Whitney Houston was the first black woman I wanted to be like....

[Anonymous]

15:06....that's awesome....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In middle school, in the 80's, our little ass backwards town was still somewhat socially segregated. I had strictly white kids for friends, although my school was probably 60/40 in favor of black kids. Most of my relatives, with the exception of my mom, were well-meaning people but really ignorant and racist in the way that spawns the "eloquent for a black person" type statements (shudder). Whitney was a HUGE moment for me. I was in the locker room singing to myself, thinking that nobody was around for some reason I can't even remember now. I was softly singing "Greatest Love of All" to myself, but probably got a bit loud because I liked the acoustics of the room. Suddenly I realized several of my classmates had walked in. They were kind of laughing at me, but one of the girls was like "keep singing, you sound nice." I was WAY too embarrassed to do that, of course, my 13 year old self was the shyest person ever. So one of the girls started singing it with me. She had gone to elementary school with me and middle school and we barely ever talked, but she picked up the song where I"d left off, and then I joined her, and the two of us just belted it out, both of us knew every word, and obviously loved the song. It was a defining moment in my life, in my girlhood. We stayed friends and are still friends today. She was my first black friend, but not my last. I like to think of myself as a progressive person, I can hardly reconcile my current self with the insular, mildly racist kid I was on a path to be. Whitney was criticized back then for being "too white." I don't know about that. She was certainly "black" to me, and I didn't care. I LOVED her. I was obsessed. Whitney was a bridge. I get what you are saying, OP, I really do. Younger posters on these boards, even 10 years younger, probably just do not know what it was like to go to school in the years just following desegregation, where there were still race riots going on (as there were in my middle school - literally, white and black kids would fight en masse - rough little neighborhood). Whitney was a bridge, a glimpse of the "other side" and a connection. She was the first "no duh" moment where we realized we had so much in common with one another. Whitney's music, looks, stature, and my gosh, that voice, was transcendent. Whatever private demons she was fighting, she has left MUCH more in her wake than tragedy. I really feel that she changed my life for the better and am so sad to hear of her passing.

nice story. Whitney seemed different from the other pop stars of that time -- Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner. Whitney seemed like someone you would have known, a normal person with an amazing talent and charm. I think it's sad the way her life turned out.

[Anonymous]

I feel sad I never listened to her lasted (2009) album, before this time, but hearing songs from there now, real nice ...

[Anonymous]

<-sorry, "latest" album

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a foreign who comes from an extremely white country, I remember how awed we all were by Whitney Houston when "The Bodyguard" first came out. No one knew Diana Ross, very few had heard about Tina Turner, so Whitney Houston was pretty much the one and only black diva for us. Her songs were everywhere, I mean, everywhere.

I'm really sad to hear about her death.

Oh, and today is the first time I've ever heard that she is considered 'too white' in the AA community. Live and learn.

When she first came out, she was considered "too white" because her songs were super pop. In later years, she wasn't considered as such.

Silly either way, of course.

She did coin the phrase "hell to the no" afterall. White people don't say shit like that. She was all black but ofcourse marketed as a pop artist which contributed to her cross over appeal but she grew up in church, singing gospel. Her Mom, cousin, godmother were all gospel/soul singers. The marketing gimmick was all to increase her album sales, not to take the black out of her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marrying Bobby was the street cred. As an AA woman who has also been called out for actiNg white I have no doubts that she was tortured by those sentiments.

Think lots of celebs like bad boy or girls. Rhianna and Chris Brown. Madonna and Carlos Leon. Kardashian relative dating Avril Levine (sp?).

[Anonymous]

I loved her and could have written OP's post.

[Anonymous]

15:06 here. Although I am sure many had different reasons for exactly why Whitney was not "black enough" I was specifically talking about how she was booed while performing "soul train." The criticism of the day was that she stepped too far away from her gospel / soul / r & b roots and stripped too much of the "churchiness" out of her music in a way Aretha Franklin, Deone Warwick and others did not. That sound was poppy back then and a real departure for a black woman (though of course I did not understand that then).

After writing my post I looked at lots of articles today and found this essay written by a black man to be really insightful. He has a whole paragraph about the too white / not black enough factor:

It was because Whitney was a vehicle for integration. She was an image of blackness that white America could buy and in doing so, give us cultural leverage in return. And to the degree she ascended we praised her but felt an unease that it came at the price we ultimately could not pay. During the 1989 Soul Train Awards, she was booed by some of the black audience for what was seen as her abandoning the soul tradition for a bleached pop vocal style. It hurt her deeply. During a Katie Couric interview in 1996 she said, “Sometimes it gets down to that, you know? You’re not black enough for them. I don’t know. You’re not R&B enough. You’re very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them.”

I thought this article was really powerful because basically he says she was an integrator and she paid the price for it. Other posters have mentioned that she married Bobby Brown for street cred (though she personally said "when you love someone you love someone" and told people that she wasn't so different from Bobby after all. The author of this post calls that "double consciousness" and says it is a price black people pay when they appeal to white audiences and then are criticized for selling out their black roots, then they swing the other way, embracing the stereotypical urban black downfalls (crack, etc) in a manifestation of the struggle to stay true vs. appeal to a broader audience. I really shouldn't try to interpret, it is a complex subject. But what strikes me is that in addition to her struggles growing up, and the fact that she was in the spotlight as a very young girl (singing in night clubs in her early teens) and so on, she also had to deal with feelings that she'd turned her back on her roots. That she'd done something wrong by being successful in the way she went about it.

Anyway, here is the article:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154108/why_did_whitney_die_how_double_consciousness_robs_black_america_of_its_artists

[Anonymous]

Ack, sorry, I was still editing that post. 15:06 here. A point I meant to make, the main point, really, is that it's hard to think about Whitney's addiction as being a price she paid for being an integrator, as the author of the essay I posted suggests. Because she DID integrate. I both love and hate that my story is exactly what the author was talking about. She built a bridge whether she intended to or not. And she paid for it. So for the people being so harsh, it may be something to think about. To appeal so broadly, but to still feel torn, to do something important and special amid criticisms (loud ones, at the time) that you're selling out your race in doing so, came at a cost. So, I appreciate even more what she did for me, now that I think about it, considering the toll it took on her. I hope she is at peace.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

15:06 you are too smart for these boards....

[Anonymous]

please. she was not an integrator. this was not a purposeful courageous decision. her record label was trying to make money and packaged her as a pop princess. nor is this michael jackson bleaching his skin.

putting too much thought into it. she had a good voice and she was a druggie drunk.

[Anonymous]

Please do us all a favor and go back to the crack is whack thread. This thread is the nice reasoned discussion about Whitney's death. You'll feel much more at home in the other one.

[Anonymous]

15:06 - love your story. it seems the ones that are the most inspirational are also the most tortured. It is a shame. We are all better off for having her in our life than without, IMHO.

[Anonymous]

15:06, your posts on this thread are some of the best that I've ever read on DCUM. (And I've been a regular here for at least four years.) Thank you so much for taking the time to put your thoughts into writing for us.

Greatest Love of All is a beautiful song and was a fixture among my friends during my freshman year in college. In the many years since, whenever I think of Whitney Houston, I think of that song and how powerful it was when I heard it at the funeral of one of those friends the year after we graduated. I think we loved that song because it made us feel hopeful about the lives we could lead if we really believed in ourselves. There was something so innocent, so unblemished about that idea as we sang along with Whitney in our dorm rooms. Sung at the funeral of a 23 year old who would never become the person she was meant to be because she happened to cross the path of a drunk driver one night, the song both inspired me anew and showed just how far reality can fall from our hopeful expectations.