At the beginning of Michael Jackson's
career, his youth and energy were a source of inspiration for black audiences
in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's 1968 assassination.
At a time when the country's black power and civil rights movements were
in disarray, Jackson became a notable figure
in the desegregation of U.S. popular culture and music.
But even after accomplishing unimaginable fame, fortune and millions of devoted fans
around the world, Michael Jackson's obvious privileges acted
as no protection against the blatant racism he encountered.
Here are just eight occasions of when
Michael Jackson came face to face with this all too often black experience
and how he decided to confront prejudice throughout his lifetime.
One, undoubtably the most notorious racism Michael Jackson experienced was as a black
artist when, in the early 1980s, the King of Pop broke racial barriers
by exposing MTV's preference for exclusively white musicians.
MTV was programmed by guys with radio
backgrounds who try to program it like a radio station with a rock format.
The music channel was accused of racism during this era, notably by Rick James,
whose super freak video was rejected by the network.
Record companies wouldn't budget
for videos by their black artists, since they didn't think MTV would play them.
So the network could make the argument
that they simply didn't have any good videos by black artists that were worthy.
That argument went out the window when Jackson made the 'Billie Jean' video.
Despite the production value and Jackson's star quality, MTV didn't play the video
until the song was already a number one hit.
Les Garland, who ran the network at the time,
claims that they loved the video and played it as soon as they could.
But interviews with executives at Jackson's record company
and with others familiar with the matter suggest otherwise.
In the book, 'I Want My MTV' multiple sources who worked at MTV claimed
that the network wanted to air the Beat It video first because Eddie Van Halen played
on it and the song fit their format better.
Walter Yetnikoff, who was head of CBS Records,
recalls threatening to pull all CBS videos from MTV if they didn't play Billie Jean.
He says he threatened to bring Jackson's producer, Quincy Jones, in on it as well.
And the network acquiesced when MTV started playing the clip.
It was first put in medium rotation,
then promoted to heavy rotation when viewers loved it.
When the video for Beat it was delivered.
That one also went into hot rotation for a two month stretch in the summer of 1983.
Both videos were getting constant airplay, establishing Jackson as a video star
and opening doors for a wave of black artists that came after him.
Two, By the mid 1980s, tabloid headlines were
increasingly filled with tales of Michael Jackson's flamboyant behavior
and as a result, the term 'Wacko Jacko' started to appear in the press.
It was a term first applied to the pop star by the British tabloid The Sun
in 1985, but its etymology goes back further and
another racist issue emerged.
Jacko Macaco was the name of a famous monkey used in monkey baiting matches
at the Westminster pit in London in the early 1820s.
Subsequently,
the term Jacko or Joko or Macaco was Cockney slang to refer to monkeys in general
and was used often when denoting a person of color.
The term persisted into the 20th century
as Jacko Monkeys became popular children's toys in Great Britain in the 1950s,
and they remained common in British households into the 1980s.
It was a nickname that Michael Jackson despised.
That's why Michael made a strong point in saying during his 1997 interview
with Barbara Walters, I'm not a Jacko, I'm a Jackson.
You know, you should not say he's an animal.
He's a, not say he's Jacko.
I'm not a Jacko. I'm Jackson.
I have a heart and I have feelings.
I feel that when you do that to me, it's not nice.
The backlash then was not merely about Jackson's perceived eccentricities.
It could be argued that it was also about
power, money and more subtle forms of institutional and cultural dominance.
The decades preceding Jackson, as James Brown put it,
"black recording artists were all too often in the show, but not in the show business."
By the late 1980s, Jackson was a financial and cultural force to be reckoned with.
His status, however, also turned him into an enormous target.
Three,
but this wasn't the only time
Michael Jackson confronted racism head on during his extensive career in 1983,
Jay Coleman, then the Jackson's endorsement manager,
approached soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola in order to strike up
a lucrative endorsement deal similar to what he established
with the Rolling Stones 1981 tour and fragrance company Joven Inc.
The key to Coleman's success was matching
a willing business partner with a promotable star.
And in 1983, there wasn't anyone more promotable than Michael Jackson.
But when Coleman pitched the idea,
Coca-Cola failed to see how Michael Jackson could appeal to their mass
American audience as much as a band like the Rolling Stones.
Coleman said
they gave it serious consideration, yet couldn't make that leap of faith,
they saw anything they would do with Michael Jackson as a much smaller
ethnic campaign targeting predominantly black areas of the country.
As a result, Coca-Cola offered a one million dollar deal that was quickly
rejected and the Jacksons moved on to the number two soft drink
manufacturer, Pepsi, striking up a five million dollar deal.
The Jacksons agreed to Pepsi sponsoring
their 1984 Victory tour and for the group to appear in two television commercials.
As a result of the campaign, Pepsi sales grew to an unprecedented seven
point seven billion dollars the year of 1984, an increase in market share when
Coke Colas dropped.
This allowed them to gain top position as
America's number one soft drink brand, motivating Coca-Cola to take drastic
action the following year with the disastrous invention of New Coke,
quote, Pepsi sales have been fantastic this year, far beyond anyone's
expectations, enthused Joe McCann, Pepsi vice president of Public Affairs.
The only new thing in the mix is the Jacksons.
We won't say the Jacksons are the reason.
We can't figure out what else it would be.
Four, unfortunately, it wasn't only corporate America
that belittled and underestimated Michael Jackson due to the color of his skin.
But Jackson was also subjected to racially
charged attacks by those shockingly part of his own community.
On December 9th, 1984, during the Jacksons victory tour and after
the last song of the evening, Michael hollered out from the Los Angeles stage.
This is our last and final show.
It's been a long 20 years and we love you all.
The brothers looked at Michael with surprised expressions,
as if his declaration of the group's breakup was news to them.
The tour promoter Don King was fuming after the final show when it was clear
to him that he would not be taking the show abroad.
There's no way Michael Jackson should be
as big as he is and treat his family the way he does.
He feels that his father did him wrong.
His father may have done some wrong, but he also had to do a whole lot right.
He went on, What Michael's got to realize is that Michael's a n*****r.
It doesn't matter how great he can sing and dance, I don't care that he can
prance, he's one of the mega stars of the world, but he's still going to be a n*****r
megastar. Don King's attempt to cut him
down to size solely because of his race had Michael Jackson enraged sue his ass.
He told his lawyer, John Branca,
that guy has been pushing my last nerve since day one.
John knew better than to drag the Don King
experience into a new year with fresh litigation.
He called Michael down,
as he always managed to do, and convince Michael to let it go.
Five in a tragic set of circumstances, Michael Jackson's first experiences
of colorism and ridicule of his blackness came when he was only a child from no one
less significant than his very own father, Joe Jackson.
Jermaine Jackson subsequently recalled how
Joe was a distant parent, quote, None of us can remember him holding
us or cuddling us or telling us I love you.
Years later, Michael Jackson recounted
that his father would mercilessly mock him for his looks, calling him big nose
and telling him he was too dark and he was too black to ever be his biological son.
Not only did Joe's violent abuse and physical intimidation leave their
damage on Michael, these racially charged insults haunted Jackson into adulthood
as a result. Michael became increasingly self-conscious
about the size of his nose and developed a nervous tic of constantly touching
and covering his nose with his left hand as if sniffing it.
Hence, producer Quincy Jones giving him the nickname Smelly.
Six,
early on, Michael Jackson experienced
personal rejection while dating due to racist influences.
It was in the mid 1970s and Michael Jackson's first serious love
interests happened to be child star Tatum O'Neal.
They met at the 'On the Rocks',
a club Lou Adler and Jack Nicholson owned on Hollywood Sunset Strip.
At the time, Michael was 17, about five years older than Tatum.
They hit it off straight away and started talking for hours every day.
They continued developing a close kinship for several years after that never
materialized into anything more than a naive romance.
But unfortunately, their relationship came to an abrupt ending.
In 1978, Michael Jackson played
the Scarecrow in The Wiz, an all black cast remake of The Wizard
of Oz, which also starred Diana Ross as Dorothy for the film's premiere.
Michael invited Tatum O'Neal to be his date.
Tatum was delighted, but her talent agent at the time was dead set against it.
I was told in exactly these words, you can't go to a premiere with that n****r
upset and not old enough to insist, Oh, yes, I can.
Tatum turned Michael down without telling Michael the real reason.
Tatum reportedly said he was devastated after that.
Michael didn't speak to me for years
until I ran into him at the Helmsley Palace in New York for old times sake.
we caught a concert together, Kool and the Gang at Madison Square Garden.
Michael, dressed in full costume
for the event, coming in blackface with a pasted on beard, the whole nine yards.
But the things were never the same between us.
I believe that he fell in love with me.
I'm told that he wrote the song 'She's Out
of My Life' on his album Off the Wall for me.
What an honor.
Seven, just like many black Americans,
Michael Jackson had his own unprovoked encounters with the police when at the age
of 21, Michael Jackson learned to drive and bought a black Rolls-Royce,
which he later painted, blew upon receiving his license.
His mother, Katherine, told him,
never drive alone, always have someone with you when you drive.
Although Michael Jackson didn't take her advice one day and he was stopped not
by fans outside his gate or a group of paparazzi, but by a Van Nuys policeman.
This looks like a stolen car, the officer said,
not recognizing the young Michael Jackson, who wasn't wearing a disguise that day,
Michael explained politely that he did indeed own the car.
But the officer went ahead and ran a check
on the car and found that Michael had a ticket outstanding.
The next thing Michael knew, he was sitting in the Van Nuys jail.
Jackson's security officer, Bill Bray, had to come and bail him out.
Michael's mother didn't even know what had happened until he came home.
You should have asked the officer what
a stolen car looks like, she said after he recounted his adventure.
Perhaps the cop had felt that a young
black man didn't belong behind the wheel of a rolls.
But Michael was not only put out by the experience, he professed to be happy.
I got to see how it felt to be in jail, he exclaimed.
Eight, even in death,
Michael Jackson is not immune to racial insensitivities when in 2017,
a white British actor, Joseph Fiennes, was cast to play the King of Pop in a TV
movie for the UK's Sky Arts channel titled Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon.
The film tells a story of an alleged road trip taken by Michael Jackson,
Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando following the 9/11 terror attacks.
The road trip was first detailed in a 2011 Vanity Fair article,
but has since been discredited as nothing more than an urban legend.
As such, Sky Arts commissioned the film as part of its Urban Myth series
when it was announced that Michael Jackson would be played by a white actor.
It caused a wave of controversy.
When asked about Jackson,
actor Joseph Fiennes' says he definitely had a pigmentation issue.
And that's something I do believe.
So he was probably closer to my color than his original color.
It's not in any way malicious.
It's actually endearing.
When he asked her thoughts about
the portrayal of her father, Paris Jackson tweeted that she was so
incredibly offended by it and it honestly makes me want to vomit.
After the public uproar, Sky Arts announced in light
of the concerns expressed by Michael Jackson's immediate family,
they would not broadcast the episode featuring Josephson's as a late superstar.
Sky Arts tweeted at the time.
We set out to take a lighthearted look
at reportedly true events and never intended to cause any offense.
Thank you for watching the detail.
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