Sometimes the confrontations were minor, other times they may have been major.

Whether it may have involved you or others, there were always people around who only seemed to choose sides after the matter had been resolved one way or the other.

Most of the time these people were followers and not leaders and later in life when we think about them – if at all – it is generally in a bad or ambivalent light.

The rest of us learned about personal politics later as adults and generally we have values regarding standing up for the things we believe in sooner rather than later — especially if the issue affects us directly.

Last week in Harlem there was a "late" entry in the race against racism.

Michael Jackson stood up next to Al Sharpton and called his boss Tommy Mattola a "racist"— actually using an adjective that springs from the "devil."

I thought to myself "wow, this is rather different for him."

He went on to say that he felt the record industry sought to "destroy" artists of color by "stealing" from them.

The so-called and self-proclaimed "King of Pop" quoted examples of those who were abused by record companies – like Sammy Davis Jr. and James Brown – and then went on to say that if people stood up for him, they would stand up for all black people in the music business.

Isn’t this the same guy who sang "it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white?" Isn’t this the same guy who had such a poor image of his own blackness that he whittled his nose off, continues to straighten his hair and took some dangerous measures to lighten his skin pigmentation not a little but a lot?

When he was selling two million records a week Mr. Jackson should have gotten in the fight against racism.

I have long heard about allegations regarding Tommy Mattola and his alleged love of using the N-word when talking about black people.

That’s not news to me.

What also isn’t news is Jackson did or said nothing when those allegations first surfaced.

I know that some might say that it is better late than never to get into the fray and deal with what we have been dealing with all of our lives.

I would say that would be true of most people, but not Jackson.

If my house is burning down, I can understand if my neighbor might be reluctant to help. But to deny that a fire even exists and look the other way in that denial while the blaze consumes everything and to only react when his house is in jeopardy would guarantee only one thing. I would be looking for a new neighbor.

The record label racists have to be laughing their backsides off anticipating a high profile fight with someone over the issue of racism who is about as black as they are.

I have no doubt there are problems of the kind Michael Jackson talked about at SONY music.

I heard from a source that the negative treatment of people who are not Japanese or white spider-webs throughout the entire organization.

Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran are certainly not "Johnny come latelies" – please pardon the pun — to the battle for equal rights in this arena or that.

But I believe that while involving Jackson may motivate some white people who think he’s cool, it will not legitimize the allegations of bias against the record business because of Jackson’s lack of credibility.