The First Book of Michael Read Online Free PDF

strikes a Nazi-salute timed to coincide with the utterance of the word 'government'). Brazil’s economic disparity is starkly illustrated in the opening sequence of the short film, as the statue of the Vatican-installed Christ the Redeemer pans into view. Omniscient and omnipotent, it towers dominantly over the ramshackle slums that cower in its shadow, as a Portuguese voice speaking over the footage implores, “Michael, eles nao ligam pra gente” (“Michael, they don’t care about people”).
    Brazilian people represent the African diaspora, and Michael’s choice to work with the Brazilian percussionist outfit, Olodum , for the Brazil version of the ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ short film was indubitably a political one. The colours worn by Olodum are red, black, green, white and yellow. Combined, the colours symbolise ‘the movement of Jah people’ - as Bob Marley put it - with each colour conveying a significance: the red evocative of the blood spilled under sufferance; green portraying the rainforests of Africa; yellow signifying gold, for prosperity; black for the colour and pride of the people; with white being totemic of world peace.
    The location of the actual video shoot also holds poignant historical gravitas. It was filmed in the province of Dona Marte in a favela called "Largo do Pelourinho" - the exact spot where centuries ago, slaves were whipped and tortured by their masters. Hence the name "Pelourinho", or “The Pillory”.
    By 1996, the favela had become a drug baron’s dream. Claudia Silva – the press officer for Rio de Janeiro’s tourist board – later exalted Michael’s positive influence on the area by saying, “This process to make Dona Marta better started with Michael Jackson… There are no drug dealers anymore, and there’s a massive social project. But all the attention started with Michael Jackson.”
    Olodum express the historical and ongoing oppression of the people in an ecstatic, artistic way. But the weight of their statement should not be underestimated, and neither should Michael’s decision to align himself with them; nor the fact that responsibility for both of the songs’ short films directorship was entrusted to Spike Lee, whose canon of work up to that point had exclusively been of a political nature.
    The chorus chanted by the backing singers in the short film versions of the track sound a lot like they have been adapted to, “They don’t really care about Mike.”
    During the aforementioned Sawyer interview, Michael says - in his defence at allegations of being antisemitic - that, “Some of my best friends are Jewish” – listing Steven Spielberg amongst them. This was in spite of the two men’s recent falling out over a reneged deal concerning the fledgling Dreamworks venture, and despite Spielberg being the driving force behind the imposed alteration of the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Kike’ (claiming Michael had resurrected the latter term from practical extinction and brought it back into common usage). And as true as Michael’s statement regarding Jewish friends may or may not have been – it’s about as clichéd a statement as one can make in any defence against accusations of bigotry.
    However, it’s worth bearing in mind that Michael’s genuine advocate Elizabeth Taylor was also Jewish, as is the mother of his two eldest children (as well as her employer – principal Dr. Feelgood, Dr. Klein). Too, for the violin element of another HIStory track, ‘Little Susie’, Michael borrowed the melody from ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ - a song from Fiddler on the Roof : a film celebrating Jewish people. The Invincible album itself was dedicated to Benjamin Hermansen - an Afro-Norwegian boy stabbed to death by a group of neo-Nazis in January 2001. Furthermore, Michael begins the very song ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ with the words, “Skinhead, dead head” – which is a blatant and direct rebuttal of Neo-Nazism.
    Other lyrics in ‘They Don’t Care About