Losing Lena

In a cultural moment when the beauty and value of black women and their bodies is so much still up for discussion, the loss of the lovely Lena Horne is poignant.

She was rare for a number of reasons:

• She had a career in which she remained in and out of the public eye for decades, never disappearing or becoming irrelevant. She was recognizable and beloved by generations. Grandmothers who sang "Stormy Weather" every time they saw Horne on TV had grandsons who tilted their heads in mannish admiration of her enduring beauty. Her episode of "A Different World" in the 90s is remembered fondly by most of my peers.
• She spoke her mind. As an actress, a woman, and a black woman, telling folks where to get off was not supposed to be in the cards. Yet, there are many stories about her outspoken opinions about race in Hollywood.
• She didn't run from being black, even though she could have. She probably could have "passed" (maybe?) but was very clear about the way she identified herself. She didn't need to come up with contrived categories or separate herself from other actresses who were also confronting the difficulties of discrimination and inequity.
• She was a sassy singer and a wonderful actress. Many of those today who try to do both clearly need to stick to only one genre. Halle Berry was right to include Horne in her Academy Award acknowledgements.
• She was the good witch in "The Wiz." That performance is mesmerizing every time I see it. I remember seeing it as a little girl and thinking that she looked like an angel, too beautiful to be real. When she sang, "Believe in yourself as I believe in you!" I cried.
• She was sexy. The road to recognition for black women has been filled with pressures from within and without that often forced them to strip themselves of sexuality altogether; or they were relegated to a simplistic portrait of hypersexuality that was one dimensional and dangerous. (This happened in literature as well, hence the need to prove black respectability.) Horne, with her impossibly small waist and sultry smirk, dared to present herself as a woman who was desirable. And she knew it!
• Dang it--she looked fabulous at 92!

Thank you, Lena Horne!

Useless bit of info

In case it ever comes up in a trivia game or something:

I just realized that on "A Different World" Colonel Taylor (Glynn Turman) played former professor/mentor to Dwayne's friend Zelmer (Blair Underwood), who was being deployed in the military. Turman then played Underwood's father on "In Treatment" last season. Underwood's character was a fighter pilot.

Thought it was interesting. I love these kinds of connections. (*And this is probably another indication that I watch too much TV, but--whatever).

Random

A collection of random thoughts, unrelated to each other . . . and probably unrelated to anything else; none of these seemed to be worth an entire post, but I thought I'd share:

• Last night, when I told my daughter that I loved her, and asked if she loved me, she said, "No. I love daddy. Brother loves you." I cannot figure out what to make of that, or even if I should be offended. But it does help explain why she says an unsolicited "I love you" to everyone in the house except me.
• I just watched a rerun of "A Different World." Man, that was a great show!
• We spent the day in a different, but nearby, part of the city. The high school there seemed to be building something new in their stadium. None of the schools in the part of the county where we live has a stadium--they all share one. Isn't there something wrong with this? And how does this happen? Don't my children deserve to have neighborhood schools that have amenities and resources, too?
• Just in case living in this part of the city really does mean that we simply don't deserve good stuff, could someone please pay me enough money so that we can afford to live in the part of the city that does have the good stuff? Or perhaps all of my education is worthless . . . well, not if you ask the student loan people . . . .
• And one more thing about what people deserve: does having children mean that I just don't deserve significant time every day when I can do what I want without interruption?
• I bought books at the library book sale today. I get way too excited about books.
• I got all dressed up this morning and zipped out to a fair for teachers. The lines were literally wrapped around the building and the parking people were sending everyone to some random lot about 900 country miles away. People are seriously looking for work, folks. I gave up and went to Target. In an hour, I went back and drove right up to the building; then they told me that I didn't all the paperwork and they wouldn't see me. Soooo glad I didn't stand in that line!

The Other Shoe Dropped

Growing up, I always heard that death (and birth) came in threes. Whenever someone died, we could expect two more people to die. DH dismisses this as Southern superstition, "Biblebelt Beliefs" he calls them, but it has proven true as far as I could see. When I heard that Bernie Mac died, and then Isaac Hayes the next day, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sorrowfully, I wondered, who would be the third beloved member of the black entertainment community to leave us? On August 20, I got my answer.

Julius Carry, best known to us as Sho'nuff from Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon, passed away on August 19 as a result of pancreatic cancer. He was 56. Who could forget the menacing way he challenged Bruce Leroy in that movie theater early in the movie? I still tell DH to "Kiss my Converse" from time to time.

Carry made guest appearances on many shows. I remember him as Angela's military father who wasn't crazy about her boyfriend Shawn on Boy Meets World. I also remember that he was the debonair philander married to The Jefferson's Jenny (Berlinda Tolbert), but dating Phyllis on Half & Half. He also appeared on The District, The Hughleys, Mosesha, Family Matters, and a host of other shows. But I think I remember him best (other than as Sho' nuff) as the club owner announcing "Kimberllllllllly Reese!" when Kim performed as the lead singer of the band Expressions on A Different World. Julius, you will be missed.

Although she was not a member of the entertainment industry, we also lost Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones this week. She suffered a brain aneurysm and died some time later. Honestly, I was not a fan of hers during the 2008 Democratic primary, but I mourn her lost nonetheless. She was a mother and a sister and she made history for our people. She was the first African American woman to be elected to serve in the US House of Representatives from the state of Ohio. During her terms, she worked to improve economic empowerment in our community and funding for improved health care. Surely, we cannot afford to lose any more of our strong workers.