I'm so sick of white people on here trying to say Michael "didn't see race" and that he wasn't one race, "he transcended race." Or he "died white." Let me unpack for you why you are ignorant...and why you'll probably never fully understand or care.(1/10)

A black kid that grew up in the racism filled 60s is definitely privy to the stereotypes and prejudices that accompany race and skin tone.
A man who's seen his brothers and mother get called the n word (and who's probably been called that himself), who's been pulled...(2/10)

over for driving and expensive looking car is not blind to the implications of race. A man who's said "blackmail, black male, throw the brother in jail", knows how people like himself are treated in the justice sytem. (3/10)

A black man who's race and character has constantly been questioned due to an uncontrollable skin disease knows that the colour of your skin plays a major part in how you are perceived in this world. A man who says "I'm not going to spend my life being a colour." (4/10)

is rebelling against these stereotypical and racist concepts to show that skin colour and race have nothing to do with the content of one's character.(5/10)

What you are NOT going to do is transform that notion into "Michael trancended race." He was always a black man and always knew that. He was always treated as such (look at how he's dragged by the media and falsely accused). He never once had the privileges of a white man.(6/10)

He always said he was a "proud black american."

His ART FORM is what trancended race. His art form was able to bring everyone from all walks of life together. But you cannot and will not dismiss how important his blackness is in this equation...(7/10)

Because in a world where the white man has historically sought to "divide and conquer" a BLACK man made you forget all of that for a bit and brought us all together. He made you forget so much so, that now you think it's ok to say "Michael was born black and died white." (8/10)

You forgot how someone's blackness isn't something they can wipe away. It's not just a skin colour.
It may be our hope and dream that race one day becomes an irrelevant factor but that is not the reality in which we live. It never has been. (9/10)

It might be easy for you as a white person to say it's meaningless and that's because you've probably only delt with the positive normalcy of being white. No white man is ever going to be treated the way Michael was and still is being treated 11 yrs after death...not one.(10/10)