kibbles said:

Thank you kibbles.

kibbles said:

like so many on this board, i remember mj long before thriller. do i wish he had seen his own value, his own beauty? do i wish he had more self-confidence and self-worth? yes. maybe he didn't want to see himself reflected in his kids, since he didn't think very much of himself. you think that's because of his 'thriller' fame? it wasn't. mj often spoke of his sad life, before and after thriller. his stardom always came at a high price. it didn't just start with thriller. he wasn't encouraged to change himself because he would be more liked, crossover to appeal to whites, more, yada, yada. the jacksons were 'crossover' out of the gate; that's what motown was all about. what troubled mj was something deeper, and it had to do with the family that you seem to hold in such high esteem. mj was a 10 year old boy put to work to feed that family. that's what he was trying to escape from psychologically by changing himself. he didn't want to be who he was not because he was black, but because he was mj.

there's a layer of truth to what you said about Motown and how the label looked to shape the path of its artists....and MJ did incorporate that thinking to establish his own career....but even with Motown, Berry Gordy responded to the racial climate that existed during the time he founded the company, and because of that climate and how intense it was, he reached the conclusion that "crossing over" was the means to success, but without realizing it, it would come to alienate the audience that he would depend on to build the foundation from, which is a primary reason why he had to relocate Motown from Detroit to California....

but this is the difference........when J-5 started out, Motown looked to establish commercial appeal for them in the mainstream but the base of their success was the black audience who bought the majority of those records starting out......Motown could not have existed if those black people in Detroit, Chicago, Gary, or any other urban community had not bought their records.....

this is the audience that gets overlooked time and time again, they made Motown and J-5's success possible, and that's why I'm going to always acknowledge them, because w/out them, me as a fan is not possible becoming a J-5 fan during the early 70s, u being a fan of him would not be possible, or the fans who bought any of his solo albums from OTW to Thriller to Bad to Dangerous to History to Invincible would not be possible, regardless of the race, culture, or nationality of that person, it's that audience who proved the career of MJ was viable

and MJ was not feeding his family in Gary, Indiana...........his parents were feeding everyone.....they were already raising 6 children before Michael Jackson was even born, Jackie and Rebbie were already in teenagers themselves before J-5 became a professional act. Joe was working 2-3 jobs himself and Katherine was doing what she had to do. Jackie Jackson made just as much a sacrfice as any of the siblings....he turned down many scholarships to commit to the J-5, and this whole thing may have never happened if Tito Jackson didn't start playing his father's guitar, because that's the moment Joe found out his kids had musical talent

and nobody forced MIchael Jackson to sing contrary to popular belief these days, HE WANTED TO BE A SINGER.......and the Jackson Five were not the only neighborhood group trying to become professional entertainers as teenagers, you had youth groups all across the country trying to do the same thing as they were singing doo-wop on the corners

and if any of us were parents during that time, struggling to raise a large family in a situation where your town's economy hinges by a thread, and we saw our kids possessing this degree of music talent, we would have done everything possible to pursue careers for them to. See allot of times we look at the effects rather than looking at the cause....maybe if things were of equal standing starting out, we wouldn't do allot of things that we have to do. at no time since the Jacksons have been public figures, none of the siblings, and not Michael Jackson himself ever said they never missed a meal growing up as kids or they never had decent clothes on their back

why don't we ever talk about the OSMOND family and how their father George Osmond pursued music careers for his children just like Joe Jackson did, and GEorge was even more of a disciplinarian than Joe was, and pattern the act of his childrne right after the Jackson Five, He was a mormon, he was superstrict and they dont' play around at all.......Donny Osmond was the exact same age as Michael Jackson was when he fronted his brothers and sisters performing....but we never talk about them though

and after Thriller, MJ been speaking of his plight time and time again in his lyrics but that plea spoke on def ears....

and he could not have put it more plain than in the song Scream

I'M TIRED OF YOU TELLIN

THE STORY YOUR WAY

YOU'RE STARTING CONFUSION

YOU THINK ITS OKAY

YALL KEEP CHANGING THE RULES

I KEEP PLAYIN THE GAME

I CAN'T TAKE IT MUCH LONGER

I THINK I MAY GO INSANE

or in the song Will You Be There

EVERYONE'S TAKING CONTROL OF ME

SEEMS LIKE THE WORLD'S GOT A ROLE FOR ME

I'M SO CONFUSED WILL YOU SHOULDER ME

BE THERE FOR ME, AND CARE ENOUGH TO BEAR ME

but he even cried out during the opening leg of his first solo tour in 1987 when referring to that ole indian proverb

HAVE MERCY ON ME, FOR I'VE BEEN BLEEDING A LONG TIME NOW

this is why he was in so much turmoil, it was not because of his family

it was really because the world in general and its mechanizations had a role for him and did not want him to be who he was meant to

THAT was the real source of his pain because as he said in the song Scream, he played the game.

[Edited 4/24/16 6:57am]

Nobody talks about the Osmonds
because nobody cares about the Osmonds.