BLACK LIKE MIKE
TRUE: Shocking onlookers with his candor, singer Michael Jackson appeared at Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and lambasted the press and the music industry for what he termed a decades-long conspiracy to denigrate black artists and co-opt their music and dance forms.
According to MTV.COM, Jackson railed “Once I started breaking sales records, I broke Elvis Presley’s record, I broke the Beatles’ record — once I started doing that, overnight, they called me a freak, a homosexual, a child molester. They said I bleached my skin. They did everything they could to turn the public against me. It’s a conspiracy.”
Jackson concluded, “I know my race. I look in the mirror, and I know that I’m black.”
SEMITRUE: Immediately afterward, the Rev. Al Sharpton grabbed the microphone and added. “I look in that same mirror every day. And I know that I’m thin, I have great hair, and doggone it, people like me!”