Yes, folks...some idiot actually muttered those words. Read on.

Fans sing Jackson’s praise

BY DIONNE SEARCEY
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

March 8, 2005, 8:43 PM EST

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- Sheree Wilkins stood outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse holding a copy of an indictment against the man whose music has defined her life.

"People of the state of California vs. Michael Joe Jackson," Wilkins, 33, read from the legal papers. She looked up, disgusted.

"It should say [the alleged victim] and his family against Michael Jackson. We're the people, and we're not against him."

Jackson's molestation trial is important enough to Wilkins and about 50 others that they have suspended their normal lives -- and in some instances traveled from as far away as Spain -- to settle in this blue-collar town in support of the pop icon. As work, family and other real-world factors have pulled away the hundreds of Jackson fans who once clamored around the courthouse, the small but faithful group arriving before 6 a.m. every day to secure a seat in the public gallery views its role as even more important.

"When you're going through a fight, you need an Army," said Susie Mumpfield, 23, of Los Angeles. "Can you imagine leaving him here by himself?"

While a handful of detractors pop up on occasion, the supporters are a courthouse staple. They insist Jackson is a humanitarian, a good person, a role model and, most of all, 100 percent innocent of the molestation charges he is facing. Their convictions don't make them kooky, the fans said, though they tend toward the myopic when it comes to their devotion to the trial.

"I mean, what else is going on in the world right now?" said Jenna, a 20-year-old, towheaded San Luis Obispo college student on a recent day when war was raging in Iraq and hundreds of thousands of Asians were recovering from a devastating tsunami.

"Our parents had Vietnam," she said. "We have the Jackson trial."

Bound by the strict rules of decorum set by Judge Rodney S. Melville, the fans who chant "Michael is innocent!" at his convoy of black sport utility vehicles are limited inside the courtroom to rolling their eyes when prosecutor Thomas Sneddon passes.

Jackson rewards his supporters' devotion by blowing kisses to them. Subdued in the courtroom, he sometimes lets fans glimpse a little of the entertainer inside. On a recent day when guards asked him to turn around so they could wave a metal-detector wand over him, the singer planted his feet and twirled in a move straight from the "Thriller" video.

To spend time with ardent Jackson fans is to enter a reality in retro where the '80s hit "Beat It" chimes from cell phones, the moonwalk is still hot and the ability to recite the lyrics of the most obscure of Jackson 5 tunes is a prerequisite.

Most fans are women, but they run the demographic gamut: white, black, Asian, young and middle-aged. Some wear all white, the color of innocence, they say. The trial has drawn followers such as Diana Enola, 19, a Jackson look-alike, who said she wants to hear all the facts for herself rather than rely on the media, as well as James Crawford Ellerbe Sr., 68, a bishop of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, part of what he called the Nigeria-based Unity of Creation.

"We're not looking onto juries or lawyers to help him. We're looking onto God," said Ellerbe, who in his flowing white "sutanes" gown had driven four hours from Gardenia, Calif., to protest the charges against Jackson.

A handful of Jackson opponents has shown up too, albeit more sporadically.

Diane Hansen, 38, made the trek from her home in Redondo Beach, Calif., on the first day of testimony last week to scream into a bullhorn, "Those are my private parts!" over and over again. She was also promoting her children's book of the same title. Tuesday, a woman held a baby blue sign that read, "We believe and support victims of child sexual abuse."

Jackson's fans said they feel the same. Their hero, they contend, is no pedophile.

For Bahar Badi, supporting Jackson is like returning a favor. His music, she said as she jotted trial-inspired poetry, lifted her depression.

Badi, 30, a DJ from Los Angeles, said if she were spinning the soundtrack of the trial, she would pick Jackson's 2001 song, "Cry."

"Stories buried and unfold. Someone is hiding the truth. Hold on," Jackson sings. "When will this mystery unfold? And will the sun ever shine in the blind man's eye when he cries?"
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
[Edited 3/9/05 14:24pm]


http://www.prince.org/msg/8/136658

They all rode the short bus to the court house.

VoicesCarry said:

pretty much...


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