Michael Jackson ... Once

OK. I have not written about Michael Jackson because I don’t really care about celebrities and their trials. I am not into pop culture. But now that the verdict is in, I will make some comments about Jackson, the trial, justice and the media circus.

To understand this case, and the jury verdict, it’s important to separate two issues: (1) is Jackson a pedophile and (2) did he molest the 13-year-old Gavin Arviso?

The widespread assumption is that Jackson is a pedophile and therefore molested Arviso. If Jackson were not a pedophile, why would he invite little boys to share his bed? Unfortunately for the prosecution, the jury was not asked to determine if he was a pedophile, they were asked to find specifically if he molested Gavin Arviso. The jury found that the direct testimony of the accuser and his mother was not sufficiently credible and acquitted Jackson.

I believe the jury did a credible job. In Jackson they had a defendant who raised conflicting emotions. To his fans, Jackson is one of the most famous personalities in the world and a great artist, the object of adoration. To most other people, Jackson is grotesque; a surgical freak who dresses bizarrely and who invites little boys into his bed. He deserves to be put away on general priciples.

Here is my own theory about Jackson, a person who I have never met and whose life I care little about. Michael Jackson is a little boy inhabiting the body of a 46 year-old man. He never had a childhood, as we understand that phase. Brought onto the stage by a demanding family, he has been a pop super star since he was a pre-teen. Jackson is not normal now and he has never been normal.

But he did become incredibly rich.

Think about Neverland. It’s not the creation of a middle-aged man. Jackson used his wealth to create a personal children’s park for himself with all of the things that a little boy would want: his own personal Disneyland with amusement park rides, animals … and little friends. Little friends his own emotional age in a desperate, bizarre attempt to create a childhood he never had, complete with milk, cookies and sleepovers.

To normal people, inviting young boys to sleep in an adult male’s bed is not just bizarre, it’s perverted. But if you are a 12 year-old inhabiting a 46 year-old body, hard as it may be to understand, it’s just possible that, as Michael Jackson said: “it’s not sexual.”

Call me naive, call me blind to the obvious, but to send someone to jail to 20 years should take more than a well-deserved reputation for being a rich freak with strange tastes.

I think justice was served.