Discrimination In A Form You May Not Recognize

Written By:  Andrew Eide

People wear masks for different reasons but the main reason is to either pretend they are someone else or to hide who they really are. Discrimination isn’t always plainly visible in front of your eyes. I’m going to present two cases of discrimination where their intent to infer racism was masked.

The first one involves the Osmond Brothers and the Jackson 5 who were both youth rock groups. Nearly every Black person I’ve worked with said the same thing. Their comment was that the Osmond Brothers are copying the Jackson 5 since the Jackson 5 was performing before the Osmonds were. So let’s take a trip down memory lane and see what the truth is shall we?

The Osmonds began performing in 1958 while the Jacksons began performing in 1964. The way I was taught Math in school that comes out to the Osmonds performing for 6 years before the Jacksons did. So if you look at those facts one could turn it around and claim that having a singing group consisting of brothers was started by the Osmonds and copied by the Jacksons.

The second incident involves what is commonly called a Talk Box along with various other names. It is used to transfer your voice to your music so that when you talk or sing your voice sounds like the music. The two most famous uses of this technology were Peter Frampton on his Frampton Comes Alive album and by Stevie Wonder.

So where does the masked racism come into play here? Most Blacks I’ve worked with said the same thing. They said that Stevie Wonder invented the Talk Box and he was the first one to use it for a musical performance. Once again let us take a walk down memory lane and see what the truth is.

The technology for the Talk Box was invented and manufactured in 1939 by Alvino Rey. This was 11 years before Stevie Wonder was born. Alvino Rey had his wife, Rosie King, who was one of the King Sisters musical act, stand behind a curtain while he was on stage with his guitar. As he played the guitar his wife, Rosie, spoke the words and it sounded like Alvino’s guitar was talking.

When I mentioned this to the people who tried to state that Stevie Wonder invented the Talk Box they then changed their tune quickly to try to sound like what they really meant was that Stevie Wonder was the first to make it popular. Again a false claim as the Talk Box was in continuous use from 1939 mostly in the Country Music industry.

Rest assured that people mask their racism in every possible way they can. Instead of being up front and honest about how they feel they have to put on a mask and pretend they are not who they are. When confronted with stuff like this please feel free to reach out, rip off their mask, and call them out for being the racist they really are.