Prejudice, Injustice, Strength to Persevere

Michael Jackson in his book "Moonwalk 

"He had just done an interview with Diane Sawyer where he took her on a tour of his Neverland ranche. He said he was as honest with her as anybody could possibly be, and the next day the press jumped on him. He had tears in his eyes. He said, ´I don´t know what to do anymore.´ He was very missunderstood. They talk about him being a paedophile. I can tell you, that didn´t happen. He was very childlike. I thought he was like a gentle butterfly." 

Dick Zimmerman

"Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."

Michael Jackson

"It doesn’t have to be true to be believed. Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it."

Michael Jackson

"

"I can't help but pick up on some of the criticism leveled at me at times. Journalists seem willing to say anything to sell a paper. They say I've had my eyes widened, that I want to look more white. More white? What kind of statement is that? I didn't invent plastic surgery. It's been around for a long time. A lot of very fine, very nice people have had plastic surgery. No one writes about their surgery and levies such criticism at them. It's not fair. Most of what they print is a fabrication. It's enough to make you want to ask, ´What happened to truth? Did it go out of style?´"

Michael Jackson

"I told the truth and told them everything about me and they twisted it around. I don´t know what to do anymore. I tell the truth and it doesn´t work."

Michael Jackson

For a man that had been broken by so many false allegations and betrayed by so many, the Michael I met and knew was still so beautifully true to himself. So generous and kind, someone so amazing you didn’t even think could exist. But he did exist and he was that amazing!

— SamanthaDGosson (@SamanthaDGosson) February 22, 2019

„It would amaze you the way people hurt him. What amazes me even more is his willingness to forgive. He acknowledges their frailty, and he allows it to eat away at him. Can you blame him for wanting to be surrounded by the innocence and purity of children? The light in their eyes is what he wants to keep alive in his own soul.”

“In a way, Michael is not of this world.”

Brooke Shields

Michael Jackson in his song Is It Scary:

(...) I'm gonna be exactly what you wanna see, it's you whose haunting me (...)

Am I amusing you or just confusing you, am I the beast you visualized

And if you wanna to see eccentrialities I'll be grotesque before your eyes, let them all materialize

(...)

 I'm gonna be exactly what you gonna see, so did you come to me to see your fantasies performed before your very eyes 

A haunting ghostly treat, the foolish trickery and spirits dancing in the light

But if you came to see the truth the purity, it's here inside a lonely heart

(...) Masquerade the heart is the height of haunting souls, just not what you seek of me

Can the heart reveal the proof like a mirror reveals the truth, see the evil one is you

(...) 
Am I scary for you, I'm tired of being abused, you know you're scaring me too, I see the evil is you, is it scary for you baby

"There’s a lot of jealousy there. I love all races, I love all people, but sometimes there’s a devil in people, and they get jealous. Every time there’s a luminary that goes beyond the heights of his field of endeavor, people tend to get jealous and try to bring him down. But they can’t with me because I’m very, very, very strong."

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson´s song Xscape:

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: All the pain that you have to endured with all the attacks, and I have seen it first hand, and I say to people, so much of the garbage that is said about you is invented and unfair. So why haven´t you just become a cynical adult, and thrown in the towel?

Michael Jackson: I´ll tel you. Because with the pain, and arrows that people have shot at me nobody else would have been able to take it. They would have probably commited suicide by now... they would have become a drunk. Because they have been very cruel and rude to me. And if they don´t think I hear it and see it, I do. I do. It´s been the children. I am holding on for them or else I wouldn´t made it. I really wouldn´t have made it.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: The children have given you the support to continue? Or are you saying you continue because you believe that God gave you a mission to try and care for these neglected children?

Michael Jackson: God gave me a mission, I feel, to do something for them and they have given me support and the belief and the love to hold on, hold on. When I look in the mirror, I feel healed all over again. It´s like being baptized. It´s like God saying, "Michael, everything will be ok," when I look in the eyes of a child.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: So as far as you are concerned, you seem to be sayin, that you have been completed every mission apart from your greatest mission and you are hanging on for that great mission and that is that you can bring care to children. Does that mean that you no longer have the same musical ambitions?  

Michael Jackson: Are you kidding? It is heightened a trillion-fold now, from dancing to music, it inspires me even more now.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: But can you show love to adults, do you still trust adults?

Michael Jackson: I trust adults...

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: But you are still wary initially... you have to be.

Michael Jackson: Yes, because they have really betrayed and deceived me in so many different ways and at so many different times. I have had adults with tears coming down their face, saying Ít´s a shame what you have been through and I would never ever ever ever hurt you or do anything. And they turn around and they hurt me. Honestly, that´s the kind of crap I´ve been through... tears rolling down and hugging me. And they end up a year later suing me over something ridiculous... like a photographer over some pictures, or some person who gets terminated and I didn´t terminate them, but I get sued by them, but I didn´t do it. This is the sort of silliness.

Michael Jackson in his song Ghosts:

(...) You put a knife in my back
Shot an arrow in me!
Tell me are you the ghost of jealousy (...)

“So many people were trying to exploit Michael Jackson... get mementos from him. Michael had trouble getting close to people, because he would think he had a friend and he would try to be a good human being to someone, and the next thing he knew, they were suing him, they'd recorded him without him knowing it. And I think that is was one of the reasons he felt so comfortable with the world's children [whom he tried to help] and with animals. He was a sensitive, kind, decent, creative genius... even during the [2005] trial, I can't tell you how many celebrities who he thought were his friends, in his darkest hour, didn't want to help out. And it was very, very painful and crushing to him. Now the exception to that are Chris Tucker and Macaulay Culkin. Two people I will always have respect for. Both of those guys said to me in no uncertain terms, "When Michael needs us, we're going to be there. Just tell us when.”

Thomas Mesereau, Jr.

"[…] The guy is acquitted on ten counts of child molestation. No one said, ‘Sorry Michael.’ No one said, ‘Michael, we knew you were innocent.’ No one did a BET tribute to him then. Nobody played his music and did a marathon then. Nobody rallied up and did a concert. Why should Michael have to go on tour to raise money? How come all of the artists didn’t band together and say, ‘Hey! You know what? Let’s do a tour like Michael did the We Are The World Tour and let’s raise some money. Let’s get this thing going.’ No one did that. Tookie Williams is the founder of the crips gang. They were trying to get him pardoned from the death penalty and half of Hollywood showed up for this man. What I can’t understand is like, ok people didn’t want to go near Michael Jackson when he was in trouble. But they show up for a guy who executed families. A little girl begged for her life and he executed her. They said because he wrote in his time in prison he wrote children’s books that he tried to turn his life around. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, how about the millions of children Michael Jackson has helped over the span of his career? Yet two children come with some false allegations and those two children become the two children that destroy him. It’s crazy.

[…] No one talks about when he did the Victory tour, I remember as a kid Michael being on tour with the Victory tour right? And every night on the news they would announce that Michael Jackson donated his money from every city that he did, he donated it to a new charity. He donated his money from the Victory tour to charities. I thought that was amazing. I’m like, wow! This guy’s donating millions of dollars every night to a new charity. Then he would stop in every city and every city he would stop at a hospital and visit kids that were burned, ill or whatever. He took the time to do all that."

Cory Rooney, songwriter, record producer, Epic’s Vice President of A&R; source: https://thesportsinterview.com

"You can see it in their eyes. You´re being judged. People are looking through you - not even at you but through you. They´re thinking about all that crap. It´so far from the truth. That hurts."

Michael Jackson

"I love ´Pretty Young Thing,´ which was written by Quincy and James Ingram. ´Don't Stop Till You Get Enough´ had whetted my appetite for the spoken intro, partly because I didn't think my speaking voice was something my singing needed to hide. I have always had a soft speaking voice. I haven't cultivated it or chemically altered it: that's me - take it or leave it. Imagine what it must be like to be criticised for something about yourself that is natural and God given. Imagine the hurt of having untruths spread by the press, of having people wonder if you're telling the truth - defending yourself because someone decided it would make good copy and would force you to deny what they said, thus creating another story. I've tried not toanswer such ridiculous charges in the past because that dignifies them and the people who make them. Remember, the press is a business: Newspapers and magazines are in business to make money - sometimes at the expense of accuracy, fairness, and even the truth."

Michael Jackson in his book Moonwalk

"It’s like the bigger the star, the bigger the target. You know when you’re—and I’m not being a braggadocio or anything like that—but you know you’re on top when they start throwing arrows at you. Even Jesus was crucified. People who bring light to the world, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Jesus Christ, even myself. And my motto has been Heal the World, We are the World, Earth Song, Save Our Children, Help Our Planet. And people want to persecute me for it, but it never hurts, because the fan base becomes stronger. And the more you hit something hard, the more hardened it becomes—the stronger it becomes. And that’s what’s happened: I’m resilient. I have rhinoceros skin. Nothing can hurt me. Nothing."

Michael Jackson, June 2003

"Sometimes when you’re treated unfairly it makes you stronger and more determined. Slavery was a terrible thing, but when black people in America finally got out from under the crushing system they were stronger. They knew what it was to have your spirit crippled by people who are controlling your life. They were never going to let that happen again. I admire that kind of strength. People who have it take a stand and put their blood and soul into what they believe."

Michael Jackson in his book "Moonwalk

"(I´ve been) accused of something where I know in my heart ... I'm totally innocent. It's just very painful. But this has been kind of a pattern among black luminaries in this country. I'm handling it by using other people in the past, who have gone through this sort of thing. Mandela's story has given me a lot of strength."

Michael Jackson

"If a man could say nothing against a character but what he could prove, history could not be written." 

Michael Jackson

 Michael Jackson´s open letter to his critics published in "People" (12 October 1987)

"Like the old Indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his mocassins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in which most is not true.
I cry very often because it hurts and I worry about the children, all my children all over the world. I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, his story could not be written.
Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with those who criticize. They desire our blood, not our pain.
But still I must achieve. I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth. For the world. For the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now."

“Don’t question my choices without understanding my reasons.”

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson his song "Why You Wanna Trip On Me":

They Say I'm Different, They Don't Understand, But There's A Bigger Problem, That's Much More In Demand, You Got World Hunger, Not Enough To Eat, So There's Really No Time To Be Trippin' On Me

You Got School Teachers Who Don't Wanna Teach, You Got Grown People Who Can't Write Or Read, You Got Strange Diseases, Ah But There's No Cure, You Got Many Doctors That Aren't So Sure, So Tell Me Why You Wanna Trip On Me, Stop Trippin'

We've Got More Problems Than We'll Ever Need, You Got Gang Violence And Bloodshed On The Street, You Got Homeless People With No Food To Eat, With No Clothes On Their Back And No Shoes For Their Feet

We've Got Drug Addiction, In The Minds Of The Weak, We've Got So Much Corruption, Police Brutality, We've Got Streetwalkers Walkin' Into Darkness, Tell Me What Are We Doin' To Try To Stop This, Why You Wanna Trip On Me (...)

"....I think evil is in people's hearts.....I think the devil is man himself."

"Follow the Golden Rule. Be kind to your neighbors, love them as much as you would love yourself, do unto others...."

"I get angry, yeah. But I know that is the way of the world. That's the theme of my world show: Be kind, heal the world. Let's walk out of here a different human being. Let's love. It's like going to church, but I do it without preaching. I do it through music and dancing. Marilyn Manson says onstage, "Kill God....take your Bibles and tear them...." Yet the press doesn't attack HIM! And he has got breasts on just like a woman...."

"I believe there are some good people in the world and I do believe there is a God. I don't believe that God judges. I don't think that He is upstairs going, 'You are alright. But I am going to tear you up...."

Michael Jackson 

"When people's minds are clouded by anger or hatred, no angel can reach them."

Michael Jackson

"People that love and support me make me stronger. People that hate and spread negativity about me, make me unstoppable."

Michael Jackson to his bodyguard Bill Whitfield

"Michael's problem, just like his mother, is that he trusted people too much. He really did. He trusted too much and was taken advantage of."

Tito Jackson

"When I am sad I start reflection on the good times to make me feel better. I do it in bed at night sometimes when I get down on myself. I put the most wonderful thought in my head, some wonderful experience and I feel a chemical reaction taking over in my body where I am actually there and I love that. I get upset when some idiot, I mean worse than a Stooge, a complete idiot writes something stupid and so untrue and so unlike what happened at the event or something I was at. And I get so angry and I try not to be angry because I am hurting myself. And I start thinking about me flying through the air with the wind in my face. I do it in Africa. I go way up high and I am so happy up there and I am flying. I think it is the one of the most wonderful things I have ever discovered and I love it. It´s the freedom. It´s the bliss. It´s quintessential bliss, I think. It´s the height of fun."

Michael Jackson

Question: What do you think about all the stuff that´s out there about you, all the things you read? How do you feel about that?
MJ: I don´t pay attention to that. In my opinion, it´s ignorance. It´s usually not based on fact. It´s based on, you know, myth. The guy who you don´t get to see. Every neighborhood has the guy who you don´t see, so you gossip about him. You see those stories about him, there´s the myth that he did this or he did that. People are crazy!
I´m just about wanting to do wonderful music.
-  From Ebony Interview 2007

Will You Be There (lyrics)

“Others can't overcome fear for you; you have to do it on your own. It's hard, because fear and doubt hold on tight. We are afraid of being rejected, of being hurt once more. So we keep a safe distance. We think separating ourselves from others will protect us, but that doesn't work, either. It leaves us feeling alone and unloved. Trusting yourself begins by recognizing that it's okay to be afraid. Having fear is not the problem, because everyone feels anxious and insecure sometimes. The problem is not being honest enough to admit your fear. Whenever I accept my own doubt and insecurity, I'm more open to other people. The deeper I go into myself, the stronger I become, because I realize that my real self is much bigger than any fear. In accepting yourself completely, trust becomes complete. There is no longer any separation between people, because there is no longer any separation inside. In the space where fear used to live, love is..."

Michael Jackson in his book "Dancing the Dream"