A Ruler Too Small for Whitney

You know what’s wild when you sit with it for a minute?

Back in the 1980s, Al Sharpton helped lead a protest against Whitney Houston. The claim was that her music was “too pop,” like she was somehow performing for white audiences instead of standing firmly inside Black music.

But if you really remember that era, you know the truth of it. The whole decade was experimental. Genres were blending, stretching, crossing over. What Whitney was doing was R&B of its time, just carried with a wider reach. Her voice moved across rooms. That’s all.

And she never denied being a Black woman. Not once.

What happened was something we’ve seen before. Certain folks wanted Blackness to look a very specific way. Sound a certain way. Stay inside a narrow lane so it could be easily recognized and approved.

Whitney didn’t live inside that lane.

She stood in the same space Michael Jackson did. Black artists whose gifts were so large the whole world could hear them. And when that happens, people start acting like your reach somehow cancels your roots.

It doesn’t.

Funny how after Whitney passed, the narrative softened and folks said she had been misunderstood. But truth be told, she wasn’t misunderstood. People just tried to measure her Blackness with a ruler that was too small.

And Whitney Houston never shrank to fit anybody’s measure. 🎤✨