aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, June 17, 2005

Michael Jackson’s innocence

I come late to the Michael Jackson commentary, and paid very little attention to the Jackson trial, but a couple persuasive articles and the many incredulous “reporters” compel me to do it.

I’ve never believed Michael Jackson was a pedophile. To begin with, he doesn’t fit the profile...it doesn’t ring true in psychological terms. Whether or not he has ever touched a boy inappropriately, Michael Jackson seems too emotionally stunted to act in any grown-up way, including a deviant sexual one. Naive, juvenile, and terribly damaged, he seems pathetically incapable not just of criminal intent, but of adult consciousness.

People tend to throw up hands at Michael Jackson’s multifarious bizarreness. But is it really so strange? The boy was forced to work by a cruel and physically abusive father starting at the age of 7. (If he’d been sent into a factory or coal mine, instead of onstage, we’d have more compassion for him.) As a boy, he was denied what even most abused and underprivileged children have: school, friends, and play.

That’s Jacob Weisberg in his Slate article, Arrested Development. His case has convinced me. I’m equally convinced by Andrew Vachss, a lawyer who represents children, in his NYTimes OpEd, Unsafe at Any Age. He observes that for all the commentary, the case signals no new wave of concern about child protection:

IN the months since charges were filed, I have heard people profess intense anguish that Michael Jackson might “get away with it.” Each time, I asked these people what other possible miscarriages of justice concerned them, past or present? I asked if they knew that in many states, including New York and California, the penalties for sexual abuse of one’s own child are markedly less than those for abusing an unrelated child. I asked each of them if this incest loophole also provoked their outrage; if they were prepared to actually do anything to change such laws. Not one ever answered.

[...]

What does the Michael Jackson verdict mean to the future of child protection in America? Nothing. The verdict only underscores one fundamental, persistent truth: when it comes to child sexual abuse, from public perception to prosecution, nothing has changed. Nothing at all.

Finally, I did catch some of the journalists’ badgering of the Jackson jurors. Kos singles out CNN’s Nancy Grace. I saw her in action and agree. I’d also add Catherine Crier and Diane Diamond to the list.