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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 6334624, member: 110504&quot;]Now I&#039;m seriously interested in getting some idea of what <i>is</i> extant in primary literature for Elagabalus.&nbsp; And Roman historiography more generally.&nbsp; If Classical sources were as prone to bias as medieval ones were, it&#039;s like, Yikes; swiftly followed by, Condolences.&nbsp; ...Just, Dang, welcome to the club.</p><p>Regarding MJ, I had the (intentional irony alert: ) privilege of hearing more about him, merely by osmosis, than I ever did about Elagabalus.&nbsp; (Along with, for instance, Whitney Houston, he provided that much of the soundtrack to the &#039;80&#039;s.&nbsp; ...While I was listening to lots of reggae.&nbsp; Used vinyl was Cheap in those days!)</p><p>One, the reason he did the skin-lightening part of what he did to himself was largely reducible to vitiligo, a condition that attacks the natural melanin of Black people, eventuating in random, very pink patches of skin.&nbsp; The color is reminiscent of Black albinos, except that it shows up Anywhere --face or hands, for instance-- in ways that defy any sort of, may we say, esthetic consistency.&nbsp; Kind of thing where, when you see someone with this, you can&#039;t not feel sorry for them.&nbsp; Michael Jackson was watching his original skin color fall apart, and adapted the best way he had the means to, as a public performer, to return to any kind of consistency, this color or that.</p><p>Two, Please, can we just Lose the &#039;neither black nor white&#039; construct?&nbsp; Just starting with ethnic heritage, there are Lots of people who are happy to be both.&nbsp; ...Which, in turn, is the diametrical opposite of &#039;neither.&#039;&nbsp; ...Or last I checked.&nbsp; In a world stinking of false dichotomies (the immediate context among them), that Ain&#039;t one of &#039;em.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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