Michael Jackson: Critical Reflection on a Life and a Phenomenon | Center For Race Gender

Title	Summary	Watch Now
Moonwalking	An original poem by spoken word performance artist and national poetry slam winner, Blair.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Profit Without Honor: Michael Jackson In & Out of America, 1984-2009	Regina Arnold reflects on the politics of rock concerts and Michael Jackson's performances in the U.S. and abroad. She asks why Jackson, a rare African American rockstar who could sell out stadiums, didn't pursue more concerts in America as a source of profit.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Who's Bad?: Michael Jackson's Movements	Meghan Pugh, PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley English Department, explores Jackson's dancing in the context of debates about race, gender, and American dance history. Jackson drew on a rich tradition of black vernacular dancing stretching back to the nineteenth-century, when Billy Kersands first did the Virginia Essence—the sliding, backwards step Jackson would make his own as the moonwalk—on the minstrel stage. Jackson also channeled the thrusting pelvis and wobbly hips of Elvis, a white man famous for singing like a black man. See a full slideshow of Meghan's retrospective of Michael Jackson and dance here: http://www.ew.com/ew/package/0,,20288349_20289412,00.html	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Michael, Michael, On The Line	Cecilia Lucas draws on Jackson's music, dance, films, and interviews, as well as on visual and discursive representations of him created by others to reflects on the possibilities and pitfalls of trans-politics, trans-discourses, and trans-performances for progressive artists, activists and academics.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Ghosts	An original poem by spoken word performance artist and national poetry slam winner, Blair.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Working Day and Night': Performing Black Manhood as the King of Pop	Prof. Adreanna Clay recounts a 1969 television appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, where a child Michael Jackson leads his brothers in a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Who’s Lovin’ You,” singing lyrics about love lost on the playground. However, through this skillful portrayal of an adult male mourning the loss of his true love, he was accepted as a man. In her talk, Clay argues that the public’s sexualization and later disposal of Michael Jackson as a Black male in the public sphere, mirrors the spectacularization of Black men and Black male bodies in popular culture and discourse.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
I'm Not Gonna Spend My Life Being A Color	In this presentation, Professor Tamara Roberts, UC Berkeley, suggest that instead of reading Jackson’s artistic journey as one from black to white, we instead look at the ways he muddied the divide between dominant conceptions of what constitutes “white” and “black” music. To explore this idea, she discusses some of Jackson’s musical strategies that diverge from the standards of the various African American traditions he incorporated into his work. Instead of simply performing pop music that is “whiter,” Roberts argues that Jackson’s work can more productively be read as a particular vein of more experimental, “Afrofuturistic” musical practice.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Michael Jackson: The Original Post Racial Soul Brother	Michael Jackson emerged in the 1970s, when black popular culture was straddling the contradictory impulses toward the celebration of an essentialized black identity and the desires of many for non-threatening - non-racial - popular acceptance. As Dr. Ricky Vincent argues, Mr. Jackson was to become the world’s greatest interpreter of black styles, from soul to disco to pop and even hip hop, a great unifier, utilizing the talents of popular stars from outside of the black music world such as Paul McCartney, Eddie Van Halen and Vincent Price on Jackson’s landmark “Thriller” album.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Halftime, Superbowl	An original spoken word poem written and performed by National Poetry Slam winner, Blair	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Into Darkness	An original poem by spoken word performance artist and national poetry slam winner, Blair.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Joe Jackson Replies to the BBC	An original poem by spoken word performance artist and national poetry slam winner, Blair.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Neverland Ranch	An original poem by spoken word performance artist and national poetry slam winner, Blair.	You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
This is Not It: Recognizing Michael Jackson(TM) In What Remains		You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.