alexandraerin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexandraerin) wrote2010-05-10 05:26 pm
alexandraerin) wrote2010-05-10 05:26 pm
Entry tags:
"Post-racial".
Lena Horne passed away yesterday. My first exposure to her was the first place I encountered most people of immense talent: Muppet Show reruns.
This is going to be a brief post, because I don't feel adequate to the task of eulogizing a woman with such a long and varied career. There's a decent obituary on Yahoo! News, but the impetus behind this post is in the comments (which I really should know better than to read).
One commenter thanks her thusly: "Yes, RIP to a woman who did her thing for African Americans." Now, the headline on the piece is "Barrier-breaking jazz star Lena Horne dies at 92." The article touches briefly on some of the (racial) barriers she broke down. Her kipedia article has a more detailed but still very brief primer on her civil rights work, but the article the comment was left on did address these things at a glance.
But some of the responses to this comment (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the spoons to wade back in and read them) ran along the lines of how very dare you claim Lena Horne she belonged to everybody she worked to destroy racial barriers why are you emphasizing differences, etc., etc., etc.
This is what we mean when we say we live in a "post-racial society": stop complaining. We got rid of slavery and replaced it with civil rights laws and therefore there's nothing left to be said, right? Why do people have to go and bring race into things? It's the people who bring race up that are racists!
Even the argument that "racism is over" falls flat as a reason to tell people to pipe down about the fact that Lena Horne's career didn't consist entirely of having people giving her talent the reception it deserved, unless someone wants to argue that racism was over during the entire period her long career spanned. Even though racism is alive and well and woven very deeply in the fabric of American life, there are people of color who are alive today... people who are being born just today... who are the beneficiaries of the progress she made in her lifetime.
If one of the folks she was fighting for feels like giving her thanks, or expressing pride in what she did... how is it appropriate to tell them to pipe down? Yes, contemporary white audiences enjoyed Ms. Horne's music, too... if they hadn't, she wouldn't have had nearly as much leverage to effect change. Does that give white America some claim over her? Because we deigned to allow a talented superstar to entertain us?
Lena Horne's career was filled with people who wouldn't let her forget her racial background and people who wanted everybody else to forget it. Trying to be all "colorblind" about her now is just plain dishonest.
This is going to be a brief post, because I don't feel adequate to the task of eulogizing a woman with such a long and varied career. There's a decent obituary on Yahoo! News, but the impetus behind this post is in the comments (which I really should know better than to read).
One commenter thanks her thusly: "Yes, RIP to a woman who did her thing for African Americans." Now, the headline on the piece is "Barrier-breaking jazz star Lena Horne dies at 92." The article touches briefly on some of the (racial) barriers she broke down. Her kipedia article has a more detailed but still very brief primer on her civil rights work, but the article the comment was left on did address these things at a glance.
But some of the responses to this comment (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the spoons to wade back in and read them) ran along the lines of how very dare you claim Lena Horne she belonged to everybody she worked to destroy racial barriers why are you emphasizing differences, etc., etc., etc.
This is what we mean when we say we live in a "post-racial society": stop complaining. We got rid of slavery and replaced it with civil rights laws and therefore there's nothing left to be said, right? Why do people have to go and bring race into things? It's the people who bring race up that are racists!
Even the argument that "racism is over" falls flat as a reason to tell people to pipe down about the fact that Lena Horne's career didn't consist entirely of having people giving her talent the reception it deserved, unless someone wants to argue that racism was over during the entire period her long career spanned. Even though racism is alive and well and woven very deeply in the fabric of American life, there are people of color who are alive today... people who are being born just today... who are the beneficiaries of the progress she made in her lifetime.
If one of the folks she was fighting for feels like giving her thanks, or expressing pride in what she did... how is it appropriate to tell them to pipe down? Yes, contemporary white audiences enjoyed Ms. Horne's music, too... if they hadn't, she wouldn't have had nearly as much leverage to effect change. Does that give white America some claim over her? Because we deigned to allow a talented superstar to entertain us?
Lena Horne's career was filled with people who wouldn't let her forget her racial background and people who wanted everybody else to forget it. Trying to be all "colorblind" about her now is just plain dishonest.
no subject
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Run, run for your spoons!
Which seems a tad irreverent now that I've read it. Oops.
Racism over?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/17/white-people-95000-richer-black
Re: Racism over?