The Persecution of Michael Jackson

Ishmael Reed ruminates on race, the mad dog DA and the mad dog media in the death of Michael Jackson.Last Thursday, while working on some writing deadlines, I was switching channels on cable. On CNN they were promoting “Black In America”, an exercise meant to boost ratings by making whites feel good by making blacks look bad, the marketing strategy of the mass media since the 1830s, according to a useful book entitled The Showman and the Slave, by Benjamin Reiss. The early penny press sold a “wh