Marlon Jackson's Nigerian Shrine to Jackson 5 and/or Slavery. Um, what?

Continuing with the Jackson 5 family news:

The Jacksons are a family that keeps on giving, at least for those in the tabloid and psychology professions, what with Michael Jackson's upcoming Neverland auction, and the recent news that older brother Marlon is working on a deal to erect a history of slavery theme park/Jackson 5 museum/luxury resort complex in the Nigerian port city of Badagry. Apparently slavery tourism is big business, and developers, who reportedly include Haim Saban, creator of the hit 90s TV show Power Rangers, are capitalizing on it.

But let's take a few steps back and look at this news. Isn't the inclination to erect a museum dedicated to yourself, um, a little insane? (This is what makes me suspicious of Senator Roland Burris: he chisels everything he does into the walls of a stone mausoleum. It's creepy.) And then to pair a celebration of your family alongside a memorial for something as abhorrent and emotional as the history of slavery, and to make that memorial a theme park, and then to top it off with a five star resort replete with golf course and swimming pool, effectively multiples this crazy pill into a full bottle overdose. Historians and community leaders have been decrying the "capitalistic exploitation of our tragedy" blues, but aren't mentioning the shining display of Freudian psychology in this
project. One reading: Marlon Jackson is placing a history of slavery alongside, literally, a history of the Jackson 5, whose notoriously rigid father, Joseph, was a notorious taskmaster; this wonderland has got "Fuck you, Dad," written all over it.

One nice side effect of the weirdness: perusing old Jackson 5 videos.

Jackson 5 | I Want You Back from 105.9 KISS FM on Vimeo.