Great Article from 2009 on Whitney Houston’s potential and how great she would have been if life didn’t get in the way. He uses the American Idol show to contrast talent and how someone like her would have killed like no other in a show like that. She was truly a transcendent talent trapped in a fragile and flawed human shell. Loved her voice. 

Cry For Whitney? What about her child? What about the next young star?

This is the most I hear people talk about they’re hearts go out to Whitney’s daughter. I guess I just think more so of who and how many people were thinking about her as her parents were drinking and drugging themselves throughout her upbringing?? Never good to see someone die young with seemingly more to offer, but worst when that same person systematically takes their own life not being able to appreciate their own gifts and privileges. There’s no peace in that. There’s no God in that. May Whitney’s daughter find healing and a way to find peace while living. Why do we insist death is the birth of life and peace? Why not while living?

This is where fandom and our idol worship of celebrities fail us. They are people…just people. Miss Houston was an incredibly gifted person who could have taken her voice and image anywhere and lived well. No one was limiting her ascension. It is something in the culture that creates self-destructive behavior yet we still praise and support it. We find new and more entertaining ways to laugh at it, to make satire out of it. Until the object of our own love, admiration, envy, ridicule, and even commiseration dies and ceases to exist then those very comforts (however unrealized or nascent) are compromised. 

We love things to stay where we feel we know we left them, so we can always return to them when other things in our lives inevitably start to change. That is an enormous comfort. Even when those things are “ugly” like abuse, drugs, and other forms of self-loathing we still reach for it when we feel we are being pulled into the unknown. The unknown is often what we need to experience to grow, but it is still a scary prospect. I for one will look at these celebrated individuals beit Whitney or even Michael Jackson as lessons. Crying for them or about them is not needed. They made their choice. What will we do to make sure our next line of incredibly gifted youth are more protected and encouraged to live openly happy and productive lives?

Onajé Malik Lott

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