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Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.
I would post about this on Facebook, where it might be seen by more people, except that I deleted my Facebook last month, making LiveJournal the only social media account I still have. Well, I have been gripped by the need to post something about this somewhere, so LiveJournal it is.
As you may know, child sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson have been making headlines again, mostly due to the recent airing of the "documentary" Leaving Neverland. I've talked about MJ in a number of LiveJournal entries, but I don't think I've ever come right out and said what I think about the allegations. This is mainly because back in 2009 when I wrote that long entry about him, I honestly wasn't sure what I thought. I didn't really feel that the allegations were true, and I knew he had been acquitted in court, but I didn't know much about the 1993 allegations and during the 2005 trial I had been too busy with school to seek out any information beyond what was being reported on the news every night. Well, since June 2009 I have spent I don't even know how many hours reading up on the allegations, and I can now say that I am very confident in my belief that Michael Jackson is innocent. Once you start reading beyond the salacious headlines, what you find is honestly ridiculous. Allegations that keep changing, stories full of inconsistencies, stories that contradict the stories of other accusers, stories that are obviously based on fictional adaptations of the stories of previous accusers, timelines that don't make sense - adult accusers and parents of accusers who have strong financial motivations and histories of extorting businesses and celebrities - prosecution witnesses who crumble under cross-examination - prosecution witnesses who don't even have anything negative to say about Jackson - a number of credible defense witnesses who testified that they never witnessed anything inappropriate - and multiple thorough and lengthy searches and investigations conducted by multiple agencies (including the FBI) that spanned a decade and found absolutely nothing.
Nevertheless, even though ten years ago this summer blogs and newspapers and magazines were full to bursting with articles lamenting the fact that we had this artistic genius and we treated him like garbage, here's that same garbage back again. It's infuriating and it's exhausting, but I am very impressed with the effort MJ's family and fans (and non-fans!) have been putting into defending him over the past few months. They haven't been allowed much airtime in the mainstream media, but on Twitter and YouTube and their own web sites they've been going strong and not giving up at all. Here are links to only a small portion of the work that's been done (with a warning that some of these sources are very specific about the alleged acts):
· The Michael Jackson Allegations: This site looks at all of the allegations very thoroughly and with tons of citations so you always know where the information comes from. The site is being updated frequently and the site creators have also started to produce YouTube videos, one of which is Leaving Neverland: Echoes of a Pedophilia Apologist, which looks at the creepily pro-pedophilia comments the director of Leaving Neverland has been making in interviews. Another gross layer on this disgusting tale.
· Leaving Neverland: Top 10 Reasons Michael Jackson was Innocent: If you don't have a whole day to spend going through the above site, this six-minute video does a good job of summing up the problems with the allegations.
· What the media refuses to tell you about Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland & the allegations of child molestation: This article does a great job of explaining how the allegations came about and why they are unlikely to be true. Also, as someone who constantly assumes that people are experts on whatever it is they're talking about, I appreciate the reminder that most of the people currently writing about the allegations have not studied Jackson’s fifty-year career as an entertainer, nor do they know or care about his philanthropic work, his efforts to fight against social injustice, to break down racial barriers, cure diseases, end inequality, and to raise awareness about a multitude of other important issues including—yes including—the abuse and mistreatment of children. And most importantly, they have not studied the allegations made against Jackson and cannot reference trial transcripts, court documents, taped calls, physical evidence, the FBI file, or any of the items crucial to understanding the cases.
· The New Lynching of Michael Jackson: Dan Reed's Leaving Neverland May, In Fact, Leave Blood on Many Hands: This article looks at the issues with the allegations presented in Leaving Neverland as well as their racial aspect. It talks about how HBO, in airing the "documentary," has broken a contract they signed when they were given the rights to air a concert from MJ's Dangerous tour. It has since been announced that the Michael Jackson Estate will see HBO in court on June 26, 2019, a bit of an unsettling date since that will be ten years and one day after MJ's death. This article also goes into the theory that Leaving Neverland's release was timed specifically to distract from a documentary about and the trial of Harvey Weinstein. That allegations about Jackson are coming up again at all is awful, but the idea that they've been specially selected and timed to act as a distraction from the alleged crimes of someone who is currently on trial - and not dead - honestly makes this whole mess a hundred times more infuriating. But I mean, why else would Leaving Neverland be four hours long? And extremely graphic? And immediately followed by a one-hour interview hosted by Weinstein's friend Oprah in which she doesn't question the allegations in any way? I'm not one for conspiracy theories but there is a lot going on here that is very weird.
· The Michael Jackson Innocent Project's YouTube channel: An in-progress series of videos looking at various aspects of the allegations. I was especially impressed with their twenty-minute video about the 1993 settlement, why it was paid, and the fact that it was not the reason there wasn't a criminal trial.
· Mean Machine's YouTube channel: Another continuing video series about the allegations. The fifteen-minute video Leaving Neverland and Michael Jackson: The Media Octopus takes a look at how swift and intense the media reaction to this "documentary" about a dead black man has been, while the alleged crimes of white guys who are still alive have been almost completely ignored in comparison.
· One of the Most Shameful Episodes in Journalistic History: This article is only about the 2005 trial, but it does a fantastic job of examining the way that the mainstream media spent more than a year acting as though the prosecution was going to win even as their case was falling apart in the courtroom. There is a half-hour video version of this article on YouTube.
One last thought. Part of the response to Leaving Neverland has been discussions about whether or not it's still okay to listen to MJ, whether or not his music should be played on the radio, whether or not he should be included in museums, whether or not this will be the end of his legacy. I hate every one of these discussions because they are based in emotional reactions to a manipulative movie, not in the actual facts of the cases. But I also find them kind of funny. The fact that Michael Jackson changed popular music and dance is indisputable. He smashed records, he broke through racial barriers. He's a part of the soundtrack of multiple generations the whole world over. Last year he was, once again, the highest-earning dead celebrity, earning ten times more than Elvis Presley, who came in second. Just last month his Super Bowl performance was being shared all over the Internet under titles like The best Super Bowl halftime ever, by the greatest performer of all time and A friendly reminder of that time Michael made Super Bowl history. I have once or twice stumbled across the theory that without Michael Jackson, there would never have been President Obama. Take MJ off the radio if you want, but his legacy is so deeply embedded in music and culture and history that it's inextricable. He's alive and he's here forever.
As you may know, child sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson have been making headlines again, mostly due to the recent airing of the "documentary" Leaving Neverland. I've talked about MJ in a number of LiveJournal entries, but I don't think I've ever come right out and said what I think about the allegations. This is mainly because back in 2009 when I wrote that long entry about him, I honestly wasn't sure what I thought. I didn't really feel that the allegations were true, and I knew he had been acquitted in court, but I didn't know much about the 1993 allegations and during the 2005 trial I had been too busy with school to seek out any information beyond what was being reported on the news every night. Well, since June 2009 I have spent I don't even know how many hours reading up on the allegations, and I can now say that I am very confident in my belief that Michael Jackson is innocent. Once you start reading beyond the salacious headlines, what you find is honestly ridiculous. Allegations that keep changing, stories full of inconsistencies, stories that contradict the stories of other accusers, stories that are obviously based on fictional adaptations of the stories of previous accusers, timelines that don't make sense - adult accusers and parents of accusers who have strong financial motivations and histories of extorting businesses and celebrities - prosecution witnesses who crumble under cross-examination - prosecution witnesses who don't even have anything negative to say about Jackson - a number of credible defense witnesses who testified that they never witnessed anything inappropriate - and multiple thorough and lengthy searches and investigations conducted by multiple agencies (including the FBI) that spanned a decade and found absolutely nothing.
Nevertheless, even though ten years ago this summer blogs and newspapers and magazines were full to bursting with articles lamenting the fact that we had this artistic genius and we treated him like garbage, here's that same garbage back again. It's infuriating and it's exhausting, but I am very impressed with the effort MJ's family and fans (and non-fans!) have been putting into defending him over the past few months. They haven't been allowed much airtime in the mainstream media, but on Twitter and YouTube and their own web sites they've been going strong and not giving up at all. Here are links to only a small portion of the work that's been done (with a warning that some of these sources are very specific about the alleged acts):
· The Michael Jackson Allegations: This site looks at all of the allegations very thoroughly and with tons of citations so you always know where the information comes from. The site is being updated frequently and the site creators have also started to produce YouTube videos, one of which is Leaving Neverland: Echoes of a Pedophilia Apologist, which looks at the creepily pro-pedophilia comments the director of Leaving Neverland has been making in interviews. Another gross layer on this disgusting tale.
· Leaving Neverland: Top 10 Reasons Michael Jackson was Innocent: If you don't have a whole day to spend going through the above site, this six-minute video does a good job of summing up the problems with the allegations.
· What the media refuses to tell you about Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland & the allegations of child molestation: This article does a great job of explaining how the allegations came about and why they are unlikely to be true. Also, as someone who constantly assumes that people are experts on whatever it is they're talking about, I appreciate the reminder that most of the people currently writing about the allegations have not studied Jackson’s fifty-year career as an entertainer, nor do they know or care about his philanthropic work, his efforts to fight against social injustice, to break down racial barriers, cure diseases, end inequality, and to raise awareness about a multitude of other important issues including—yes including—the abuse and mistreatment of children. And most importantly, they have not studied the allegations made against Jackson and cannot reference trial transcripts, court documents, taped calls, physical evidence, the FBI file, or any of the items crucial to understanding the cases.
· The New Lynching of Michael Jackson: Dan Reed's Leaving Neverland May, In Fact, Leave Blood on Many Hands: This article looks at the issues with the allegations presented in Leaving Neverland as well as their racial aspect. It talks about how HBO, in airing the "documentary," has broken a contract they signed when they were given the rights to air a concert from MJ's Dangerous tour. It has since been announced that the Michael Jackson Estate will see HBO in court on June 26, 2019, a bit of an unsettling date since that will be ten years and one day after MJ's death. This article also goes into the theory that Leaving Neverland's release was timed specifically to distract from a documentary about and the trial of Harvey Weinstein. That allegations about Jackson are coming up again at all is awful, but the idea that they've been specially selected and timed to act as a distraction from the alleged crimes of someone who is currently on trial - and not dead - honestly makes this whole mess a hundred times more infuriating. But I mean, why else would Leaving Neverland be four hours long? And extremely graphic? And immediately followed by a one-hour interview hosted by Weinstein's friend Oprah in which she doesn't question the allegations in any way? I'm not one for conspiracy theories but there is a lot going on here that is very weird.
· The Michael Jackson Innocent Project's YouTube channel: An in-progress series of videos looking at various aspects of the allegations. I was especially impressed with their twenty-minute video about the 1993 settlement, why it was paid, and the fact that it was not the reason there wasn't a criminal trial.
· Mean Machine's YouTube channel: Another continuing video series about the allegations. The fifteen-minute video Leaving Neverland and Michael Jackson: The Media Octopus takes a look at how swift and intense the media reaction to this "documentary" about a dead black man has been, while the alleged crimes of white guys who are still alive have been almost completely ignored in comparison.
· One of the Most Shameful Episodes in Journalistic History: This article is only about the 2005 trial, but it does a fantastic job of examining the way that the mainstream media spent more than a year acting as though the prosecution was going to win even as their case was falling apart in the courtroom. There is a half-hour video version of this article on YouTube.
One last thought. Part of the response to Leaving Neverland has been discussions about whether or not it's still okay to listen to MJ, whether or not his music should be played on the radio, whether or not he should be included in museums, whether or not this will be the end of his legacy. I hate every one of these discussions because they are based in emotional reactions to a manipulative movie, not in the actual facts of the cases. But I also find them kind of funny. The fact that Michael Jackson changed popular music and dance is indisputable. He smashed records, he broke through racial barriers. He's a part of the soundtrack of multiple generations the whole world over. Last year he was, once again, the highest-earning dead celebrity, earning ten times more than Elvis Presley, who came in second. Just last month his Super Bowl performance was being shared all over the Internet under titles like The best Super Bowl halftime ever, by the greatest performer of all time and A friendly reminder of that time Michael made Super Bowl history. I have once or twice stumbled across the theory that without Michael Jackson, there would never have been President Obama. Take MJ off the radio if you want, but his legacy is so deeply embedded in music and culture and history that it's inextricable. He's alive and he's here forever.