Monday, February 13, 2012

Whitney Houston, RIP

Somewhere on this blog, quite awhile back, I mentioned something about not caring all that much about Whitney Houston's work. I was an admirer of her mother, Sissy Houston (of the Sweet Inspirations), and of course of her other relative (cousin, aunt? I can't remember), the wonderful Dionne Warwick. And I prefer Dolly Parton's version of her own song, I Will Always Love You, because - to me - Whitney's version, while technically impressive, seems to lack the emotional depth that Dolly brought to that song.

OTOH, there was no denying Whitney's raw talent and powerhouse of a voice, and the news of her death yesterday made me very sad for a life cut short way too soon. I'm not a close follower of Celebrity Tabloid gossip, but I gathered that Whitney has made a number of bad choices in her life and that, apparently (certainly not the fact that she was, you know, BLACK - no certainly not!), has triggered a fresh torrent of rightwing bile the likes of which we haven't seen since, well, since Barack Obama was elected. I wish I could say that I was shocked. These are the things we need to point out when some idiot starts blathering about our "postracial" society. My ass.

Anyway, for a better tribute to this beautiful and sad young woman, go here.

UPDATE: Just for grins, I checked to see what Texas-libberscallmeracist-Fred had to say about this and you will be absolutely notstunned to discover that he is right on board with the rest of the lunatics in his tribe, with a long post about what a crack ho Whitney Houston was and how only the Liberal Media would waste print on such trash while ignoring the Real Story which is that a soldier died in Afghanistan. Seriously.

RELATED, OF COURSE: I mean, really. Is it my aging imagination, or did this crap used to be much more "under the radar"? Certainly most sentient human beings understood that racism didn't disappear after the civil rights movement of the 60's, but became less socially acceptable, less talked about in polite circles. It just seems so much more brazenly out in the open these days.

2 comments:

Freewheel said...

I was not a fan, but she certainly had talent. It's amazing that the hateful right wing will spew racist nonsense on the occasion of an untimely death.

AnnPW said...

Amazing, indeed! Thanks, FW.