One of Michael Jackson's most famous lyrics proclaims, "It don't matter if you're black or white." But when it comes to the late singer's identification with African Americans, that declaration becomes much cloudier.
Jackson's massive popularity was continually shadowed by his evolving physical makeover from a dark-skinned boy with obvious ethnic features to a lighter-skinned man who had extensive plastic surgery on his face and nose, prompting concerns among African Americans and others that Jackson was trying to deny his heritage.
His high-profile relationships with white actresses, his marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe (who are both white) and suspicions that he wasn't in fact the biological father of his light-skinned children further divided African Americans. Some felt alienated by the singer's actions; others dismissed them as the acceptable eccentricities of a creative genius.
Even as large multiethnic crowds gather to celebrate and mourn Jackson, his cultural identity remains an uneasy debating point. That delicacy was front and center during Friday rehearsals for Sunday's "BET Awards," a previously scheduled celebration of black artists that will now be dedicated to Jackson.
Said Stephen Hill, BET's co-president of entertainment: "I would hate for someone to think that changes in appearances would be linked to a distancing from the black race. Most of Michael Jackson's actions contradict that."
Ne-Yo, a scheduled performer at the awards show who has often been compared to Jackson, added, "People can be so judgmental. An artist is under a magnifying glass. Michael was never trying to get away from his blackness. Everyone knows about his troubled relationship with his father, and that's why he changed his appearance. As far as him shying away from the black community, he was simply moving toward people who were showing him love. He wasn't getting a lot of love from the black community."
Lee Bailey, who runs the Electronic Urban Report, a website devoted to news about black celebrities, said many still feel alienated by Jackson's actions.
"There have been detractors in the black entertainment community who felt that Jackson forgot his blackness as he got older," he said. "They would say, 'How could those kids be his? They're white.' Many were troubled by him."
