Changing One For All

With Michael Jackson's final conclusive demise, the media jackals unshelved and re-birthed every minute detail enduring the renounced mans being. Of the bookshelf pages, one particular re-emergence didn't include a packaged date on MJ's life, but rather the skin off my own bones.

In 1986, MJ was officially diagnosed with Vitiligo, a disorder that basically eats away at the pigmentation in your skin. Inevitably, it was the recourse for his African American appearance changing to simulate a Caucasian. The sequined glove worn on one hand, although it became an iconic image, had originated to cover the initial depigmentation of skin tone on his right hand. Pushing further ahead, on came the powdered makeup to cover-up blotches on his face and the omnipresent umbrella to protect his now sensitive skin from UV rays.

Six years ago, I was read the same verdict. Fortunately, I'm a Caucasian from scratch so the visual differences are drastically less dramatic. Similarly, the disorder in question has no life-threatening symptoms, only psychological consequences. If grasped and emotionally contained, it warrants little necessity for attention. With no definitive cause or cure, the only plausible treatment is entering a tanning booth twice a week, crossing fingers that the safeguarded UV rays can re-vitalize melanocytes to re-invigorate color.

This is how it works - and it unnerves me. We sit back, wait until some devastation or disaster hits us/a family member/a close friend, than we take action/research/educate and promote finding a cure or fixing the affliction and this problem alone. Suddenly, it becomes a disease everyone needs to be more informed about, this selfish compassion is working no cures.

Teaing it up with a peep of mine, we volleyed around the topic until we reached a resolution, why can't people as a whole focus all research and funding onto one solitary cause, the most damaging and deadly. Vote cancer and just hammer all our efforts away until we resolve that dilemma before moving on to the next most pressing?