Before you judge me, try hard to love me

"Before you judge me, try hard to love me," Michael sings in the video Have you seen my childhood? He sits on the grassy knoll, arms wrapped around his knees. His hair short and curly, like Peter Pan's. His face is rapt and full of wonder as he watches children - multiracial boys and girls - float through starry sky in little boats. If you want to know about my life, look at this video, he has said. What does he see? What do we? A man who wants to androgynous and beyond race? An artist of genius who has given us acute excitement and pleasure? A willful celebrity who wants everything his way, yet insists that everyone love him unconditionally? A man driven to shed his identity, while denying what pains him? Our man in the mirror? Or a creature we no longer wish to acknowledge? Michael Jackson speaks to and for the monstrous child in us all.

From the book:
On Michael Jackson, Margo Jefferson

What does this mean? Does the author condemn or accept Michael Jackson? Is it alright to be child-like when you are an adult? Is it alright to be able to go to the level of children, and understand them, not the way an adult understands a child, but to undestand them as if you were still a child? Is it possible? Is it healthy, or is it sick? I am just wondering. What does it mean to love children, to love playing with children, to enjoy children's company more than company of adults? Is the desire to be surrounded by children a sign on hidden peadofilia? I am just wondering. But, the author in the cited paraghraph also says something like: What does he see? Yep, what does he see? Can a person who never had a childhood be trapped in perpetual child? What was it like to be Michael Jackson when he was 5 years, 9 years, 12 years old? Do we know? Who knows? Everyone's experience is unique, but we know that Michael Jackson was denied to be a child. He said that he cried when he saw children just playing in the playground while he had to get ready to go on a tour. More than that, he was physically abused and verbally humiliated by his father for being himself, for looking the way he looked. There must be some agreement out there, that it was a horrible experience: not feeling loved, not feeling accepted, not feeling free. I am just wondering. The reason for that is the huge impact that Michael Jackson had on me and my life since he died. As if his energy just spread as a Big Bang all over the world, unifying those who knew him and those who did not so much, those who were die hard fans and those like me, who were just bystanders, unifying all of us and reminding us: Talk to the man in the mirror, do not be afraid to be a child again, and dance, dance, dance. Dance to the music that will lift your spirits up and make you the better person for the better world.