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Here’s an audio/video mixtape from some of the best MJ mixes I’ve heard recently. How many times can we say “RIP Michael?!”

SIDE A : The MJ Warm Up

Track 1. Come On Come On Come On/Lemme Show You What It’s All About: Love the five-part Minding Michael podcast series from Qool DJ Marv Aural Memoirs & da Buttamilk Archives. Featuring the MJ hits I had forgotten along with those beloved pop standards, this podcast is not to be missed. My favorites are Part One, “A Good Time,” for its melancholy, and Part Three, “Grab Your Belt Buckle/Music’s Taking Over” for the disco hits that make you move even when you’re sitting down. “Roughly 75 percent of these songs, I’ve never played in public,” Qool DJ Marv wrote about Minding Michael. “This is my translation of Michael as a fan and DJ, as a boy who grew up with stronger together black family vibes and Black is Beautiful all up in my head, and as a man who still embraces that exuberant idealism by perpetuating it and sustaining it through the magic of the music in the mix.” (Ranging from 47 mins. to over an hour long)

Track 2. Shake It, Shake It, Baby: Eclectic Method’s The Michael Jackson Video: Don’t be deterred by the Peter Jennings intro to this MJ memory lane video mix. For my money, the highlight comes midway through the video when London-based Eclectic Method mashes up “Blame It On the Boogie” with “Black or White,” and then moves seamlessly into “Rock With You” on top of “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Favorite parts of this video show not one, but TWO Michael Jackson videos that stream simultaneously. Shows just what a versatile dancer and performer Michael really was! (4:51 mins)

Track 3. You Can’t Run Away From/This Love I Got: Can’t even remember hearing Jackson Five do “Ready or Not Here I Come,” but you can groove to it here on Norwegian DJ and Producer Teddy Touch’s Memories MJ Tribute mix. Love mixing freestyling and beats with MJ’s classics. (40:04 mins)

SIDE B (The Flip Side)

Track 4. And Don’t Go Around Breaking Young Girls’ Hearts: If you like it when Michael Jackson goes all electronic on you, check out this Billie Jean remix from Philadelphia’s DJ Apt One. Guaranteed to make you move! (6:06 mins)

Track 5. Let Us Realize that a Change Can Only Come/When We Stand Together As One: Believe it or not, there are a handful of viral music videos out there that feature performances by inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a maximum security prison in the central Philippines. (The prison management has inmates do choreographed dances there for exercise.) The CPDRC did a Thriller video remake in July of 2007, and a “We Are The World” Michael Jackson Tribute just days after Michael passed away. Neither performance needs any introduction. (4:26 and 3:39 mins)

Track 6. Never Can Say Goodbye: DJ Ayres did this Michael Jackson Mix for The Rub, a party that creates long lines around the block of Brooklyn’s Southpaw the first Saturday of every month. The mix is a great chronological history of Michael’s music from “Maybe Tomorrow” (the ’70s) to  “Butterflies” (2001). (53:47 mins) –AFS

Abbie Fentress Swanson is a freelance radio radio reporter (and music addict) based in Brooklyn, New York.

Uber-media critic Howard Kurtz has gotten it coming and going in the past month. First, CNN got lambasted for mis-covering the Iran election and protests. In an age where Twitter is fetishized, a hashtag (or searchable ID) called #CNNFail became all the rage.

This article on MediaBistro links to video of Kurtz’ own coverage of Twitter. Despite calls to mention #CNNFail in his Washington Post Column, Kurtz didn’t…so NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen led a charge to make Kurtz accountable. As a media critic, mind you, Kurtz’ entire conceit is give-no-favor journalism.

Now Kurtz is under fire for failing to look at the dynamics of race and privilege in reporting.

In a recent column asking whether black reporters have gone soft on Michelle Obama, Kurtz said:

They [the beat reporters assigned to the First Lady] are all African American women. Perhaps this gives them a richer cultural understanding of Obama as a trailblazer. Indeed, most write with enthusiasm, in some cases even admiration, about the first lady as a long-awaited role model for black women.

I will give Kurtz credit for speaking to a variety of voices, from Harvard-based academic and producer (Eyes on the Prize) Callie Crossley to Newsweek editor John Meacham to the black women-on-Michelle Obama-beat (including Allison Samuels, who I know personally, in disclosure). But Kurtz fails in two ways. First, he says the black women covering the First Lady are both biased and ineffective: “None of the beat writers has been granted an interview since the inauguration.” Second, he throws in the words that “the White House press corps remains predominantly white,” but he does not even attempt to explain how newsrooms are engines of “social replication”–where likes promote like–and of scrutiny and tokenism inhibiting the success of non-white employees. (Check out Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s seminal work, among others.)

One of the tropes of American life is that whites seem raceless, by default; and that only non-whites have racial attributes, and thus distinctions and biases. This presumption-of-transparency when it comes to whiteness is particularly dangerous in the newsroom. At the same time, for example, that my now-cancelled show “News and Notes” was scrutinized for any bias towards then-Senator Obama, one of the people constantly reminding us not to be biased would use the phrase “my friend Karl Rove” without the slightest sense of irony.

Was the disconnected chit-chat about Rove/Obama a racial failing, a political failing, a journalistic failing, or all three? Sometimes its hard to parse the reason because all these issues fall under an “intersectionality” of interests. (Thanks to Professor Kimberle Crenshaw for her work on intersectionality.)

Among the many issues of media favoritism that stands out in my mind is one concerning former President George W. Bush. As we all know, being vetted for offenses concerning alcohol and drug use is a part of the race for the presidency. And we also know that George W. Bush had an alcohol problem in the past.

Fine, you say.

But although the outcome of the elections may have been the same, at least one reporter played a critical role in covering up Bush’s actions… thus preventing what could have and should have been a robust discussion of responsibility early in the race.

As the American Journalism Review puts it:

In July [2000], [Portland Maine] Press Herald reporter Ted Cohen, 49, discovered George W. Bush’s 1976 drunk driving arrest in Kennebunkport, Maine–a story that mysteriously eluded the national media, which claimed to have combed through every inch of Bush’s background.

But his editor, a man named Andrew Russell, told him it was not a story.

I won’t comment further, except to say that Russell later regretted his decision. So did a lot of voters who we reporters promise to inform, so they as voters can decide.

So what’s the big picture here? It’s fairness and favor. And as if the fates were making a broader point to Kurtz and all of us who care about journalism, the Washington Post is now engaged in a much broader, more troubling controversy. In essence, the Post promised lobbyists and folks with $25,000 to a quarter of a million dollars paid access to newsmakers. Now the Post is apologizing, and Kurtz noted it in today’s CNN broadcast. That story is all over the ‘net and the NYT reports here, perhaps too gleefully.

Again, big picture: I would argue that reporters of color face a constant scrutiny about our motives that actually inhibits favoritism; and that white, heterosexual reporters, especially men, see themselves and their actions as neutral even when they are not. You may find a black reporter talking about her “sista-girl” circle in an article on Michelle Obama… but I’ve never seen an example in the mainstream media of a black reporter signing off on a program that broke one of the fundamental tenets of journalism–that paid access for lobbyists and journalism don’t mix. (Some of the pay-to-play antics of traditional African-American media outlets will be another story for another day…)

Of course, Kurtz went on CNN today to criticize the Washington Post. Who isn’t chiming in? But I wish Kurtz would do a deeper investigation of the fig leaf of white neutrality; and take a harder look in the mirror as well.

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Farai Chideya is a broadcaster, author, novelist (Kiss the Sky) and the founder of PopandPolitics.com

Farai’s disclaimers and IDs:
I used to work for Newsweek, which is cited in Kurtz’ article on black women reporters.
I know Newsweek reporter Allison Samuels.
I used to work for CNN and sometimes still appear on their air.
I don’t think #CNNFail was smart because it could have been #MSNBCFail and #FoxFail as well.
I wrote a seminal book on race and media titled Don’t Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans.
And I am a black woman, last time I checked.

New York-based writer, publicist, and activist April Silver says she continues to get feedback about a piece she wrote in response to this performance by Lil’ Wayne and Drake at the BET Awards 2009. Director Byron Hurt also responded, and wrote the following to BET’s Debra Lee on June 29:

“Sunday night’s BET Awards show was a disgrace. It’s sad and unfortunate that your network, owned by Viacom, continues to crank out mediocrity and perpetuate negative stereotypes of black men, women, and children. Although you likely received high ratings for the awards show, there is no honor in reinforcing the status quo’s opinion of black people. Your tribute to Michael Jackson and the overall show had its great moments, however, BET failed to deliver a solid, quality show. Rather than “raising the bar” and presenting African-Americans as a creative, proud, dignified people, BET lowered the bar for the entire world to see. The BET Awards drew a huge audience to watch a tribute to Michael Jackson, but left millions of viewers feeling disappointed, embarrassed, and reduced to classic stereotypes.

“During the most blatantly sexist performances of the night, the executives at BET failed to act and display intelligence, courage, and leadership. Show executives watched, approved, and applauded as artists Lil’ Wayne, Drake, and Cash Money brought young, under-aged girls onto the stage to dance and serve as window dressing while they performed ‘Every Girl,’ a song that reduces girls and women to sex objects. In a culture where one out of four girls and women are either raped or sexually assaulted – and where manipulative men routinely traffic vulnerable women into the sex industry – it is not okay that BET allowed this to happen. BET owes its entire audience – particularly girls and women around the world – an apology for its failure to intervene. BET should also take immediate steps to ensure that this kind of sexist performance does not happen again. Sunday night’s show epitomizes why so many black people worldwide are fed up with BET and feel strongly that your network inaccurately represents black men and women.”

# # #

“Last night, live at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, a room full of head-bobbing, consenting adults bounced to Drake and Lil Wayne’s back-to-back performances of the hit songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl.” I watched, underwhelmed. I wanted more “Michael” in what was supposed to be this award-show-turned-Michael-Jackson-tribute. I watched, ever puzzled by the Lil Wayne phenomena that has captivated the music industry. I watched, wondering when the set was going to end.

“Then the little girls came onstage…literally the little girls. “Are those children?” I asked out loud, in disbelief. Then the camera panned the audience. Everyone was still head-bobbing as the little Black girls huddled around these superstars.

“‘Are those little girls on stage…for this song?!?!‘ I, still in disbelief, lost breath and forced myself to exhale. ‘Why are these little girls featured on this performance? Is somebody going to stop this?’ Again, the show was live, though for a nano-second, I was hoping that a hunched-over stage manager would bust through from back stage to scoop up the children, rescuing them from harm’s way…from being associated from this song. But instead, what those girls witnessed from the stage was hundreds and hundreds of adults (mostly Black people) staring back at them, co-signing the performance. These girls, who all appeared to be pre-teens, were having their 15 minutes of glam on one of the biggest nights in televised Black entertainment history, with two of pop culture’s biggest stars at the moment, with millions of people watching. They must have been bubbling with girlish excitement, shimmering like princesses all night. Pure irony: one of them wore a red ballerina tutu for the special occasion. And we applauded them.

“But did no one care that Lil Wayne’s song Every Girl is about grown men and their sexual escapades with women? Did the meaning and intent of the song matter to anyone, this song whose hook and other lyrics required a re-write in order to get air play? ‘I wish I could love every girl in the world.‘ That’s the radio-friendly version of ‘I wish I could f–k every girl in the world.‘ But Lil Wayne’s BET performance was the clean edit of the song. Perhaps he (and the show producers) thought that there was nothing wrong in featuring the children in the clean version. Perhaps we were supposed to see the whole bit as cute and innocent. Absolutely not. There’s no other way to cut it: in presenting little girls in a performance of a song that is about sex, group sex, and more sex, BET and Lil Wayne set the stage for child pornography. It doesn’t matter what version of the song was played, much like a man who batters women is still an abusive man, even if uses flowery phrases while battering.

“In the song, Lil Wayne mentions superstar Miley Cyrus, but Cyrus gets a pass on this lyrical sex escapade because, as he acknowledges, she is a minor. Huh? Why, then, is he comfortable with featuring four minors, these four little Black girls, in the show? How deep exactly is this inability of some men to respect women, and how deep is Lil Wayne’s disregard for the safety of little girls?

“I’m told that one of the girls is Lil Wayne’s daughter. That doesn’t matter. In fact that makes it worse. Last night we were reminded that there are few safe spaces for our little girls to be children; that some of us are willing to trade their innocence for a good head nod. BET and Lil Wayne are beneath low because, in effect, they have given premium assurance to these and other little girls that their best value, their shining moment, their gifts to display to the world, all lie within a context that says they are fuckable.

“The programming at BET has been heavily criticized by artists, concerned citizens, college students, parent groups, social justice organizations, media reform activists, and many others for over a decade now. Their programming seems hell bent on broadcasting the worst pathologies in the Black community. Some have joined the anti-BET movement by simply tuning out. Others have been more pro-active. National letter-writing campaigns and other activities designed to shame and/or pressure the network into improving its programming have been in play for some time now. Boycotts have been called as well. Two years ago, for example, the network found itself in the line of fire as it planned to air the very controversial series “Hot Ghetto Mess.” Advertisers, such as State Farm Insurance and Home Depot, responded to pressure and requested that their ads be disassociated with the series (though, their ads could be placed in other programming slots). None of this has made a difference. In fact, it seems to have emboldened the network, for it is now expanding. In the fall, BET is due to launch another channel.

“As a social entrepreneur and activist, my entire life/work has been dedicated to standing up for what’s right, especially within the culture of hip hop. When identifying what cancerous elements exist within the Black community, many fellow activists agree with Chuck D (of Public Enemy), and even Aaron McGruder (of The Boondocks), when they targeted BET as one of those elements. That said, I didn’t think that we would ever have to take the network to task for what amounts to child pornography.

“But millions of Black people are not offended by the network and welcome anything BET has to offer, no matter how much it continues to unravel the fabric of our community. Imagine, if you will, BET as a human being and the viewers as the community. You would have to imagine BET as a drug dealer, with his swag on…perhaps outside standing atop a truck, the community crowded beneath him. Imagine him throwing nicely wrapped gifts into the crowed, or giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day and he buys dinner and teddy bears to all the single moms and grandmothers around the way. Despite his best efforts and despite the approval of his fans, he is still a drug dealer, pimping death to the masses.

“Proverbs is full of sacred text that teaches us that there will always be fools amongst us. Some of them will be highly paid, protected, and given world-wide platforms to show off what they do best. And these fools (be they performers, corporate executives, or others), will have fans and loyal supporters, and a place to call home, like a BET.

“But as long as there will be fools amongst us, there will also be wise ones – a small group of people concerned about the long term health and well being of the community. This small group will often go unheard and they will be outmatched. They will struggle over which problem to address first: the child pornographer, the batterer, the pimp, the prostitute, the thief, the slumlord, or the system that enables it all. They will get tired and their defense will pale in comparison to the almost crushing offense. And they will be betrayed from within. Historically and universally, this is what happens in the struggle for what is right. But eventually, with continued pressure, something will shift. A radical new thinking will emerge, and the fools will lose their stronghold.

“The sure expectation of victory, however, can not be understated. It is a concrete ingredient in the struggle against the death that is being paraded in our community…as necessary as letter writing campaigns, economic boycotts, symbolic and actual protests, and other pressure-oriented activities. It is indeed possible to bring more life into our community.

Copyright 2009, by April R. Silver. Silver is a social entrepreneur, activist and writer/editor. She is also founder of the communications agency AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc. Her first book is the critically acclaimed anthology “BE A FATHER TO YOUR CHILD: REAL TALK FROM BLACK MEN ON FAMILY, LOVE AND FATHERHOOD.” Contact Info: silver@aprilsilver.com or www.aprilsilver.com.

###

BET responded July 3 in a statement to AllHipHop.com:

“BET Networks deeply regrets the performance by Young Money at the BET AWARDS ‘09 (featuring Lil Wayne, Drake, Gudda Gudda and Mack Maine). Elements of the performance were unplanned and should not have happened.”

BET also said it found viewers’ opinions, like Hurt’s and Silver’s, useful. “We have edited Young Money’s performance for all BET Awards ‘09 encore presentations,” a representative said.

BET Awards 2009

I recently released Kiss the Sky, a novel about a black rock musician. Then I did an event with an actual black rock musician who read my book and said that the part about Michael Jackson was so eerie. I had forgotten all about it. But I found it…written years ago… and yes, eerie.

Tell me what you think about MJ and your memories… I am getting creeped out watching all the old footage, especially the ones of Diana calling Michael “sexy” while they are are both wearing those dark spangly shirts…

I wish he’d been happy. I find it hard to believe he was.

Peace,
F

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Excerpt, Kiss the Sky, Atria Books, 2009
(Written from the P.O.V. of the main character.)

Drifted into a drowse and thought about the way music was my whole life.

My great grandfather sold Billie Holiday reefers, back when she was a bad little girl and he was a dirty old man. A withered up little yellow man. Always looking at the girls of school-age. A sailor, in and out of port. In town just long enough every time to get great-grandma pregnant. And wasn’t it just like me to love Billie, all of her, even her vices.

Then there was my first musical love, Michael Jackson. I was six, and to my child’s eyes he seemed just enough older to know a lot of things I wanted to learn. He was pure music, shimmering, shimmying, shaking, grooving, moving, liquid hipbones and fluid bell-bottomed pantlegs, denim, slouchy caps, a sexy choirboy backed up by his older brothers; plus television, dancing lions and tin-men, a too-old Diana as Dorothy. But wait, that last part was later.

Still, the Michael and “The Wiz” were always linked in my mind. When I was six, my Daddy and I went to see “The Wiz,” way before the movie with Michael and Diana, before the nose jobs and the skin lighteners and the hair straighteners and out-of-court settlements. Strange third-person memory: I see myself and my father walk towards the exit, along a half-lit aisle, with the play unfolding (bright reds and golds) behind us.

But: Michael. His was the music of longing, in a man-child’s voice that a little girl could understand before she truly knew desire. I liked Michael the same time Daddy liked to play the Isley Brothers. I didn’t understand the Isley’s lyrics (thank God), but their guitar licks and keyboards made it hard for me not to dance; their whispers tickled my ears.

Older still: When my girl scout troop had a party I brought Stevie Wonder and my friend Ronnice brought Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” which was everything you needed to know about the difference between uncool and cool. Stevie was uplifting and parent-approved; the teenaged Michael was your best friend’s older brother, a boy who you had a crush on so bad you thought you might melt every time you saw him. Ronnice was in fifth grade and I was in third, which might have been part of my problem, but not all of it. She was what my mother called “fast”–loose with the boys, hard and unforgiving with the girls.

I loved Michael, don’t get me wrong. How could I not? He was my first. But I mounted a defense of Stevie, which all the girls took as a weak-assed move.

When I was in eighth grade, Ronnice had an abortion. Like most of my fast girlfriends, she loved house music, the kind you heard in the clubs she’d sneak into. She was underaged but built like a brick shithouse and nobody checked her I.D. When she got into LL Cool J, I was loving Prince.

Later I worked my way through alternative rock, romantic R&B, gay disco, Public Enemy, Madonna and Grace Jones. Music ecstatic and anthemic, smoke drifting through laser lights, tranny boys in platform heels and lip liner, parties on the subway platform, lots of drugs but not down my throat or up my nose, the music simply lifting me, carrying me like the wind under the cape of a superhero or a pigeon caught in an updraft from a subway grate.

The music, just the music, used to be enough for me. Everything else came later.

I wanted to get back to those days again.

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This is an excerpt from Kiss the Sky (Atria Books 2009) by Farai Chideya. Chideya is a multimedia journalist, author, and the founder of PopandPolitics.com