“People are being asked to grapple with trauma, actual harm, inflicted on living human beings by a dead man who is not merely beloved. He was unparalleled,” said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African American studies at Duke University, who saw his first Jackson concert in 1971.
“It is, for many people a heavy, heavy lift to even consider muting Michael Jackson or changing the way we think about him to include predator,” said Neal, who wrote a book entitled “Songs in the Key of Black Life” and teaches a course on Jackson and his art. “Unlike an R. Kelly, Michael was an iconic global figure. There is no one like him.”
Department of African & African American Studies
