um, satire:
In a jaunty recreation of an Olsen twins film plot, LaToya Jackson showed up as the defendant at Michael Jackson's trial yesterday, injecting a little levity into the fourth day of Janet Arviso's stream-of-consciousness testimony and lead defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr's incessant witness badgering.
Judge Rodney Melville, who was in on the ruse, guffawed explosively when Arviso pointed at "Michael" and reproached, "He really didn't care about children. He just cared about what he was DOING with the children."
In another speech to the jury, she said, "He managed to fool the world. Now, because of this criminal case people know who he really is," to uproarious laughter from the entire courtroom.
The joke's on you Janet!
![Playboy / La Toya Jackson [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21V3WCAWX8L._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - The Proprietor
In other news, Mr. Jackson's precarious financial situation has necessitated selling the lion's share of his rights to the Beatles catalog. However, Mr. Jackson insisted on retaining all rights to the song "This Boy".....
2 - Eric Olsen
I believe he's keeping "Not a Second Time" as well
3 - Mihos
From Hostility to Reverence:
100 Years of African-American Imagery in Games
Denis Mercier, Ph.D.
Of all the American popular genres using African-American imagery, children's games have been among the most uniformly negative. Only in the last twenty years or so have white game manufacturers softened their depiction of Blacks. And only when Black lobbying has forced the elimination of derogatory racial stereotypes or when Blacks have invented and marketed games themselves, have the images turned from racial satirization to respect.
Like other popular media and genres, games communicate through graphics and text, but their messages are further expressed through the thoughts, actions, and strategies required to play them successfully. Because most players of children's games are young and impressionable, the imagery and action in those games may well promote racial stereotyping and prejudice, and reinforce or sanction those same attitudes among adult players.
The portrayal of African Americans in games over the past century has undergone an evolution that reflects three distinct eras in American race relations. Board games, first developed in the 1830s, grew in popularity among American middle-class families during the late nineteenth century, at a time when racial prejudice and segregation were on the rise not just in the American South, but also in many of the northern states due to massive immigration from Europe and the migration of southern Blacks to northern cities. Anglo-American fascination with the newcomers, as well as their racial and ethnic prejudices, were reflected throughout popular culture: in music, literature, advertisements, theater, and games. While images of other ethnic groups tended to soften during the first decades of the twentieth century, derogatory African-American imagery, often overtly hostile, was common in American games up to the Second World War. A transitional period, lasting from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, saw African- American imagery all but disappear from most genres of American popular culture, including games. The Civil Rights Movement marked the beginning of another era in toy imagery which continues to today in which both Black and white-owned companies have introduced new, more realistic, and often strongly positive images of Black Americans.
The Years of Hostility
Games of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflected racial attitudes ranging from the benign to the aggressively violent. Although some of the games of the first period stereotyped African Americans as comical entertainers, many revealed an intense white hostility towards Blacks. This hostility was legitimated, even celebrated, by making it appear as if the Blacks depicted enjoyed the victimization to which the games subjected them. Many target games of the period portrayed the Black targets as smiling broadly. The unspoken message was that Blacks, unlike other people, felt no pain, so players could indulge in and enjoy aggressive assaults because no real pain was inflicted.
African Dip advertisement
African Dip Advertisement
Pickaninny Toy Target
Pickaninny Toy Target
Color Plate 1
Color Plate 1
Pinball Game
Pinball Game
The target games found in traveling carnival shows, seashore resorts and fairgrounds throughout the nation were among the most racially aggressive of all popular games. One popular carnival game which featured names like "Dump the Nigger," "African Dip," or "Coon Dip" did not require directly hitting a Black person, but hitting the target device attached to a delicately balanced plank upon which a Black person sat. The target, if hit squarely, caused the sitter to be dumped into the tank below. An even more brutal cousin to "African Dip" was "Hit the Coon" or "African Dodger," also popular at resorts, fairs, and festivals. A painted canvas of a scene, usually a cotton plantation, had a hole through which a Black man stuck his head and tried to get out of the way of the ball. Small prizes were awarded for a direct hit. In 1878 the C.W.F. Dare Company of New York offered painted "Negro Head Canvases" and "Negro Heads" made of wood since live targets were not always easy to come by. Some operators provided human targets with protective wooden helmets covered with curly hair. Eventually such games grated against public sensibilities and were declared illegal.
Other target games of the era came in a wide variety of forms [Color Plate 1]. A ring-toss called "Garden Aunt Sally" featured a mammy figure smoking a pipe. "The Game of Sambo," a standup target game produced by Parker Brothers in the early 1900s, had targets which were meant to be comic caricatures of African- American faces. "Bean-Em," was a beanbag game with Black figures as targets, and there were two ball-toss games: "Hit Me Hard," in which balls were thrown through the mouth of an incongruously mirthful and "cute" boy-child with an enormous smile, and "Chuck," in which two players attempted to toss discs shaped like watermelons into an open mouth.
Bagatelle games, the precursor of pinball, were another form of target game. Made of wood, with lithographed paper overlay and nail "pins," most games were designed to be used with marbles as balls. The "Gropper On. M. Co." of Brooklyn, New York made one featuring good luck charms (lucky stars, horseshoes, etc.) and "Rastus" and "Rufus," two "dandy dudes" eyeing each other suspiciously while preparing to shoot dice. (Another character on the game board, "Eruption," is apparently a stereotyped Irishman).
Under "latest novelty games," the 1914 Butler Brothers Catalog listed two target games in which racial aggression and sadism were blatantly obvious. The "Little Darky Shooting Gallery" with its "three comic cardboard targets," one of which was a heavy-set Black woman, came complete with "spring gun and vacuum rubber tipped arrows for $1.95 a dozen." "Darky Ten Pins" featured "ten 6-1/2 inch heavy cardboard litho coons on wood bases," each smiling and holding enormous watermelons.
Numerous other companies made and distributed variations of bowling games. Two of the better known ones were "Jim Crow Ten Pins" with smiling minstrel-type figures, and "Zulu Tribe" ten pins with minstrel faces and exotic costumes.(1) Parker Brothers, one of the few major manufacturers to market bowling sets, issued "Sambo Five Pins" in the early 1920s. The inside of the box tells a story which begins, "Sambo was a good ole Southern Darky..."
Color Plate 16
Color Plate 16
Black images in target games overtly demonstrated white hostility against African Americans. Yet Black images had been featured since the 1840s in a less violent genre of game-the card game. A relatively non-derogatory image of a Black servant appeared in the popular card game "Dr. Busby" (1843). "Old Maid," one of the most popular card games ever and the first to be learned by generations of American children, featured a veritable encyclopedia of derogatory stereotypes such as the Black characters "Lily White," "Jazzbo Jackson," and "Melon Moe" [Color Plate 16]. "The Game of Ten Little Niggers," introduced by Parker Brothers in 1895, was a variation of Old Maid that featured Black characters exclusively. The deck contained a pair of each of the ten "Little Niggers" plus one oddball to get "stuck" with. The Fireside Game Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, introduced "In Dixie Land," a similar game, two years later. This featured black-and-white photos of different "Southern characters," many of which appeared in postcards.
Jigsaw puzzles, initially limited to geographical subjects, came to the United States from England in the 1870s. Soon manufacturers introduced other subject matter, including Black stereotypes which appealed to the American middle-class market. In 1874, the McLoughlin Brothers of New York manufactured a puzzle called "Chopped Up Niggers." Although the puzzle's images of Blacks were more sympathetic than many of the period, the blatant sadism of the name is clear. Around 1905 J.R. Brundage, Inc. "Things Unusual" of New York brought out a line of jigsaw puzzles, one showing Black men dancing madly in formal evening clothes entitled "Woozy Jig."
Color Plate 17
Color Plate 17 Many of the images of African Americans in card games and puzzles stereotyped Blacks as comical [Color Plate 17]. That stereotype was especially prevalent in mechanical games. In 1912 the page of "Popular Games of all Kinds" in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog featured a game from "Timi-Tipp" of Germany:
Jolly Coon Race, 89 cents
A new and very comical game for two or three people. Metal Figures of darkies with moveable arms, racing along three poles. Their comical actions are very funny. All start at the same time and it is exceedingly amusing to see the race...
Easing Into Transition
A growing population of Blacks in northern cities resulting from the great migration of southern Blacks after the First World War gradually developed the leadership and organization necessary to fight for civil rights and combat derogatory racial stereotypes. In response, during the 1920s, white manufacturers began to tone down the broadest, most overdrawn Black caricatures.
By the 1930s, manufacturers had by and large ceased to design new games which portrayed Blacks as "targets," and many of the "older" designs were produced in dwindling numbers. Although bowling games remained popular throughout the 1930s, the pins portrayed not just Blacks, but other "amusing" characters.(2) In the Russel Manufacturing Company's "Goof Race and Ten Pins," three "goofs," a soldier, a clown, and a watermelon-eating Black figure, could be made either to "race" down an incline or to line up to be bowled over.
Snake Eyes Game
Snake Eyes Game
Board games of the 1930s reflecting this decline in violent racial undercurrents included "Snake Eyes," a craps-like game by Selchow and Righter of New York, featuring Black faces with "roly-boly" eyes on its cover. Various "--Amos 'n' Andy" games and puzzles were used as promotions by the Pepsodent Companv. the radio program's sponsor at the time.(3) Although these games contained no physical violence or hostility, they continued to trivialize Blacks and deny them dignity.
Trends towards improved depiction of Blacks in games during this period did not exclude the appearance of games containing old stereotypes. Currents of popular culture flow in many directions simultaneously. As late as 1928 the "African Dip" was still being advertised in various amusement catalogs, among them The Billboard of June 16:
An African Dip It'll get You The Bank Roll
The Game that Always Gets Top Money at Carnivals, Parks, Fairs, Picnics and wherever a Crowd is Gathered
Seeing is Believing!
Men you see an AFRICAN DIP working, take out your watch and time how many balls are being thrown. Figure the price paid for the balls, selling three for a dime. It is common to take in over $40.00 per hour, sometimes $50.00. Notice how pleased the people are that spent their money. Also the fun the onlookers had.
In 1940, All-Metals Products Co. of Wyandotte, Michigan marketed a "Sambo Target" for use with their toy pistol set. A gap-toothed, bug-eyed young Sambo was the centerpiece of a brightly lithographed, metal target board.
Color Plate 14
Color Plate 14 As in the previous decade, broad caricature was more prevalent than overt violence in the 1940s. A "Pickaninny Jackpot" board and punchboard game featured cards portraying stereotyped Black children holding up watermelons with the "jackpot" figures printed on the melons. These images perpetuated the pickaninny- watermelon stereotype that persisted since antebellum times. In 1945, a game called "The Adventures of Little Black Sambo" used graphics heavily influenced by the illustrations in contemporary editions of the children's book: an African "native" with minstrel-like features and no hair [Color Plate 14]. A "Deluxe" Old Maid game of the late forties by Playtime House of Rochester, New York, featured "Mamie (sic) Pamby" as pair number 13. "Mamie" was the archetypal Mammy.
Although in the early 1950s Selchow and Righter reissued "Snake Eyes" without changing the graphics, as the decade progressed, and the political and economic clout of African Americans grew, Blacks ceased to be the literal and figurative targets of abuse and ridicule. As in nearly every other genre of popular culture, images of Blacks disappeared entirely from games during the turbulent civil rights years. Images of African Americans simply became too "controversial" for the culture-makers to treat in overtly derogatory--or any other--ways.
Post-Civil Rights:
Respect to Reverence
Color Plate 15
Color Plate 15
Famous Black People in American History Flash Cards
Famous Black People in American History flash cards African Americans remained invisible in the game genre long after they achieved de jure the equality of their rights. Mainstream game makers such as Selchow and Righter, Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers slowly integrated Black characters, issues and accomplishments into their offerings as they revised games or created new ones. This study, despite much effort, has yet to discover any attempt by mainstream manufacturers to market "Black editions" of established games to the growing African-American market. As the Black consumer, game-playing market grew, it demanded games that encouraged Black pride [Color Plate 15]. For the most part, Black entrepreneurs alone met this demand.
In 1974 a mainstream manufacturer, EDU-CARDS, a division of KPB Industries of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, offered a flash card set, "Famous Black People in American History." The game involved showing a charcoal portrait of a famous person, giving a clue, and asking, "Who am I?" The subjects ranged from Marian Anderson to Phyllis Wheatley.
More typical of the slow and deliberate pace of integration was the 1978 edition of Milton Bradley's "Chutes and Ladders," which included a young Black boy as one of the moveable game pieces. (The other game pieces depicted white little boys and girls.)
The phenomenally successful "Trivial Pursuit" series of games included numerous references to African Americans in the arts, media, sports and history. Marketed jointly by Horn Abbot and Selchow and Righter, all of the series-from the original Genus in 1981, the Silver Screen, All-Star Sports and Baby Boomer in 1983 to the Young Players in 1985 -liberally acknowledged Black participation in and contributions to U.S. and world events.
Among lesser-known manufacturers, the John N. Hansen Co. Inc. and TRIVIA GAMES INC. produced versions of "JUNIOR TRIVIA" (ca. 1985). The questions from the categories Entertainment/Famous People, Sports/Games, Science/Computers, Literature/Art/Words, Geography/Space, and History/Traditions include little about Black achievement and contribution beyond that of sports heroes such as "Dr. J." (Julius Irving). Instead the questions ask about Fat Albert's favorite sport, the nickname of the 747 airplane ("Fat Albert"), the country in which Dr. Livingston worked (Africa), the Friday of the Wall Street Crash in 1929 ("black"), and the Ku Klux Klan.
Hersch and Company's "Out of Context: Game of Outrageous Quotes" (1985) included quotes by Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Joe Louis, Richard Pryor, Andrew Young, Angela Davis, Wilt Chamberlain, Vanessa Williams, Sonny Liston, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Mr. T., Eddie Murphy and more. Game players could not help but realize the major role Blacks play in everyone's daily lives. But it took Black entrepreneurs to celebrate and revere African Americans in games.
With U.S. Games Systems, Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut, educator Deloris L. Holt and illustrator Langley Newman, published the "Black Historv Playing Card Deck" (1977). It is a complete deck of cards divided into four suits: Human Rights, Adventure, Science and Industry, and the Arts. In the Arts suit, for example, the King is Paul Robeson, the Queen Lorraine Hansberry; the Jack is Louis Armstrong, the Ten Muhammad Ali, the Nine Bessie Smith, the Eight Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the Seven Jackie Robinson, the Six Henry Ossawa Tanner, the Five Jessie Owens, the Four Langston Hughes, the Three Henry Zino, the Two Ira Aldridge, and the Ace Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington. Each card features a color portrait and a separate booklet contains short biographies of each "notable black person in America's rich heritage."
Developed in 1987, "Black Americana HIGH ACHIEVER" is patterned loosely on the "Trivial Pursuit" model. The game contains over 2500 questions on African-American history and culture. A sample question is "From what Black college did teacher-astronaut Sharon Christa McAuliffe graduate?"(4)
Over the past one hundred years or so the attitude toward African Americans in games has evolved from hostility to at least grudging respect. The evolution has been uneven, however. The most primitive period was by far the longest. Furthermore, the recent and as yet much briefer dramatic turn toward reverence is due to Black initiative and participation.
Notes
(1) Don Kader, "Collecting Black Memorabilia," Collectors' Showcase (Sept./Oct., 1982), 16.
(2) William C. Ketchum, Jr., The Catalog of American Collectibles: A Fully Illustrated Guide to Styles and Prices (New York: A Rutledge/Mayflower Book, 1979), 298.
(3) Richard Friz, "On the Air: The Amos 'n' Andy Show," Collectibles Illustrated (May/June, 1983), 82.
(4) Answer: She received her Master of Education degree from Bowie State College in Maryland.
BACK
4 - Eric Olsen
well, that is certainly interesting but is applicable to what? You seem to be have the notion that someone has denied the presence of racism and vile stereotyping in American history, or that someone has said the legacy of slavery has no current ramifications.
5 - Mihos
"Games of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflected racial attitudes ranging from the benign to the aggressively violent. Although some of the games of the first period stereotyped African Americans as comical entertainers, many revealed an intense white hostility towards Blacks. This hostility was legitimated, even celebrated, by making it appear as if the Blacks depicted enjoyed the victimization to which the games subjected them. Many target games of the period portrayed the Black targets as smiling broadly. The unspoken message was that Blacks, unlike other people, felt no pain, so players could indulge in and enjoy aggressive assaults because no real pain was inflicted."
6 - Mihos
Eric,
this trial and the lionhsare of its coverage are part and parcel of this cultural precedent.
the Jacksons are afforded subhuman status by those that profit from their public vilification
Anyway you put it, the Jackson five were an important snap shot in time, not so much for their contributions to music which are nominal at best, but rather for the popularity afforded them. the Jackson five were little more than a side shoot of these children board games.
The generations desensitized to the point of willfully justifying cruelty
perpetuating stereotypes and so on, resent very much any notion that this child's make believe doll has any rights whatsoever.
7 - Eric Olsen
sorry, I just don't buy that line of reasoning at all. The Jackson 5 WERE musically significant, the last important and successful artists of the original Motown era. They were popular because they were good, young, fresh and appealing. It's as simple as that.
8 - mihos
'Good, young, fresh and appealing'
Were they virtuoso writers, musicians and performers?
With the exception of the lead vocalist the answer is no. But then the Jackson FIVe didn't write their own music, lyrics or produce their own music. That was left to
a marketing team of forty something men, most of whom were Jewish.
Believe it or not most of the golden oldies of Motown were written by Jewish songsmiths who collaborated with those responsible for the promotion of these hit songs. The Jackson Five were fantastic showmen performing the commercial jingles of men who though primarily Caucasian or ethnically Jewish appreciated cultural diversity. I bet their parents and peers respected Martin Luther King JR. Their collaboration with the Jackson family and the Supremes amounted to civil rights work.
The music had a life of its own.
The children and women were its voice and soul.
But the Jackson Five were carefuly groomed and promoted as a very safe and sanitized product.
The Jackson Five were the last rung on the evolutionary latter of these historic board games.
But we must acknowledge the cards presented to them and the delicate position it placed this vulnerable family.
The architects of the Jackson's success at least a handful of them probably grew up playing those board games and this is how the brothers were marketed!
When white people pointedly refuse to acknowledge the intellectual capacity of a black luminary this is one matter.
When the white majority apathetically snobs away any personal accountability in the vilification of black luminaries it is important to try and learn why.
Sometimes it is spot on.
Sometimes it smacks of more.
i don't think most people in your generation are even remotely aware of how consistent their calluous disregard is for people who have traditionally been manipulated to the benifit of children marketed entertainment industries.
This is how future generations are instructed on the value of human life.
9 - The Proprietor
Funny - I didn't know that Brian Holland, Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell, Deke Richards and Berry Gordy were Jewish!
Perhaps mihos is confusing Don Kirshner or Phil Spector with Berry Gordy. He's woefully uninformed about Motown.
Don't feed the troll, friends....
10 - HW Saxton
TP, Glad you mentioned that, I wanted to
take Mihos to school on these & on some
other really ignorant points of his but
do not have the time. I'm on my bosses
computer and will get killed if caught.
But,good job.
11 - Eric Olsen
thank goodness TP and HW - the history of Motown is one of the most documented, explored and well-known of any corner of popular music history.
EVERYONE knows Motown was black-owned, run and operated. ALL of the major writers, producers, musicians, execs, through the '60s and into the early-'70s, ie, the Golden Age, were black.
This total lack of regard for obvious facts sheds a lot of light on the rest of the discussion
12 - Mihos
Obviously a quick read is all that writing was worth. The Jackson FIVE records were written by whom? Don't tell me I'm lazy on facts I have the song books before me.
Does anyone really have a problem accepting that a black owned label would hire the best songwriters and producers for its new bubblegum market?
The best writers and producers were in tune with more of the same in the commercialzation of said product.
Try staying on topic even if you feel it necessary to skip facts for assumptions of holes in my logic.
I'll try and do the same.
13 - Mihos
"Mi Chamocha"
Any idea what this means folks?
14 - Mihos
"EVERYONE knows Motown was black-owned, run and operated. ALL of the major writers, producers, musicians, execs, through the '60s and into the early-'70s, ie, the Golden Age, were black.
This total lack of regard for obvious facts sheds a lot of light on the rest of the discussion"
Gee Eric, I guess you didn't study any of that documentation or you would have learned about the Berry Gordy's relationship with the Purple Gang and how financing Motown was one of the brighter moments in the Jewish Black collaboration movement...
Does it make you uncomfortable to be confronted with the fact that the form of exploitation you employ here is not original?
15 - Mihos
Coming straight off the heels of his off-Broadway smash GODSPELL, 24 year old Stephen Schwartz began work on PIPPIN and conjured up a score that was at once melodic, contemporary but also served the story and characters exceptionally well. (He had written a version of the show while in college called PIPPIN, PIPPIN, however this 1972 version was completely new.)
The musical style of the show was not easily categorized and displayed a varied range of styles including rock, calypso, folk, R & B, pop as well as traditional show tunes and were masterfully orchestrated by the late Ralph Burns.
Soon after the show opened, the cast assembled, along with Stephen and famed record producer Phil Ramone, to record the original cast album, which was released in December of 1972. The album sold well and though the estimated number of LP sales is not available, Brian Drutman, - head of the Decca Broadway label - reports that since its release in 1991, the CD (both the original and the recently remastered version) have sold over 150,000 copies in total.
Such songs as the aforementioned opening number "Magic To Do," "No Time At All," "Love Song," "Morning Glow," and, of course, "Corner of the Sky" - to name several - were not only effective in the context of the show but proved popular outside of it and have frequently been performed and recorded by vocal artists around the world. In 1973, for example, "Corner of the Sky" became a Top 40 hit single for The Jackson Five and was included on their SKYWRITER album. The following year, Michael Jackson recorded a single version of "Morning Glow" which was also heard on his LP MUSIC AND ME. "I Guess I'll Miss the Man" too found its way onto vinyl in a 1972 self-titled album by The Supremes.
16 - The Proprietor
I Want You Back - Written by Perry, Mizell, Gordy, Richards
ABC - Written by Perry, Mizell, Gordy, Richards
I'll Be There - Written by Davis, West, Gordy, Hutch
Never Can Say Goodbye - Written by Clifton Davis
Not a lot of landsmannschaft there Mihos. You do seem a bit obsessed with Jewish people, don't you? And by the way, "Mi chamocha" is from a Jewish prayer (the line in question is "Mi chamocha ha-elim Adonai").
I won't feed the troll any further.
17 - HW Saxton
At risk of feeding the TROLL again but..
Mihos do you have any idea of what you
speak? Jewish businessman have been an
integral part of the "Black Music" biz
since it's very inception. This was NOT
the case with Berry G and Motown though.
This is common knowledge.
Motown was always an African/American
ran owner operated business from the get
go chumlie.When you are clued in on cats
like The Chess Bros.,Jules Bihari,Jerry
Wexler,Richard Braun,Art Rupe,Herbert
Abramson,et al. and their work and their
contributions in the building of R & B
music post WW2 America then we can take
this conversation somewhere,maybe. Until
then, just know that what you've stated
is incorrect,TP and EO are correct and
your statements are starting to reek of
racism. And as an aside,most Blacks and
Jews ended up doing a lot of business
together because of similar treatment of
their respective peoples.A concept you
may have trouble fathoming but...Aw F***
it.Just get a clue, Magoo.
18 - Mihos
"your statements are starting to reek of
racism. And as an aside,most Blacks and
Jews ended up doing a lot of business
together because of similar treatment of
their respective peoples.A concept you
may have trouble fathoming but...Aw F***
it.Just get a clue, Magoo."
as a reaction to what I wrote:
"Believe it or not most of the golden oldies of Motown were written by Jewish songsmiths who collaborated with those responsible for the promotion of these hit songs. The Jackson Five were fantastic showmen performing the commercial jingles of men who though primarily Caucasian or ethnically Jewish appreciated cultural diversity. I bet their parents and peers respected Martin Luther King JR. Their collaboration with the Jackson family and the Supremes amounted to civil rights work.
The music had a life of its own.
The children and women were its voice and soul.
But the Jackson Five were carefuly groomed and promoted as a very safe and sanitized product. "
Who is the moran here?
If my shitty writing prose confused anyone let me rescind already.
Jewish songwriters and Jewish promoters
were integral in the success of Motown and the Jackson Five.
This fact I've reaffirmed does not in anyway equate with racism.
Cooperation is key.
The point I was attempting to make IS
without a group of educated non blacks, Jackson would be an unknown non sequitur versus an international icon.
The original posting by Eric Ollsen is satire. Latoya and Michael Jackson are utilized in the same manner as traditional American board games marketed to white American and European children depicting African Americans.
Predictably, apologists of Eric's unambiguous exploitation attack the credibility of the reporter ( me).
One would hope that this opportunity will provide impetus and inspiration to look beyond the sensational inference to grasp at reality.
Instead we have a party of hegemonists circling the wagon as it were.
Thank you for the opportunity to illuminate an important point.
!.
19 - Mihos
its all fun and games to the entitled
cultural imperialists. So superior in their inflated sense of purpose detractors of Jackson become opportunists, deflecting any culpability of the perpetuation of racist exploitation however unintentional that may
have been and stapling the same charge on the reporter playing advocate of objectivity.
wake up already
at some point in your young lives each and every one of you will have to acknowledge that if nothing less, your apathy reeks of elitism.
you would tar and feather another human being for bucking the establishment put in place by the generations that conceived your entitlements before acknowledging that your own social status and stability thereof is part and parcel of another victimless crime- the vilification and tar and feathering of those that refuse your establishment's entitled hegemony.
bloggers take offence of imagined slights and obtuse ignorance of American history which is the objective.
Be angry. Feel angry.
Its a step towards empathy.
But you'll actually have to accept personal responsibility for shortcomings of your own limited perspective.
20 - Mihos
mistrust breeds apathy
what are the consequences?
21 - Eric Olsen
your entire conception of the culture and place of Motown in history is simply, sadly, glaringly wrong. For a time Motown was the most successful black-owned business in America. Berry Gordy, a black man, was the driving force behind Motown on the business, creative, marketing, image, etc level. He brought in very talented black singers, musicians, songwriters and producers, and working collaboratively, had them do their thing. Yes, the images of the stars werre carefully cultivated to appeal to mainstream America; yes, this approach caused controversy and aroused questions of Motown's "authenticity"; but the msuic, the style, the approach, the marketing, the image, ALL of it was conceived and executed by blacks.
I don't want to "pull rank" here, but I wrote a fucking BOOK where I interviewed and profiled Berry Gordy, HDH, Norman Whitfield, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Deke Richards (who is white, by the way), and I know the Motown story as well as virtually anyone who wasn't there at the time.
The entire cultural significance of Motown is that it was wildly successful artistically and commercially and it was ALL accomplished by black Americans until Berry Gordy sold to MCA and moved to L.A.
THe Jackson 5 recorded a Stephen Schwartz song in '73? Holy shit, that negates everything that happened in the previous 12 years or so.
22 - Mihos
Thanks for staying on topic.
That explains your scintillating expose on
Rockwell. For your information, I worked
BMI for fifteen years before retiring to academia. I know something about the history of songwriting and the important collaboration between Jewish and Black writers that took place during the fifties, sixties and seventies.
My point was that the Jackson five we knew were marketed as product and that that product fit evolutionarily speaking
as an end rung of the aforementioned board games.
The bottom line, black luminaries are utilized as social commentary.
23 - Eric Olsen
yes, the Jackson 5 and every other artist on Motown was marketed to mainstream America, but it was done so by black Americans. That is the entire point
24 - Mihos
Eric, that is simply not an accurate take on history.
True, Motown was owned by Berry Gordy with investing sources tied directly to the Purple gang.
And then as in today's rap labels, Jewish businessmen's collaborative contributions weigh rather heavily.
If you wrote a book on Motown and failed to
learn this aspect of the music business it is likely a very superficial read.
25 - Eric Olsen
I was the lead writer and editor of The Encyclopedia of Record Producers, superficial is one thing it has not been called