File this under that category, 'things that have made sense to you since childhood, but that you suddenly one day as an adult realize actually do not make sense.'When I was six, Michael Jackson did a commercial for Pepsi which featured some pyrotechnics. During filming, his hair caught fire and he was seriously injured.
For years afterward, my mother and I boycotted Pepsi. I remember us telling one another and other people that we did not buy or drink Pepsi because "they set Michael Jackson's hair on fire."
Perhaps related to this boycott, which I remembered a few days ago and which seems to have originated from logic that I no longer feel that I can entirely explain, is a conversation that CC's friend reported having with students in a summer class that she's teaching.
CC's friend mentioned Michael Jackson's death to her class. In the course of ensuing comments, she realized that the students did not know that he was black. They thought he was white. She explained that he had begun life brown, but that his skin had lightened (unclear why) and he'd had plastic surgery.
They did not believe her.
