Sammy Sosa has the Michael Jackson Disease (VitiLIEgo)

Dear Friends:

There is a new pathogen run amok. While the CDC has not made any definitive conclusions it appears this seemingly rare disease is quite contagious. Michael Jackson had it first and now baseball great Sammy Sosa is afflicted. What is this insidious ailment of which I speak? Well, the mysterious disease is none other than VitiLIEgo.

Now, don’t get it twisted Vitiligo and VitiLIEgo are two different diseases. Vitiligo is a rare skin disorder that destroys skin pigmentation (leaving white spots and blotching); however, VitiLIEgo not only decimates all of the skin pigmentation (turning dark-skinned black men whiter than Casper the friendly ghost) but it erases every single trace of afrocentricity from the faces of its victims, usually handsome black male celebrities (eyes turn lighter, hair becomes straighter, and noses go from full to pencil thin). Once the disease has run it’s course the victim generally resembles a smiling cadaver (at best a grotesque mockery of a caucasian person)…

VitiLIEgo patients quite commonly suffer from delusions of grandeur. They genuinely think the general public is dumb enough to believe that: vitiligo, steroid use, and “skin rejuvenation” can simultaneously whiten the skin; straighten the hair; lighten the eyes; and result in more Eurocentric facial features.

Again, VitiLIEgo is quite heinous (as you are about to see). Be warned the following images are quite graphic…

Sammy Sosa Before being struck by VitiLIEgo

Sammy Sosa AFTER contracting VitiLIEgo (now looking like a hideous Bizarro world version of Desi Arnez)

Michael Jackson: The most extreme case of VitiLIEgo on record. Went from Black and Beautiful to make-up done by Crayola...

Lil Kim before (A beautiful young sex pot)

Lil Kim now (one more attack of VitiLIEgo and she'll be Faye Dunaway from Mommie Dearest)

Seriously though? I can’t STAND black people that don’t want to be black. Oh my goodness it just stirs a gut level reaction in me. Perhaps, it is because I find black people to be BEAUTIFUL. Aesthetically and culturally I find everything about blackness splendid. So, it is just an odd thing to me to believe that someone would want to be anything other than what they are.

Don’t get me wrong. You will never find a more devout Michael Jackson fan; however, my relationship with him has always been one of love/hate. I love him because he was a wonderful example of a true black superstar; yet, Michael was the epitome of the psychological scarring left behind by slavery, segregation, and degradation. The Jackson family (when they were cool) were the face of black America. With their beautiful dark skin, afros, and distinctly black sound and style they truly represented black as BEAUTIFUL.

Then witnessing Michael mutilate his magnificent visage in an effort to crossover was–in my opinion–devastating to the psyche of millions of black children. Michael told a generation of children, without ever uttering a word, that being black was not good enough. Michael told us all that he could never make it in the entertainment world (as a cultural icon) unless he altered his face, hair, and coloring. What made it all the more maddening was how he attempted to disguise it as a skin disorder.  I truly believe that Michael lied about having vitiligo. If he could sit up and tell Oprah that he had only two plastic surgeries then he could sure as hell lie about bleaching his skin.

With Michael I think it was about entertainment. Michael lived his entire life to entertain. Anything that would make him more popular he did it. In my opinion I think he wanted to transform himself into a being that was not black, not white, not male, not female, and etc al. In that regard Michael possibly viewed himself as some type of entertainment demigod…accessible to everyone. Moreover, the abuse he suffered at the hands of Joseph Jackson was probably part and parcel as well (the last person Michael wanted to see looking back at him in the mirror was Joseph, who ALL of his brothers look like). As it is Michael was complicated and fucked up in many regards…

But Sammy Sosa is just a whole other situation. Oddly, Sammy made it clear to me that Michael Jackson was in fact a liar. Sammy told the press that steroid use and “skin rejuvenation” caused his skin to turn white. In addition he said that he isn’t really that white it was just the camera flash. Okay, I might buy that if Sammy Sosa were my complexion. I’m kinda light and when the flash bulb is on my color washes out. However, Sammy is dark skinned. There is no way that a camera flash is going to make him lighter than his white wife.

Sorry honey but you got VITILIEGO! Get your mind right instead of mutilating your body!

With Love (A whole lot of L-O-V-E)…

Sincerely,

Toddy English.