Black Intel

I have never been a big fan of Michael Jackson but my heart burst with sadness when I heard of his death. Beginning in 1969, I grew up with Michael and his brothers as the first, most visible promise of our post-Civil Rights generation.
Yet, in the ensuing decades, Michael embodied, instead, a dream deferred, a shooting star that gleamed brightly in the distance but was, at the same time, engulfed in flame. His body—cut, hacked, chemically peeled and altered—became a walking-talking Rorschach test for American society, as well as a symbol for the self-inflicted crucifixion of the Black body.
By Esther Iverem—SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic