There's been a lot of talk and speculation -- and possibly even some facts, though I haven't seen them -- indicating that some or all of Michael Jackson's children aren't biologically his.
I don't know who their gene daddy is, or what DNA mashup was the genesis of the Jackson kids. The consensus is that they are gorgeous and poised now that we've seen them quite literally unveiled.
What IRKS me are the people who blabber on about what kids of color (not black, not white, but the colorful ones) (what I long ago on this blog called extraethnic, which maybe should have been intraethnic, or interethnic, or just plain KIDS, hello, I don't know) SHOULD look like. (p.s. we're all mixed; deal with it.)
"Those kids are not his. No way. YOU should know what mixed kids look like--those are not mixed kids," one mom with a son of mixed heritage said to me last week.
I was like, um, I don't get it. True, they could quite possibly not be his. They could be his. They could not be his. I can't tell you.
Someone else today said to me, "Those kids aren't his. They are not mixed."
Sure, Paris with her blue eyes, it's a long shot genetically speaking, but it's not unheard of. I haven't seen ALL the Jackson relatives. I don't presume to know. Why should any of us presume to know?
I've seen every permutation of DNA, every hue, every hair type mixed with every melanin level, every highlight, freckle, and eye color combination imaginable in my 25 years as a card-carrying member of the 'mixed relationship' club.
Even if they're not Michael's biological kids, does that mean the father was Caucasian?
What would you like to do, say, "Turn her hands palm up and let's see if she's mixed"? I'm here to tell you, you still wouldn't know.
I'm not saying that these kids are biologically Michael Jackson's or that they aren't, and I'm not bothered that people have OPINIONS because goodness knows this is the Interweb and without an opinion you might as well stay home...
BUT...
...don't tell me what specific qualities of appearance a growing child, a child in media res, needs to demonstrate in order to be defined as non-white.
Identity is precious and takes decades to develop - we're lucky if we figure out our personal configurations while we're sti
ll on this planet. Identity is nothing to be toyed with, except by its owner. Or maybe it is.
So I say, ask a white-black middleman, ask me, ask someone you know, or ask no one, but definitely ask yourself this: What are your preconceptions of what mixed kids look like, what defines mixed, and where did you get the information? What if you're wrong? What if white is black and black is white?
What if Jesus had hair like wool and skin the color of copper like it says in your Bible, not blue eyes and locks of gold?
Who's identity are you really unsure about? Really?
Maybe its the man in the mirror's.
July 08, 2009
The Kid Is So My Son
June 27, 2009
have you SEEN my childhood?
Michael Jackson called this song his autobiography. It is.
Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for the world that I come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
No one understands me
They view it as such strange eccentricities...
'Cause I keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me...
People say I'm not okay
'Cause I love such elementary things...
It's been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood
I've never known...
Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates in adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne...
Before you judge me, try hard to love me,
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my Childhood?
People say I'm strange that way
'Cause I love such elementary things,
It's been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood I've never known...
Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly...
Before you judge me, try hard to love me.
The painful youth I've had
Have you seen my Childhood....
June 08, 2009
June 07, 2009
News Shift - This Century So Far According to Google News and the Wayback Machine
I was thinking tonight, looking over the hot topics on Google News, how even though "things" have gotten worse since the economy fell into disarray, "things" somehow don't seem as bad as "things" were when the Bush-Cheney-Fox-News team blasted catastrophe 24x7, without ceasing, without fail, during the 'war on terror era.'
Even with a real catastrophe on our hands today, with a bi-polar economy in need of lasting stabilization, the Obama political machine has found a way to keep the hot topics less dramatic, less hysterical, less frightening. And the media (Fox news notwithstanding) has obliged.
In The News
Do what I did tonight and use the Wayback Machine to take a look at Google News past.
It's a little bit fun. A little bit interesting. A little bit scary.
But not as scary as it used to be.
June 01, 2009
Hamster Genitalia
Judging by my referrer log tonight (right sidebar), someone is (one might call it "disturbingly") obsessed with hamster sex.
Frank, give it a rest for tonight.
I'm just sayin'.
TWITTER: Men on Men Action!
New Harvard Research suggests a Man of Twitter (MOT) is almost twice as likely to follow another MOT than a Woman of Twitter (WOT).
And in other news, Hell is still HOT.
The NEWS to me is that Harvard finds this trend stunning:
These results are stunning given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks i. On a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women - men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they know. Generally, men receive comparatively little attention from other men or from women. We wonder to what extent this pattern of results arises because men and women find the content produced by other men on Twitter more compelling than on a typical social network, and men find the content produced by women less compelling (because of a lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies, etc.).
Huh? Remember the pre-historic era of blogrolls? Remember the echo chamber? Remember Aggregators and top feeds? Remember Techmeme? Twitter is not a new Internet, it's just a new node with the same tendencies and hierarchies (and patriarchies) replicated in 140 characters. I really don't GET the assumption that men usually follow/read/link-to women, and that women do the same. It's just not true. Not online, not offline, not never.
An interesting fact to me is the sheer velocity of popularity on twitter, and how ACTIVITY (not content) may be what drives follows:
Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.
That may mean that tweeting OBNOXIOUSLY OFTEN gets you somewhere on Twitter. But then, I think we already knew that.
