One Final Thought On Michael Jackson

I know that the last thing you want to hear about right now is Michael Jackson, but now that the Michael Jackson funeral circus is over, I think it's important that we cut through the celebrity cult crap and look at some hard cold reality.

If I hear one more time that Jackson "broke color barriers," I may scream. The only color barrier Michael Jackson broke was in his own skin going from black to white.

Many kept repeating that Jackson was the first artist on MTV, and how groundbreaking that was. As if MTV would never have played black artist's videos if not for Michael. Please. MTV sees only one color, and that color is green. They would and will play artists that make them money. Skin color was never an issue. And by the way, was Michael the first black artist on MTV? I seem to remember Prince with his "1999", Tina Turner, and Donna Summer before Michael.

His death, his funeral, and the entire coverage of it seemed to gloss over the fact that he had been accused of sexually molesting little boys. With the best lawyers money could buy, he was acquitted of these charges. But I find it hard to believe that anyone who followed the trial, the testimonies of the boys who claimed to have been molested by Jackson over the years, and the documentary entitled "Living with Michael Jackson" by British journalist Martin Bashir, could conceivably doubt Jackson's guilt.

Many believe he is innocent. I get that. But what it clear is that Michael Jackson was a drug addict who couldn't even sleep at night with out a drug so powerful that is used to put patients asleep for surgery. Do you wonder why he found it so hard to sleep? Guilt is a difficult thing to live with.

He spent hundreds of millions of dollars on himself. He blew through his vast wealth until he was in debt. He butchered his nose through plastic surgery until he hardly had one. In the end he looked like a mime artist, with his white face and painted features.

He was talented, no doubt. But he was a sad broken man in a hundred different ways. He in no way deserved some "House resolution" as proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to honor Jackson as "an American legend."

My heart goes out to his children and to his family, but that shouldn't keep us from facing the reality that was his life. Pretending that he was some great humanitarian dishonors those who really do live a life of unselfishness and caring for others.

I'm sure to those who loved him, he was a sweet man. But there was a darkness there. Everyone could see that.

I'm sick of this celebrity cult in our society. Nothing defined that more than Jackson's funeral. Holding him up as some historical figure of greatness was ridiculous and embarassing.

After all that we were practically forced to watch with wall to wall coverage, I just felt that this, as harsh as it seems to be, needed to be said.