended you frankly because, well, you’re YOU. you are looked at as the ‘icon’ and not the man. but imagine if you were some man on the street talking to himself. you would most likely be a statistic- or even worse beaten by the police until you were no more on this earth, for ‘resisting arrest’. even people who say they love you, could never know the extent to what pain you (or i) feel.

studying your behavior and casing over the years; you initially sort of carry a look of innocence (even in the face of trauma); after a certain point everything about you hardened… there was a certain point where you looked older, yet at the same time looked younger than your years. this is very hard for me to even explain in writing. you looked hardened by experience, yet ageless. this could not be proven more than when, on the day of your transcendence, people were in shock of your actual age.

there is a type of mask people who have dealt with trauma have to wear in order to even deal day to day. as a result of the trauma you become more than one person. you become the person everyone sees you as (the ‘performative’ state); you become the person who is incapable of dealing with ‘the outside world’; and you become the person who shuts down from the world. these may give someone an ‘anti-social’ appearance. there is the assumption that this person is mean. most likely what is happening is that someone is dealing with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder. according to judith herman, these are the instances on most likely suffers (http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/cptsd.html):

A history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months to years). Examples include hostages, prisoners of war, concentration-camp survivors, and survivors of some religious cults. Examples also include those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation.

it isn’t hard to make the connection between this situation, and many people who experience high levels of fame. we see increasing rates of people encountering fame at rates quicker than people used to… as well as these same people acting out ‘alter egos’.

i already mentioned to you about the state of music these days becoming detached… it would make sense if indeed, these artists were actually programmed. i didn’t see you necessarily having a literal alter ego (aka beyonce). but i DID indeed see the dissociative behavior within you… the idea that you were ‘peter pan in (your) heart’ did not come out of nowhere.

when you spoke of your trauma, people did not connect everything else around it, and just assumed you were crazy or immature. what happened to you as a child, and even when you were at the height of fame during the ‘thriller’ period were indeed different degrees of trauma-based programming. people thought it was cute that you wore the sunglasses; however, if one were to look into those enormous, deep brown eyes of yours they’d see something very sad.

even berry gordy acknowledged this programming in some way, when he stated that you and your brothers being signed to motown engendered “the last big stars to come rolling off (his) assembly line.” was the abuse you and your brothers by your father even an issue with gordy, if that trauma was to make him a lot of money? it is interesting, certainly, that motown was home to individuals such as marvin gaye, tammi terrell and florence ballard, who endured traumas such as rape and (emotional/physical) abuse. due to it’s obvious ‘nature’ disney is consistently looked at in relation to trauma-based programming (http://nesara.insights2.org/Monarch.html) yet the varying degrees in which other ‘corporations’ (IF you know what i mean) contribute to that programming are not as emphasized.

people look at ‘celebrity’ or the paparazzi as being the cause of these disassociative behaviors, without examining the role government plays in aligning itself with media. returning to disney for a moment; people look to the 1943 production ‘education for death’ as proof of walt disney’s anti-nazism. looking a the history behind the film though, i still qustion his intent. disney was under government contract to produce this and other films, since he was running out of money, and a significant portion of his staff went on strike, as they were not credited in the films. gerard c. raiti explains the politics behind such films as ‘education for death’ (in comparison to modern media) in the essay ‘the disappearance of disney animated propaganda: a globalization perspective’.

describing the main character’s journey from being ‘free’ to being brainwashed/programmed, the narrator of ‘education for death’ states:

Manhood finds him still heiling and marching. But the grim years of regimentation have done their work; now he’s a good Nazi. He sees nothing but what the party wants him to see, he says nothing but what the party wants him to say, and he does no more than the party wants him to do. And so, he marches on with his millions of comrades, trampling on the rights of others… for now his education is complete. His education… for death.

this is not just nazism you can refer this to… this “regimentation” is done in popular cultural in general. when we choose not to unplug ourselves from the ‘hidden in plain sight’ programming, we are dying a spiritual, cellular and psychic death. we no longer engage each other, nor do we question the world around us. we just become ‘good consumers’.

in marc eliot’s book, ‘walt disney: hollywood’s dark prince’ it is explained, amongst many things, that:

‘The trouble began early in the year, in January, when Disney sent producer Jerry Sims to Washington to finalize plans with the Bureau for a two-minute ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ newsreel of a group of children touring the Bureau’s D.C. headquarters. Sims submitted a preliminary script to an FBI agent identified as Kemper, who dutifully passed it on to Lou Nichols, the Bureau’s head of public relations. Nichols reviewed the material and initially approved the venture. However a week later he apparently changed his mind when he returned Kemper’s report with a message scrawled in ink across the bottom that read “i don’t think we should.” Kemper then called Sims and told him the bureau would be unable to assist on the project.

“When Walt received news of the FBI’s turndown he phoned Hoover to find out why. Hoover told Disney he would personally look into the situation and ask his close friend Clyde Tolson, the Bureau’s assistant director and second to command, to investigate the matter. Tolson ordered a complete review of what had now become in FBI headquarters as the ‘Disney Situation,’ after which he reaffirmed Nichols’s decision not to cooperate with Disney.”

you can check for more quotes from the book here: http://ce399fascism.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/walt-disney-nazi-sympathizer-spitefire-ftr-301/

walt disney and berry gordy actually have a lot in common regarding the companies they created… they both considered everyone involved to be part of the illusion of ‘family’, and programmed everyone as such. those who protested were ostracized. and also like disney, because it was a ‘family’, you were not to complain about the low amount of pay, or royalties.

as the great elder and ancestor gil scott-heron said, we deal in too many externals. that said, never can we deal in proper methods for true freedom from the ‘cult of personality’ or, from the programming of trauma. due to our refusal to remove ourself from our conditioning and just complaining, we have encountered a whole generation only familiar with ‘american idol’ and autotune. never will they have known anything else, unless there are elders in their lives to help them.

we deal in too many externals… where people only look to ‘thriller’ for inspiration in terms of reaching success, but never find inspiration in the teachings beneath the linn drum and guitar lick.

Lift Your Head Up High
And Scream Out To The World
I Know I Am Someone
And Let The Truth Unfurl

and we can never become someone… unless we refuse to be programmed to believe that others are supposed to validate our existence. we have been programmed to believe that we can become the ‘next… idol’.

No One Can Hurt You Now
Because You Know What’s True
Yes, I Believe In Me
So You Believe In You

this teaching (yes, teaching, one of the few teachings on the ‘thriller’ album) mirror’s one of martin luther king’s greatest statements:

“Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody… nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation can do this for us; no Kennesonian or Johnsonian civil rights bill can do this for us. If the negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood HIS OWN emancipation proclamation.”

and of course he was assassinated, since he publicly questioned the programming he was a part of, amidst the admonishments of his community and peers. and like martin luther king jr., some people thought you were shaking things up a bit too much when you decided to openly speak on the institution (of racism, of ‘money’, of trauma).

for black people like gordy to rarely, if ever publicly acknowledge the traumas we continue to face, due to the ravishes of enslavement stay with us to this day. for gordy to encourage an environment which worked to promote assimilation served its purpose in the larger scheme of things (unfortunately); but gordy selling it off to a white-owned company in the 1980s reads miles about how much he was about developing people into a market, as opposed to recognizing those people as having distinct personalities- and pain.

and of course, like disney, cultural critics observe how gordy transformed a people as being part of the ‘american cultural fabric’. but at what price did people have to pay to get there?

motown’s decision to create an ‘assembly line’ structure (evoking racist henry ford) contributed to our struggle as black people to never engage our communities regarding trauma. ‘black people don’t commit suicide; that’s just not how we do. suicide is a white people’s thing’. even if, statistically, ‘we’ never engaged in suicidal behavior prior to being shipped to this country, we still must acknowledge the trauma that continues to occur possibly because of it.

when you decided to go public with your trauma, a whole bunch of black people claimed it was you being influenced by ‘white people’. never will some people acknowledge that abuse is very real, and very painful. never will some people acknowledge that emotional abuse in some ways is more scarring than the physical. you can hide the physical, but how you feel about yourself due to certain words being ingrained becomes apparent.

‘well, black people, that’s what we do. we beat our kids.’ we can never acknowledge the possibility that this attitude was ingrained in us due to colonialization. ‘that’s what we do’? was there some research done, stating this was the case? does anybody just by way of nature, beat their kids until they are bruised, or tell their kids they are ugly or stupid? THIS is supposed to build character in a world that already doesn’t see value in us?

when i see you, i see the scarring. i see the effects of that trauma, because it’s more common than we choose to acknowledge. in many ways, you were the public face of the ‘hidden in plain sight’ effects of it. because you had access to a lot of money, you channeled the trauma in different ways; ways which appeared to be a ‘detachment from reality’ to many. ultimately, it WAS a form of detachment, but not in the way others come to think of it. even though you were very clear in your reasoning for, say, creating neverland; people still do not make the connections between your actions and the trauma you faced. and the fact that you never pro-actively dealt with/healed from them is a crucial part of the narrative.

and STILL, why do i think you are upset with me? because i find it hard to pro-actively deal as well. it’s not as if i’m doing a good job at healing myself, before i can go and ‘heal the world’.

don’t even feel like seeing kids because of how i am. i don’t want them to see me. they could not even make me smile. lately i’ve been even feeling that in this state, if i ever were to give birth to a child i’d suffer postpartum depression so bad… i don’t even want to consider the possibilities.

when i am here writing/talking to you, i feel a sense of comfort. because it’s just me, and you, and my thoughts. but at this point i have an intense fear of going out into the world, going to work… and having to explain why i’m feeling what i am feeling. people laugh, they do not want to talk. so i’m frozen. so i deal with it by putting hot matches to my wrist, in order to feel warmth. in order to see the cells on my skin move and change. when i don’t feel that, i feel cold, ‘alone and cold inside…’ i look at my arm and see the results of that, and it makes me feel like i’ve accomplished something. because at this point, i don’t feel very motivated to do much else. i feel like whatever else i’m going to do, everything else i had planned, is just going to fail. and i don’t know why.

and because you are somewhere else i don’t know if you even hear me. i’m not able to communicate with you in a way where you could respond in kind, so all i have is these words. all i have is this format to tell you i apologize for letting you down if i have, and that i love you.

love, jamilah

Posted in africa, children, freedom, life, michael jackson, parenting, politics, transcendence | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 95)

Posted on July 26, 2011 by jamilah

two years and one month to the day of your transcendence just passed… this month went by faster than the last. that could be all there is to this conversation with you michael, but i am using this very public conversation with you to try to make sense of my own feelings, my own grief. you see, before i came here to speak with you i was very close to phoning a suicide hotline- instead, i phoned a friend.

i came to a crossroads; on my way home from work i seriously prepared in my mind how i was going to do it… i would either let myself get hit by a car, or i was going to go upstairs and jump out of a window. no matter how many years i thought about doing it (or even the times i attempted it) maybe once in my whole life have i ever considered calling a hotline. and it was that one time where i decided not to. i just didn’t want some stranger knowing my business, or trying to walk me out of it.

but just now, something snapped in me. if i didn’t call someone… anyone, i wouldn’t be sitting here telling you this.

i hardly, if ever, use the phone; and now seemed a better time than ever to use it. i wanted more than ever to call my mother, but i knew she’d be in bed. i didn’t want to leave her a message that i was planning to kill myself. i called my sister, hoping she’d be up, but her phone was off. i really needed to talk with someone, but i wished to use the hotline as a last resort. i wasn’t sure who i could call… i felt desperate, but at the same time i felt a sense of shame. i felt (and still feel) selfish for even wanting to do this, and thinking about it. i feel entirely stuck. i feel horrible for having these thoughts, and at the same time i feel i’d have a sense of relief if i did it.

i keep looking at websites to try to make some sense of all this. on one site was a test (not a diagnosis) (http://www.add-adhd-help-center.com/Depression/depression_test.htm) to see if you suffer from depression:

My future seems hopeless.
It is difficult for me to concentrate on reading.
I feel sad, blue, and unhappy.
It takes great effort for me to do simple things.
I feel like a failure.
I feel lifeless — more dead than alive.
I spend time thinking about dying.
I feel trapped or caught.
I have lost or gained weight without trying to diet.
The joy has gone out of my life.
I have difficulty making decisions.
I feel low in energy or slowed down.
I have difficulty concentrating and making decisions.
I often feel blue, even when good things happen to me.
I feel worthless and inadequate.
I have lost interest in aspects of life that used to be important to me.
I have thought about wanting to kill myself.
I get frightened or panicked for no apparent reason.
I have crying spells, or feel like crying often.
I am restless and can’t keep still.
I feel anxious.
I am agitated and keep moving around.
I feel fatigued.
I am more irritable than usual.
I have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.
I wake up early in the morning and cannot go back to sleep.
I have trouble sleeping through the night.
I don’t care about being attractive to women/men.
My mind is not as clear as it used to be.
I feel useless.
My life is empty and without meaning.
I feel that others would be better off if I were dead.

i took this ‘test’ and i got 30 out of 32 of these qualifiers… i have been feeling lately that i have nothing to look forward to, and i don’t like feeling that way. so much that made me happy doesn’t give me much joy anymore. all the projects i’ve been doing and have wanted to do, i don’t feel inspired. i feel at a loss as to how to deal with any of this. and so much of the time (particularly within the last few days) i feel as if there is no other alternative.

i don’t have the ‘thick skin’ like you did, michael. it’s always something that’s snapped in me since i was a kid. again, i don’t know if it’s a chemical imbalance or what. are some people more susceptible to a ‘suicide gene’ than others, when dealing with stress or trauma? i do not know.

all i know is that i hate feeling this way.

i didn’t know what to do, so i called my friend jim. i told him i didn’t know what to do, and i was two steps from calling a hotline. like you, jim is a virgo, and interestingly, i heard a similar pattern in some of the things he said, and things you have said.

he spent an hour and a half on the phone with me. i can’t really tell if he was trying to keep me alive, or just trying to calm me down. at some points what he said was calming, and at other points i became triggered again. as he was speaking with me i considered hanging up the phone, climbing on the roof and jumping. i considered banging my head against the concrete until my brains splattered all over the place. my mind was racing.

there were some things he said which let me know he understood though. he was working to get me to focus on meditation, where i envision a light inside of me- this is something i’m a bit familiar with, since i have experienced this in meditation before. not often, but i have. the thing i connected with was him speaking a lot about my need for love and attention… before i considered ending my life tonight i thought about how, even though people tell me they love me, i don’t necessarily feel wanted. i’ve been feeling really distant from people, and not wanting to be around them. i feel like i’m only in the way whenever i’m around. i feel really bulky and clumsy. with that, i get irritable and depressed. i feel as if i don’t really have anyone i could really sit and talk to…. someone to commit their energies toward me, and i to them.

jim told me to focus, and know that all those other people were not needed, because i would have fulfilled my own desire for love and attention. i’m not saying it as well as he did, but how he said it was quite healing. another thing he said which stood out was ‘nothing in this world is as real as the love you have within yourself.’ he said it was okay to sit and let all of these feelings of sadness happen, but to know that the love of myself is bigger than the feelings. he continually had different variations for that one sentence; still, it moved me when he said that. so much of the time i wanted to just say, ‘i wish i could believe you.’ to just even get up and say i LIKE myself is a huge feat.

with everything he said, it made me think of the tape you sent to akio morita (the head of sony) when he was sick. the tape was played for him for six years, by his wife. her memories of your visits and friendship are here: http://www.akiomorita.net/en/contents/episode/005.html

please get better, please get better now… you are a very, very strong man mr. morita. I BELIEVE IN YOU. ‘every day, in every way; i am feeling better and better.’ repeat these words in your deep subconscious mind… i love you mr. morita, and know that the whole world loves you and needs you… especially me.

to think of the possibility that mr. morita held on for six years listening to this healing tape is very encouraging. the fact that jim said something similar may perhaps help me too. right this moment i am still struggling immensely to even want to sit here right now, still thinking about ending it all. but i am trying very hard. i cannot thank jim enough for even taking the time out to sit with me and just walk me through this, in his own way.

with that, even though i know you said many times you’ve never considered ending your life under most circumstances; i do wonder if you had any opportunities to sit with anyone when you were in a lot of pain…. if you had that one person (or several people) in your life to walk you through your grief. my hope is that you did.

love, jamilah

Posted in life, michael jackson, transcendence | 2 Comments

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 94)

Posted on July 25, 2011 by jamilah

today is the first full day without little michael… throughout my own sadness and sense of loss i wondered how anna is doing; if she got up this morning and smiled at her new friend. if her day became just a little brighter… as bright as the rare proclamation of sun that shone on this northwest day.

and i knew that if i am going to work at healing and preventing relapses, i need to keep occupied, i need to be outside- in that sun.

so i did take up the opportunity to accept the invitation to go to the river. it’s been a number of years since i’ve been to the river (and even longer since i swam). a huge factor in me not going is indeed, fear. as much as i love water (and being in it) i hate people looking at me. i hate the way clothes stick to your body when you get out of the water, and people can see the outlines of what you look like. it’s too close to being nude to me. i don’t even like taking off my shoes, since i hate my feet. and then you have to roll up your trousers, and people can see your legs. i just don’t like people seeing any part of me, if i can help it.

i actually don’t get hot very often, living in this part of the country. being from new york (and having been to the south), the northwest just does not get hot. warm, yes. hot, no. not the kind of hot where, after you’ve taken a shower, you go outside and have to take another one. there’s no scorching heat mixed with 95% humidity. so yes, i still wear a sweater in this ‘summer’ climate, when most people are walking around in shorts complaining about the heat. you can attribute part of this to how i feel about my body. i would not deny that i have conditioned myself to live in the summer heat, covered up. the thing is though, i have always been ‘cold blooded’ for as long as i can remember.

when we got to the river site (i went with two others), there were many opportunities for me to have a relapse. the cliffs were steep and i must admit i thought about what it would be like to jump. i thought about what it would be like to be hit by a car at that moment. i’ve been hit by a car plenty of times in my life, but interestingly, never during a relapse.

i walked passed an opossum who was hit by a car (or few). her jaw was pulled back by the impact of the hit(s), and you saw the teeth and muscle. the eyes were concealed. there were a few flies fluttering about, happy to have some sort of work to do for the day. i stopped and said a few words for the opossum, then walked towards the river.

the river was already filled with people by the time we got there. children were playing; one girl in particular was captivated by the “live fish” she saw. she kept exclaiming how there was a live fish in the river. she continually tried to capture the moment by surrounding the fish with what looked like a small float. families floated by on air-filled rafts and tubes, lazily pushing themselves with paddles.

despite my self-conscious fear of going in the river, i decided to roll up my trousers, take off my boots and walk in. ‘how many opportunities do you get to go to the river?’ i asked myself. i took those initial steps in the freezing water, allowed the time in the water to acclimate to my own body temperature, and i watched the sand and small branches travel between my toes. i sat on a rock, read a book and watched the sun beam down on us all. i went back and forth between resting on a blanket on the sand, and returning to the water.

needless to say, it was something i needed. to be in the sun is good, since exposure to it increases levels of vitamin d. and an increase in vitamin d may mean less of the relapses.

upon our return to the ‘city’ we listened to songs on the radio. i don’t listen to the radio so i’m never aware of any latest trends or artists. what i did hear, indeed made me very sad. stylistically, everything was uniform. i suppose you could say this was the case with the influx of the beatles’ influence, or with disco. however, i would dis-agree with you… because all of the artists were indistinguishable. everyone lacked character, because their voices were shrouded in autotune. EVERY SINGLE SONG we heard was produced with autotune. there were many songs played, and yet the artists’ names or the songs were not announced. i suspect since the same 12 songs are played, there is no need to back announce. but for someone who is not familiar with this culture of music, it would be nice to know how these artists distinguish themselves from one another.

in terms of subject matter, it all came together, as to why everything was so uniform. so many of the songs spoke of armageddon as if it were a trend. ‘if i die young’; ‘let us dance until the world ends’; ‘i’m gonna party because tomorrow may never come’… after such a positive day in the river, hearing these words not only made me sad, but yet again triggered that internal sense of doom i’m already struggling to heal from. i felt frozen, unable to do anything about it; because i hadn’t openly spoken about what i’ve been dealing with to the people i was with.

the uniform cadences and the lack of human emotion in the voices were symbolic of some sort of mind control program. as the voices inform us to party away, our homes are being raided by police, and laws are being created without our consent or knowledge. this way, we’ll be ill-prepared to defend ourselves on our own terms, but well-equipped to utilize the materials they give us in which to ‘survive’. these voices condition us to, again, maintain a lack of sensitivity to the energy around us. we become desensitized to how we treat each other.

there were more songs played, honoring this new sense of nihilism: love songs describing a sensation which is supposed to comprise of joy, as one which is diseased, poisonous, vindictive, vengeful, non-committal, ‘alien’, forceful/violent, coercive, detached, objectifying, egotistical… and these were supposedly PRO-love songs. not ONCE did a song come on honoring love as respectful, positive or committed.

and of course, as all these songs emanated from the car speakers, those words you wrote/sang IMMEDIATELY came to mind:

Love ain’t what it used to be
That is what they’re tellin’ me
Push it in
Stick it out
That ain’t what it’s all about

Susie like to agitate
Get the boy and make him wait
Mother’s preaching Abraham
Brothers they don’t
Give a damn

He wanna do
Something freaky to you
He wanna wrap his arms
All around you girl
He wanna do it up
Get it hot
Deep in the night
He wanna eye ball
Get hard
Playing it right

He wanna turn the key
Work the sheets
Move to the left
He wanna hot stuff
Hot love
Making it wet

Sister say she love him some
Got his Jimmy on the run
Mother’s preaching Abraham
Brothers they don’t
Give a damn

Johnny’s begging pretty please
Keep the brother on his knees
Susie likes to agitate
Get the boy and make him wait

Sister’s married to a hood
Sayin’ that she got it good
Holy Mary mercy me
Can’t believe the things I see

it also brought to mind those songs you sang so many years ago as a child: those songs i thought you were entirely too young to sing; but still, they were songs which lent to a moral conviction.

When we played tag in grade school
You wanted to be it.
But chasing boys was just a fad
You crossed your heart you’d quit.

When we grew up you traded
Your promise for my ring
Now just like back to grade school
You’re doing the same old thing

They’ll ruin your reputation
They’ll label you a flirt

The way they talk about you
They’ll turn your name to dirt…

interestingly, those songs were primarily messages for girls to not sleep around, but you could also use the same message for boys.

i purposefully do not use the words ‘women’ and men’ because the art/music popularized today does not reflect an adult sensibility. we’ve lost sense of what community represents, and taking responsibility for each other. before you left you saw remnants of some of this; but after you left it was as if people forgot the teachings. we are discouraged from continuing the teachings, because we all expect one person to ‘lead’ us, forgetting that we are all here on this earth for a limited amount of time. it is not up to one person to ‘lead’. i mean, there was even a line in a kanye west song played (where the theme ironically was ‘lights’ but was far from speaking about LIGHT ENERGY) where he said “MJ is dead”. something to that effect.

it was as if the message in all of these songs was: ‘michael is dead. we can finally finish the job we intended to begin, but we couldn’t because he got in the way of it.’

and THIS is why i do not listen to the radio. and this is why i will continue to promote your art as teachings, outside of a superficial ‘pop’ realm. granted, some of the themes in your art are not necessarily kid-friendly (we can look to the lyrics above for that); however, you have proven yourself to be more than your lyrics. i can only hope the artists ‘singing’ those songs have proven themselves to be more as well…. so that little ones like anna can grow to live in a world where respect and community are not anomalies.

love, jamilah

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michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 93)

Posted on July 24, 2011 by jamilah

one of the main signs of someone wanting to commit suicide is that person giving away their possessions… i didn’t even think about that when i gave little michael to little anna… when i told a friend about little michael going home with another girl, she began to get worried.

you see, little michael was a companion of mine for four years, when he was given to me as a gift from someone. he went everywhere with me; someone was even nice enough to give him a bicycle to ride on (which is attached to my own bicycle), whenever i went out. but this little girl… anna. her eyes were so sad. she was incredibly quiet and introspective.

i asked this little girl her name; an adult answered as she looked up at me. i asked her if this was so, if her name was anna. without saying a word, her eyes assured me this was the case. the adult (perhaps her grandmother) asked if little michael was with her now. i responded that he was with me. i then asked anna if she wanted to go home with him. she shook her head no. i saw how she connected with him though, so i did not take him back. i was in the midst of running errands, so i left them together, and anna returned to her grandmother.

interestingly, a woman who sees me with little michael all the time was worried. she approached me and asked me if i knew there was a little girl hanging out with him. i told her i was aware she was with him. some time later i saw anna with little michael, and anna’s grandmother. i asked anna again if she would like to take little michael home. again, she shook her head no. the grandmother interjected and said that anna actually meant yes. with that i figured anna was shy, and did not want to seem rude in asking (or assuming). either that, or she just was not used to situations like this.

i then knew what i had to do.

I’m so sad you’re leaving
It’s gonna kill me
Not to be with you
But I want you to be happy
If parting’s what you want
Then I want it too

So goodbye with all my prayers
For your happiness in a world elsewhere
Should you arrive and it’s not there
Call on me…

i didn’t realize how difficult it would be to part with little michael. i am still crying as i write this. it was as if i lost a child… a friend. most people see him as just a doll; but i see four years of my life there with him. he really was a companion. people found me strange, fascinating… to walk around with a little doll. he was given to me as a symbol of kindness; and i knew i had to pass on that tradition. that is part of what the teachings are all about.

every time i turn around and see him not sitting there, i do feel like there is a void missing. like yet again, another person has left. at the same time, just to know of the possibility that one little girl could be filled with happiness because of this moment, makes me feel better.

i will always remember anna and this moment, with her sad eyes and her quiet demeanor. after little michael’s new home was established; when anna’s grandmother asked her to shake my hand, she looked at me and shyly brought her arm out, her hand curled up in a tiny ball. i took both of my hands into hers, and gently shook it. after this she looked back down to little michael.

there are many children who have played with him, and i am sure many wanted to take him home. somehow, something told me he needed to be with this little girl. i have shared many moments with him; but he needed to be with someone i felt would truly love him too. i do not know this little girl or her life’s situation… she looked about 5 or 6. and even at that age i felt a sense of loneliness coming from her. it could be a simple case of shyness she may later grow out of; but in her eyes was an intense sadness. i didn’t see her suffering from neglect. there was something else.

in experiencing all of this; despite any sort of hopefulness i may have felt in sharing this moment with anna, the day was spent in an intense sadness/despair of my own. it was especially difficult because i wasn’t necessarily in a space where i could grieve in any way. spending those few moments with anna, just as i spend many moments with other children, was just an intense reminder of the loss i feel for not having children of my own. i welcome all of these babies and young children in my life (and it’s a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by them at work); but i know they will soon go away, like everyone else.

i have also been trying to take things moment by moment, because for the past few days i have been working hard to not encounter another relapse. yes, this is what you may be thinking. and yes, this was why my friend was worried about me giving little michael to someone else.

i do talk about my history with suicide attempts with some, and with you i may have even alluded to it. but i’ve never gone totally public about it. until now, i suppose. it’s incredibly difficult to openly acknowledge this history. it’s incredibly isolating, because you never know who to talk to. since i was 14 years old, i’ve done everything from cutting my wrists to putting my head in an oven to riding in fast oncoming traffic- oh yeah, that actually happened about a week or two before you transcended… the smallest thing could trigger the thoughts, and the actions.

and so, yes… the other day i was teetering on the brink of all of this. sometimes you unconsciously get in a space where you block out people or things, in order to validate the reasons for wanting to end your life. i mean, it’s like a light switch. off and on. and sometimes that switch is actually a dimmer, where the desire shines brighter than other times.

so right now i’m just trying to talk it through, make sense of it all. there have been several times in my life i looked up the sites to help people who have attempted it, and/or are considering it. i did do this the other day as well. i don’t find the sites to be helpful at all. in fact, i see them as judgmental.

i’m just having an especially hard time dealing with loss right now. i know that being in an abusive relationship with a man a number of years ago; even though i thought i healed from that somewhat, i never really got a huge part of myself back. and even though i did a lot of work in healing the relationship with my mother, i know i focused on healing with her, and not necessarily myself.

and i know that where i am today, my whole body aches. it hurts to just walk sometimes, to breathe. just trying to make it day to day is difficult. it’s difficult for me to motivate myself to go and do anything. i prefer to just stay in bed all day. don’t really want to see people.

but i know i need to.

i don’t feel like i am pretending; but sometimes i do have to work extra hard to maintain a smile. sometimes it gets so bad where i can’t smile at all. but a lot of the time i have to work. i have been thinking about how some people perceive me as always happy or smiling.

the thing about smiling in times like this is that it’s not simply a reaction to something; it’s a state of survival.

If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through for you

That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

there’s only so far smiling will go though. there’s a point where you need to talk with someone, in order to have a place to scream, to cry… to just grieve. i know this may sound crazy or unreasonable even; but i am still in the grieving process with you. this process is off and on with you. i’m trying to listen to my subconscious which tells me to grieve at whatever level i need to and yet the guilt sort of kicks in that (a. i never knew you in person. (b. you left over two years ago (at this point). (c. i don’t want to be attached to the casing. it should remain about the teachings.

i am also still in the grieving process with barry. and all these other people seem to be leaving. it’s not easy. a lot of this, again, is triggering for me, and i am extremely frightened to go back to that place, despite being comforted by it at the same time. i don’t particularly have anyone to grieve with, which is the worst aspect about the whole thing. however, i find a little bit more of a space to talk with people about what is going on me at this moment.

i realized a few days ago that i need to do whatever it is i can to remain occupied, to keep my mind toward some type of healing process. if i don’t keep busy i would just stay in bed all day. i need to keep writing it all out, talking it all out. i need to constantly distract myself.

Everyone’s Taking Control Of Me
Seems That The World’s
Got A Role For Me
I’m So Confused
Will You Show To Me
You’ll Be There For Me
And Care Enough To Bear Me

ultimately, i just need someone to be there. saying all this stuff is a lot, but it’s a lot more difficult to even acknowledge what is going on, in the way i’m doing it now. you said that you had thick skin, and that you have never attempted to end your life (that is, unless there were no children on this earth).

In Our Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tribulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I’ll Never Let You Part
For You’re Always In My Heart.

with that, i hope you understand… and i hope little anna will never have to experience what i have, and continue to, to some degree. no one should have to experience that. no one should experience ANY trauma.

love, jamilah

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michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 92)

Posted on July 20, 2011 by jamilah

as you know, these past few months i have been so troubled as of late; so confused as to how to approach things in relation to you. as a student, i have made the conscious decision to not close myself off from learning about the details of what’s been going on in relation to your transcendence… i am doing my best to not be guided by my emotions. HOWEVER! the sensitivity i have to peoples’ energies regarding your transcendence and the world at large is difficult to shake, and i find myself doubting where i am in this world because of it sometimes. it’s hard not to feel like a prisoner of this sensitivity, in particular when there are people who make me feel like i am. i’m still very new at recognizing the extent to which this specific sensitivity plays out in my life, even though i have always been sensitive to energies.

i’m not saying i am crazy (even though it feels that way sometimes)… living in this world though, we are made to not recognize the energies around us. and those who do are generally considered ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘delusional’. there are people in this world who have maintained the connections with the ancestors, and will always maintain an awareness of the damaging effects of the society we live in.

with all that i have made the decision to take it all in, step back and just observe. i know that whatever happens, in the end, the actions of those on earth can never tamper the teachings. i may not agree with some of the decisions you’ve made throughout your life (just as i’m not always happy with decisions i’ve made); still there is something to be said for intent.

this is ultimately what upsets me with the process of how the ‘estate’ is treating your artistic legacy: i do not see them paying respect to the teachings. they have separated the mind and body connection you have spent your life to represent and embody. it’s obvious you marketed yourself to present a certain image; there is a fine line between how you marketed yourself and how you are being marketed now.

if i were not familiar with your work at all until after 2009, i’d think you were only a song and dance man with no regard for the energy around you. how you are being marketed right now is a reflection of the marketing of de-sensitization. the corporation is now totally in control of how we see art. it has been that way for a long time; however, there were enough artists in the industry to keep the illusion that the artist was the most important factor in how a record sells. there was the illusion of ‘artist development’. we are encountering a society now which is based on nothing but instant gratification… and this is how artists are marketed. this is primarily what i speak against- not necessarily the fact that those running the estate must work quickly to repay back loans and creditors. yes that must be done; but really, there is such a thing as integrity in how they go about repaying these loans.

people say i take all of this too personally; that i am getting wrapped up in a situation i cannot control. again, this is about energy. this is about integrity. this is about maintaining the teachings. i take this very seriously.

we each are presented a blank slate in this life… along the way we are given a set of tools which may or may not connect us with other lives we have led. those who are sensitive to energies will begin to remember different variations of the tools, in the people or situations they encounter. when you are sensitive to energies, people in this life may seem familiar, despite the fact you seemingly have never met them. michael, seeing you speak… watching your body language; i have engaged many triggers which enabled me to recognize the tools i needed to use in order to do the true work of healing my own past. the key though, was in just using them. it was a very long journey, which led me to where i am today. the journey still continues.

it is always important for me to ask for guidance and assistance. so again, before i went to bed i asked if there was anything i needed to do… what my role was in this whole thing. remember, i am still new at it all… actually acknowledging my role as a student. it is a major role to play, in a world which conditions us to reject the teachings. i will probably stumble for the rest of my life.

when i got out of bed to go to work i had a revelation: one that had to do with ‘captain EO’.

before i get into that, i want to say this: before i went to work i struggled, looking for my glasses. i remember taking them off as i got into bed, and placing them on the table beside me. i tend to misplace my glasses before i leave, so this was nothing unusual.

i stopped looking for the glasses, thinking i would just go into work without them. it would be a bit of a struggle to see, but i’ve had to go around without glasses many a time, for various reasons. for some reason, i decided to look one more time… and the glasses were neatly placed on my bed, on the little blanket where lumbia rests (and she is resting there now). i do not know if this is an answer to the guidance i asked for, but i do know that it is definitely part of SOME sort of journey…

before i found the glasses though, i woke up with ‘captain EO’ in my head. i took this to stem from a conversation i had before i went to bed about the film, and ‘another part of me’, a song you composed for it. in my estimation, that song is about universal law: more specifically, the law of vibrational energy. the L.O.V.E. it is to me, your greatest teaching… a popular song which speaks to the interconnectedness of all species.

in the midst of the conversation, i recognized yet again how important energy is to conveying a message. even if what you say is difficult to decipher; the energy in which you deliver the message will resonate. the second verse of the song is consistently misinterpreted (thanks to there being no second verse printed on the original lyric sheets when the song ended up on the ‘bad’ album)- but that is the gift of (mis)interpretation. we are all able to decipher what the message means to us.

so… i went to bed with THAT message on my mind, but got OUT of bed with the OTHER song you composed for the film, ‘we are here to change the world’… and it hit me. you were doing some sort of ‘witnessing’. both songs in the film were a clear cross between your traditional religious practise and a more open spirituality.

‘we are here to change the world’ doesn’t even have that many lyrics; nor is it a long song at all. but the message is concise.

We’re on a mission
In the everlasting light that shines
A revelation
Of the truth in chapters of our minds

So long, bad times
We’re gonna shake it up and break it up
We’re sharing light brighter than the sun
Hello , good times
We’re here to simulate, eliminate
An’ congregate, illuminate

once again taking a dip into the wells of interpretation; i see a message here about spreading the message of JEHOVAH (the ‘mission’), and working to reach those who also believe in that message. those who have grasped the message (the ‘congregation’) will enter ‘paradise’.

i ALSO see a message of finding the connection between ourselves and GOD: “’cause the power’s deep inside my soul”… and this ‘revelation’ (which kind of lends itself to double usage here) of that connection will enable us to encounter ‘truth’ wherever we go. this interpretation of the song is where i tend to connect with. in all of the destruction in the world, we will seek and encounter truth.

and those who encounter truth will question the world around them.

in other words, michael, you took us to church, where we least expected it.

still, i don’t know if this is is something which is an aspect of guidance. i’m just going to take every bit and imagine it is what it is: a lesson. because after thinking about this song, i realized that no matter what humans here on earth do with your legacy- no matter how disturbing, how sad or upsetting- they CANNOT, in ANY way, take away the teachings.

and yes, still being here on this earth i acknowledge i will continue to be angry at what they are doing. i just have to remind myself that nothing is permanent. except truth. it’s the only thing which has remained strong over generations.

those who allow themselves to recognize energy will see truth. it has always been here, and it is never leaving. thank you again, michael, for reaching people in places we would least expect… as people dance to your music, the vibrations of the teachings you have made the decision to continue (from our ancestors) will never cease to resonate. you have made such a global impact, to the point where the teachings could never be ignored.

when you told martin bashir how you wanted to live forever (in response to whether or not you wanted to be buried) i instantly recognized what you were saying. surely, no one with the the type of impact you have made would want to be buried. surely, bashir and those who watched the interviews you did with him must know that even though the physical casing returns to the atmosphere, a soul remains, in many manifestations.

surely, people must know that we should not attach ourselves to the casings we come to this earth with… that said, in order for our souls to be in balance with the environment, we must treat the casings with love, as they still carry our souls in this life.

I Just Want You To
Recognize Me
In The Temple
You Can’t Hurt Me
I Found Peace
Within Myself

again, thank you. and i hope to do my best to honor the work you have learned from your ancestors… those lessons i have always recognized, yet you have taught so effectively.

love, jamilah

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michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 91)

Posted on June 26, 2011 by jamilah

“do you remember the time…”

yes michael, i remember the day as if it happened five minutes ago… somehow, it all came back to me, on this second ‘observance’ of your transcendence. from the moment i saw those three words they forever became stamped in my consciousness. i still cannot see them without breaking down. as you know though, the word ‘death’ holds a different meaning for me; as death represents a finality. ultimately i don’t think it’s your transcendence in and of itself which is the most painful to deal with… it’s mainly how it occurred. it’s the acknowledgement of the state of war we continue to live in. even if you were not shot down or beaten, you still left this earth violently.

in light of your transcendence we still do not acknowledge the interconnectivity of events. of course, interconnectivity is not always positive, since the root of interconnectivity is connection. i refuse to look at what happened to you as an individual case, since in my studies relating to this whole situation, there are many branches attached to the roots of the tree of darkness. that tree is the industry you were reared in. and the seeds from that tree continue to pollinate to the point where very few even bother to notice the visuals anymore.

we got so used to having you around, we took advantage. you became so sick that your roots began to dry out, and we didn’t even notice. you made that ultimate decision to relinquish much of that connection to the tree, and allowed the wind to blow you in whatever direction the wind saw fit. we thought you were crazy for doing that. we thought your art suffered because of it. but we didn’t acknowledge that once the connection to that tree dissipated, was when the teachings truly had an opportunity to shine.

i’ve studied you for so long, michael… but for some reason it’s all come back- the grief, the pain. the things which give most people joy bring me despair. “time has made promises… death… promises…”

it’s as if when you left, the tree became stronger. that tree which brings nothing but spiritual/psychic death. that tree which encourages us to only look at a certain image of you they want to sell. that tree which discourages self-reflection. you were like a dead branch to them. they work over time, using financial resources to encapsulate you in a certain era. you are but a glove, concealing the fingerprints of intergenerational-ism. you are but a jacket, camouflaging the heart.

the first thing i did when i got home from work last night was put on moonwalker. the moment the film began- with the echo of your steps walking across the stage, the light following your loafers. as the jingling and shimmering increase in sound, we see animated glitter coming from your socks. you stand still for a second, then the glitter shoots sparks unto your legs, giving you the power to spin and stand on your toes… this is just in the first 16 seconds, before the world is then presented with your name…. and the title.

“michael jackson… moonwalker.”

that first 17 seconds defined how you wanted us to view you as a popular culture figure; you were alone on this stage, and yet you produced magic which was larger than life. to be able to stand on your toes and ‘moonwalk’ are the illusions not many have been able to accomplish as well as you. but that is all they are- illusions. with that, i think the next 93 minutes examined your state as a man.

‘man in the mirror’ was the cinematic bookend of the life of michael jackson (the man) in this film; ultimately though we were shown the journey in how you got there, by way of being ‘michael jackson ™’. this is about exposing and examining the roots: to reflect in order to move forward. ‘man in the mirror’ was a perfect introduction of, not only personal self-reflection, but it displayed a crucial skill in educating while assuming the role of ‘entertainer’. in watching this clip i often wonder if people are actually listening to the words you sing, amongst their screams.

i noticed earlier today, when you sang the chorus of ‘man in the mirror’ you emphasized the word ‘no’, in the line “and no message could have been any clearer”. my hope, again, is that your message, your teachings… have not been left unheard by those who love you. and even those who don’t. as the song continued to play, and footage of protests and starving children were juxtaposed with images of you and the thousands of fortunate fans, i began to cry. it’s still taking some getting used to that you. are. not. here. perhaps you are the fortunate one, since you are no longer here to physically observe the roots from the tree of darkness expand and colonize.

as ‘moonwalker’ continues its cinematic journey, we are shown the charisma; the work ethic; the talents which afforded you the success to be able to present the teachings to the world on the level you did. from the moments with your brothers, to your achievements as a young adult, up until the time of the film’s release- this is where we begin to see the mind of the man.

and where the film becomes a bit troubling. the interview you did with shmuley boteach a number of years towards the end of your physical life is one of the lenses through which i see this film:

I am going to say something I have never said before and this is the truth. I have no reason to lie to you and God knows I am telling the truth. I think all my success and fame, and I have wanted it, I have wanted it because I wanted to be loved. That’s all. That’s the real truth. I wanted people to love me, truly love me, because I never really felt loved.

I said I know I have an ability. Maybe if I sharpened my craft, maybe people will love me more. I just wanted to be loved because I think it is very important to be loved and to tell people that you love them and to look in their eyes and say it.

i have discussed this before, michael; but yes, it’s pretty easy to tell this is the purpose for this film. despite all of the adulation there’s a lot of pain in each frame. what i saw was not you necessarily even dealing with self-love… it was about working through interpersonal issues… particularly with your father.

i look at ‘moonwalker’ from the lens of someone who also dealt with childhood abuse/trauma. there are parts of the film i cannot watch because of it. i cannot watch ‘the way you make me feel’ because it conjures up images of a gang rape fantasy; i cannot watch portions of the centerpiece of the film, ‘smooth criminal’, because it involves violence against both women and children. and you.

despite this, i also see the film through a lens of cultural critique. ‘speed demon’ (my favourite segment in the film, directed by will vinton) is indeed indicative of your desire to be loved, but it’s also, in many ways, a constructive look at how you view yourself through celebrity culture. it’s a look at how empty this culture actually is, when we value status above all else. everything melds together when you are able to morph into a dozen celebrities. you no longer become a being of substance. when you’re racing against the gazes of cameras and autograph hounds, there has to be something more substantial in life than that.

‘speed demon’ giving way to ‘leave me alone’ (my other favourite segment, directed by jim blashfield) is an absolutely stunning reflection of the vapidness of celebrity culture. interestingly enough, this was around the time when you wrote the letter in 1987 stating you “cry very often because it hurts and (you) worry about the children…”

being that you had to ‘ok’ everything you worked on before it was officially released, the fact this film exists is amazing. the song, on a naked listen, does indeed talk about a relationship between a man and a woman. of course, like in many cases the ‘girl’ is used as a metaphor- in your case, it’s the press. why this short film amazes me so is your basic acknowledgement of your working with the press to create a certain image of yourself. “there was a time i used to say… i need you…” even the dig on the rhinoplasty had me chuckling a bit; the nose flying in the air with the scalpel. i don’t know about anyone else, but i think the fact you let that slide in the film does show your humorous side.

and of course, the result of this film is to show your dissatisfaction with the way the relationship with the press turned out. it’s no longer reciprocal. the film is like a little joke to yourself- but you let us all in a little bit. blashfield and crew did study your life carefully (or at least worked closely with you), since they captured the relics perfectly- the peacock, the elephant, the llama… the cover of the dangerous album (done by mark ryden) captured a little of what this film did, but with darker imagery.

‘leave me alone’ was a battle between humanity and the roles which limit and imprison us. for all the adulation you desired, it came with a price. the film is a clear nod to swift’s ‘gulliver’s travels’ and the satire it entails; however, the ‘shipwreck’ in this case is indeed celebrity culture (and the focus on the external), and the lilliput residents are the people and institutions which see you as larger-than-life, but ultimately entrap you, keeping you around for a show. in order to keep the interest of the people, a little manipulation is used, by way of creating spectacular stories.

and keeping with the journey of ‘moonwalker’, you have committed treason by speaking out against your life of relative comfort… by speaking openly of your suffocation. to see you in that wonderland of ‘circus’ attractions was fun for sure; but it was simultaneously suffocating, to know the one thing you loved (the amusement park) was allegorical for the trappings created by man for our pleasure. it was incredibly satisfying and freeing to see the last scene, where you broke free from your body being used as a moral playground by others. amidst all the destruction you looked up at the sky and said ‘i. am. a. man.’

in my mind, ‘leave me alone’ was the centerpiece, as it was the one which merged between your private and public selves. ‘smooth criminal’ was a much darker aspect of your mind. it was a study in the repercussions of abuse, be it familial or societal. it also was the other bookend of your life as a man- the belief that one person can take steps to change societal wrongdoings.

aside from the obvious odes to certain films, i can’t help but wonder if you are openly processing and reflecting on your childhood by showing the violence, not just with the guns, but the type inflicted on yourself, one of the women in ‘club 30s’ slapped around by what is most likely a pimp, and on katie (played by kellie parker). watching these scenes trigger a lot for me, in relation to my own childhood; so it is difficult for me to sit through these scenes (as i mentioned). i also wonder if the reference to frankie lideo (played by joe pesci and an obvious play on frank dileo- michael’s manager at the time’s name) has to do anything with the government placing drugs in various communities. for lideo to run an army is pretty significant; for lideo to order that army to hunt down one man for discovering their operation is even more significant.

to bring your point home about your constant recognition of roots; ladysmith black mambazo conclude the film with ‘the moon is walking’. it’s about a man, reflecting upon where he comes from… it’s the rhythms of the body which contain truth. i love watching the combination of sounds with the choreography of both ladysmith black mambazo and scenes from the film. with all of the paranoia, violence, sadness and destruction in the film, it’s comforting to have the film close with the sounds of the motherland, just as the film opened with the spirit of the motherland.

needless to say, watching that film took a lot out of me, and so it was really difficult for me to watch anything else, without breaking down.

which is what i ended up doing all day, on the 2nd observance of your transcendence… i spent the day reflecting on what your teachings mean to me, and it really did hurt to know you were not here to have those teachings coming from you right now. i cannot interpret them in the way you did, and i don’t even know if i’m doing them any justice. i don’t want to seem selfish for breaking down two years later… i just want the grief to be over.

i stayed in bed a bit later, got up, cleaned my room a little bit, and broke down crying several times. i don’t apologize too much (unless i actually did something to hurt someone) but i found myself saying out loud, “i’m sorry michael, i don’t want you to see me like this.” i don’t know why i feel like i am hurting you. i can’t explain it. i cannot explain why I am hurting.

i figured i’d go and ride my bicycle… blast your teachings on the little speaker. i won’t cry then, there’ll be people around…

of course i was wrong. i cried, particularly when ‘heal the world’ was on… the line “if you care enough for the living” triggered my tears… you may be physically gone, but your light lives on. i know this.

i remember singing loudly to ‘man in the mirror’… a truck drove past me, and a young adolescent boy stared at me, with his head out of the window. i could not tell if he was sympathetic, or if he thought i was strange. i smiled at him, and he just stared back. he didn’t frown, he didn’t smile… at another point in the ride, a woman looked back at me and said “that’s a good idea…” i can only think she was referring to this day of observance, and the speakers playing, and the little michael sitting on the miniature bicycle. yes, i was ‘observing’ this day; however, i wish there was a way to let people know i observe your teachings every day…

in the midst of all this i began to wonder about the actual reasonings behind your transcendence… this is the painful part. if indeed it was murder (which i believe it was) why would you be murdered? was it political? was it thievery? is it simple, is it complicated? how much of a hindrance were you really, enough to take you away from your children? at what point did you become a hindrance?

the patterns seem so clear… still, none of it SHOULD make sense. for all intents and purposes, ‘moonwalker’ is another example of ‘biting the hand that feeds you’- with the ‘bad’ album, you see an awareness begin to publicly bloom.

it was with ‘dangerous’ however, where the cracks became entirely evident to those who did not see them back in 1987.

listening to a radio show with min. paul scott, i heard a conversation about an ‘illuminati’ actually not existing… ‘illuminati’ is actually a title made into a reality by those who continue to use the name; ultimately it comprises of a series of groups such as the bilderbergers. i do concur with that to a point… we give too much power to these individuals by bestowing the title ‘illuminati’ upon them. they present the illusion of enlightenment when in fact those people in those organization are very dark individuals.

as you’ve studied extensively on egypt and the notion of the power of holding secrets and knowledge; i’m sure you knew that these people studied the same things as you, and flipped the energy around. people may have narrowly critiqued ‘liberian girl’ (originally composed around 1983) as holding the motherland up as some disney-fied concept (in some attempt to maintain a black audience); but when ‘remember the time’ premiered, black people of many interests stood up and paid attention to what you were trying to say. was the all-black cast another attempt (to the industry) of ‘biting the hand that feeds’? for a man who is publicized to be ‘non-threatening’ as a performer creates a scenario which is a direct challenge to the world in which your friend elizabeth taylor starred in…

you know where i am getting with this.

this is why ‘black or white’ is so powerful. the contradiction between the two parts of the film are powerful. after the first half which speaks to a sort of palatable ode against racism; for a (black) man publicly viewed as asexual and apolitical to transform from a black panther, to touch himself and simulate masturbation (come on, yes), and THEN to pull up the trouser zipper and smash things is indeed powerful. and threatening to the corporate and societal structures which opt to control black sexuality and anger. it is one of the most brilliant pieces of art you created.

you are certainly off to a great start in 1991, michael. with that, in 1993, they found you a threat to children. sexually. coincidentally.

back to the ‘illuminati’ thing for a moment. on min. paul scott’s show, there was a discussion of the critique of ‘illuminati’ actually being a critique of the white supremacist structure. again, this is something i concur with. and of course, with race being a fabricated structure in order to stabilize a failing economy (hence, the private prison industry, slavery, etc.), anyone who challenges the notion of white supremacy can never achieve long term success.

i’ll take that back- anyone who challenges the notion of white supremacy by creating solutions can never achieve long-term success. the clearest example i can give here is martin luther king, jr. he began to make connections between the government/taxpayer-funded war in vietnam, and what is happening to black and brown people in the states. he began to make calls for an autonomous black economic system; which meant not financially supporting white businesses which did not recognize the humanity in black people.

of course, many black people thought martin luther king was crazy to make connections, and to speak out against war. black people warned king to not speak out against the good president who made provisions for da black peepahls. and like many people before him, and many after him, martin luther king jr. didn’t want to represent massa no mo.

so he had to go. can i make comparisons between you and king in this case? i believe i can. because there have been so many black people who took a look at your externals, and they completely believed what the (white) press has said about you, concerning your relationship with children, and the relationship with yourself. there were many who believed you hated your blackness simply because of what you looked like, without hearing what you had to say, as well as taking a look at your actions.

there were those who warned you against saying what you had to say; to just simply shut up and be an entertainer and sing and dance. when they heard you speak about white supremacy, either through speech or through movement, people claimed it was just to get attention. people could not handle that a man who’s lost his pigment could actually represent the motherland, in word and in deed. that a man who spent his life dealing with self-esteem could actually love his people, beyond any personal issues he’s had with himself.

we just have a hard time with acknowledging that things may not be so- i will say it- black and white sometimes.

So you call it trust
But I say it’s just
In the devil’s game
Of greed and lust

You’re saluting the flag
Your country trusts you
Now you’re wearing a badge
You’re called the “Just Few”
And you’re fighting the wars
A soldier must do
I’ll never betray or deceive you my friend but…
If you show me the cash
Then I will take it
If you tell me to cry
Then I will fake it
If you give me a hand
Then I will shake it
You’ll do anything for money… Anything
Anything
Anything for money
Would lie for you
Would die for you
Even sell my soul to the devil

Want your pot of gold
Need the Midas touch
Bet you sell your soul
Cuz your God is such

If you show me the man
Then I will sell him
If you ask me to lie
Then I will tell him
If you’re dealing with God
Then you will hell him
You’ll do anything for money

and with ‘HIStory’ (the second half of the album which people slept on of course); i wonder if this was more of an impetus than ‘black or white’ for ‘the hand’ to watch you even closer. you directly attacked the white corporate structure; you attacked white-owned media; you attacked the government; you attacked the white financial empires all in one album. for a man who’s supposed to be apolitical to call out j.p. morgan and rockefeller by name on your album… i think i even heard the name rosthschild. i have no qualms with saying you were targeted.

and yes, even by sony. they were sitting there waiting for you to implode… ah! there’s the ‘they don’t care about us’ controversy… then there’s the drug scandal… then there’s the lack of promotion for ‘invincible’… then there’s the SECOND charge of child endangerment and molestation… then there’s the… money problems, and sony i’m sure has been waiting for another 25% of the publishing you co-own with them. collateral is a powerful thang, isn’t it?

you have to have a strong spiritual resolution to deal with these devils; and i truly believe you did. it is indeed a gift too, even after the roots of darkness worked overtime to kill your spirit; as weak as you may have been you rose to the occasion.

they were watching you, and they clearly planned to run you down in order to sell to the public the image they hoped to maintain of you- but those who know have not forgotten. they may have killed you, the man “with the tune”; but we will never forget.

and as a student i will do my best to make sure no one forgets.

love, jamilah

Posted in africa, children, economy, freedom, michael jackson, politics, transcendence | 4 Comments

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 90)

Posted on June 19, 2011 by jamilah

in six days’ time, the world lost a teacher. but more importantly, a father lost a son… and three children lost a father.

indeed, your father; regardless of the issues you may have had, did provide basic tools in order for you to be the person you became. all of our parents do that. it’s up to us to utilize the tools in positive ways.

my father was a genius when it came to the way he taught us staging, how to work an audience, anticipating what to do next, or never [to] let the audience know if you are suffering or something’s going wrong. he was amazing like that.

this is what you said about your father in 2007 to ebony magazine. our first teachers are always crucial in how we interact with the world. which is why it troubled me, when i first read it, to look at how you learned to conceal pain through performance. i can only imagine how you had to run out on stage and smile after you were beaten or told you were ugly.

and i can instantly recognize why ‘smile’ is your favourite composition, with its words of finding light through despair. when you said these words in england a number of years ago, i felt empathy.

You probably weren’t surprised to hear that I did not have an idyllic childhood. The strain and tension that exists in my relationship with my own father is well documented. My father is a tough man and he pushed my brothers and me hard, from the earliest age, to be the best performers we could be.

He had great difficulty showing affection. He never really told me he loved me. And he never really complimented me either. If I did a great show, he would tell me it was a good show. And if I did an OK show, he told me it was a lousy show.

He seemed intent, above all else, on making us a commercial success. And at that he was more than adept. My father was a managerial genius and my brothers and I owe our professional success, in no small measure, to the forceful way that he pushed us. He trained me as a showman and under his guidance I couldn’t miss a step.

But what I really wanted was a Dad. I wanted a father who showed me love. And my father never did that. He never said I love you while looking me straight in the eye, he never played a game with me. He never gave me a piggyback ride, he never threw a pillow at me, or a water balloon.

and of course, the small things count- these things which impact a lifetime:

I remember once when I was about four years old, there was a little carnival and he picked me up and put me on a pony. It was a tiny gesture, probably something he forgot five minutes later. But because of that moment I have this special place in my heart for him. Because that’s how kids are, the little things mean so much to them and for me, that one moment meant everything. I only experienced it that one time, but it made me feel really good, about him and the world.

i think you have definitely provided tools for your children to remain strong in these times. it’s like the time you quoted michelangelo: when you took note of the ability to make your art permanently relevant in our consciousness, despite you not being physically present; i can see you’ve done the same thing with your children. perhaps recognizing the inevitability of your own transcendence, you instilled values in your children which continue to resonate through their actions and personalities.

now I am a father myself, and one day I was thinking about my own children, Prince and Paris and how I wanted them to think of me when they grow up. To be sure, I would like them to remember how I always wanted them with me wherever I went, how I always tried to put them before everything else. But there are also challenges in their lives. Because my kids are stalked by paparazzi, they can’t always go to a park or a movie with me.

So what if they grow older and resent me, and how my choices impacted their youth? Why weren’t we given an average childhood like all the other kids, they might ask? And at that moment I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves: “Our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances that he faced. He may not have been perfect, but he was a warm and decent man, who tried to give us all the love in the world.”

I hope that they will always focus on the positive things, on the sacrifices I willingly made for them, and not criticise the things they had to give up, or the errors I’ve made, and will certainly continue to make, in raising them. For we have all been someone’s child, and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts, mistakes will always occur. That’s just being human.

And when I think about this, of how I hope that my children will not judge me unkindly, and will forgive my shortcomings, I am forced to think of my own father and despite my earlier denials, I am forced to admit that he must have loved me. He did love me, and I know that.

i always forget how the ‘anniversary’ of your transcendence rolls around the time the solstice begins, and father’s day arrives… a time of change, regeneration and intergenerational connections has been marred with darkness. again, we have the silencing of a man whose children no longer have a father.

just as many children no longer have fathers, due to police or military terrorism, abandonment, abuse or illness… these men raised children on their own. these men were not the biological fathers, but they raised children with the same intent.

my heart goes out to all of you.

hopefully, all those who have lost fathers or father figures, have been provided with the proper tools to move with strength in this ever-increasingly dark world. “prepared and unashamed,” as you once sang.

love, jamilah

Posted in children, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence | 1 Comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 89)

Posted on June 14, 2011 by jamilah

as of yesterday six years ago… you were deemed ‘not guilty’ by a jury ‘of your peers’. having read the transcripts, i would have to say i concur with their decision. unfortunately, it’s one of the rare occasions justice has actually been served, both in the state of california and the whole world.

it’s really difficult for me to look at the footage from the trial. it really hurt to see the camera on you as you walked in the courtroom before the verdict was read; and watching you walk out after you were found ‘not guilty’ on all charges hurt even more… all the life had been taken out of you. obviously you were in shock, but there was another element which moved me: it was as if your faith in humanity had been shaken… i always go back to how you always said that if there were no children on this earth, you would slit your wrist, or jump out of a building. i could only imagine how you felt during the proceedings… it was a child- again- who charged you with violating his right to exist as a child. it was a child- again- who was forced to sit between you and a father’s (or mother’s) ego. to me, this is the REAL child abuse in this case.

i don’t think you were considering slitting your wrists, but again, i saw the sap of life slowly drain from the roots. by the time 13 june 2005 rolled around, your sad, beautiful, deep, large brown eyes held the presence of vacancy.

and with that, it was symbolic of the process of the facade of justice: despite the outcome of the verdict of your case, it was a long, drawn-out unnecessary process. and just as in 1993, tom sneddon served as the main prosecuting attorney in 2005. over the years there have been people such as aphrodite jones and william wagener who have chronicled sneddon’s dealings as a district attorney:

In an interview with Online Legal Review’s Ron Sweet, (Gary) Dunlap claimed that Sneddon stacked the charges against him in order to get a conviction on at least one count; apparently, this is a common occurrence in Sneddon’s office.

Santa Maria City Attorney Art Montandon recently filed a claim against the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office, alleging that they falsely accused him of bribing a defense attorney in a case that Sneddon was prosecuting. Montandon had evidence favourable to the defense and prosecutors tried to stop him from interfering by threatening to bring bribery charges against him. A judge later ruled that Sneddon’s office had no right to stop Montandon’s involvement in the case.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?noframes;read=64536

even though the masses of incidents regarding sneddon have not been promoted, just looking at how much the prosecuting team worked to alter evidence symbolizes how the ‘system’ is not supposed to work in favor for the darker peoples of this nation. no… there was a point your hue changed; still, your heart beat the blood of the motherland. for me, it was not hard to see. and of course, your ethnicity became a convenience to media organizations- when they sensed you (a black man with ‘financial power and global influence’) were a danger to ‘their’ children.

and as the anniversary for your ‘not guilty’ verdict has occurred; injustice still remains, in both the state of california (and around the world). libya is still being invaded, yemen was bombed (at the hands of u.s. tax dollars), and we are still in iraq and afghanistan. and in california, thomas mehserle (the cop who murdered oscar grant in cold blood in front of many witnesses at a BART station) was just released after 11 months of a TWO-YEAR sentence for… can you guess? INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER. despite various VIDEO RECORDINGS (and an original charge of second-degree murder with a maximum of 14 years) for murdering an unarmed black man… then claiming he meant to use his taser. obviously i just answered my own question without even asking. but let’s just imagine for one second the (los angeles county) jury saw something in the original charge. the jury obviously saw some criminally negligent behavior… and yet, judge robert j. perry decided mehserle should be released on time served in combination with ‘good conduct’.

this is not, and should not be about whose life is valued more… regardless of class, there are many ways the injustice system plays out in relation to black life. there is that ceiling very few reach (even with substantial finances). that ceiling, as i’m sure you know, bears large moral repercussions. in this system you are only of value if you make the conscious decision to relinquish a significant portion of your soul. if you choose to relinquish little to none at any given point in your career, then there is a price to pay- you either make the decision to forfeit your involvement in that system (not unlike someone like dave chapelle), or you see the ‘media/political witch-hunt’, as in your, paul robeson or jack johnson’s cases).

a person like oscar grant (or amadou diallo or eleanor bumpers or ayana jones (the 7-year old murdered in the middle of a raid gone bad)) holds no tangible value in this system; he is seen as a person with no true political power so he is expendable. it comes full circle; once you have reached the ceiling in terms of global and financial influence, you are just as expendable.

just think about that.

i think about it sometimes… i look at you, i look into those sad eyes which became void of even sadness for a moment six years ago, and it gives me relief you are in a better place. it seems like when you left, the world moved farther away from the teachings you worked to espouse; the murder of oscar grant did occur the same year you left… however, the energy around us just seems to be getting darker and darker; and the marketing tools you were so fond of utilizing became immensely personalized by international corporations instead of artists. the world’s moving at such a pace where we don’t even know what to decipher as real or hoax anymore.

which is why the hoax thing in relation to you is interesting… hoaxes are still being regarded as done by individuals as opposed to a corporate effort. who is to say this hoax was NOT created by sony, so as to gain favor with the fan base without the fan base realizing it?

there’s so much i want to say, and it all seems to travel cyclically. i keep thinking about where i am in my life, and the events which brought me to this place. it’s been a fairly draining couple of weeks- emotionally, physically and otherwise… i’m looking at my right leg, and it’s all bruised up in places i wasn’t even aware of. (oh yeah, i didn’t tell you, i flew off the bicycle. it’s a long story). i look at my leg and i think of the times i got bleaching cream put on me (and how no one really seems to remember this). it all seems unreal to me. i think about it, and i cry.

and it goes back to hoaxes… of how the facade of race (versus ethnicity) is a hoax in collaboration with economic injustice. and how so many black parents go out of their way to let their children know how undesirable they and their features are. for someone to tell you about your features- your nose, hair… anything- does irreparable damage in many cases. if not physically, mentally.

and then i think about images i saw… the image of your scalp, and the massive hair loss as a result of the second and third-degree burns. not only do i have some sympathy for the situation (since i know how it feels, to a lesser degree, to be burned- either self-inflicted or by accident); i also feel sorrow at such an event. to see the bald spot on your head gives me pause. i can’t figure out why though.

yesterday i did see an image which gave me much sorrow, yet gave me simultaneous relief. it feels somewhat like an invasion, but i’ll say it anyways. perhaps you’ll be upset with me, but i do feel it needs to be said, as it was actually the one thing which gave me closure, in relation to any discussion of your transition on this earthly plane. it was an artists’ rendering (from the autopsy report, i believe) of what you looked like upon your transcendence.

most people would say it’s a frightening photo… you see, you didn’t have any hair (as per the autopsy report), and your features were distinctly different than what people have been used to, under all the lights and altering. you did indeed see the effects of what happened to your nose. your cheeks were a bit sunken in. your eyes were both 3/4ths shut; the right eye was shut farther than the left. it looked as if you had taken a beating, mentally.

despite what i just said, there was nothing morbid about it. the beauty in the image was what i have been saying all along: your beauty has nothing to do with the facade of make-up, hair or anything. i saw a beauty there most either are not willing to, or just are not able to see: that light. i still saw light.

our essence never goes away even after our physical transcends (which is why i consciously choose the word ‘transcend’), which is how we can still feel the energy in one’s art after they go. this is how, when we speak about someone after transcendence, we feel warmth or comfort. this is how many generations after one’s transcendence still resonate with the art of those who have transcended.

your large, beautiful eyes were sadly, closed, more or less. but it gave me relief to know you are now resting. they could regenerate and observe the spirit world. i initially saw the image, and it threw me back for a moment. it amazed me. despite everything which happened over the years, and what anyone has said; you could not in any way deny the motherland living inside of you.

there is a distinct image i cannot get out of my head: upon your returning home, looking at this artists’ rendering there were those undeniable ‘jackson’ features. considering all of your medical conditions, i will not say you were in any sort of denial of your lineage. all i know is that when i saw this image, i saw how much strength truly existed in our people.

this is the undeniable beauty i saw.

before i ceased writing the book, i wrote about moving beyond your looks when it comes to your beauty. and writing about this artists’ rendering i realize it’s much more difficult to write about something you cannot capture in words. all i know is that the image was the most truthful thing which came out of all of this sensational drama regarding your transcendence.

because you are still teaching us a lesson. we’re just not collectively ready to accept it. i hope to continue work on focusing more energy towards these teachings.

thank you for being here. and there.

love, jamilah