Remembering Whitney Houston

Before "American Idol," "The X Factor" or "The Voice," girls and young women around the world sang at the top of their lungs to tunes like, "How Will I Know" and "You Give Good Love" and dreamed of being just like Whitney Houston. We struggled to hit those impossibly high notes, while she ran through them like they were a simple warm up exercise. It was the effortless way she delivered her amazing gift to the world that had the rest of us shaking our heads in disbelief.

It wasn't just black girls, like Jennifer Hudson who idolized Whitney. For the first time in history white girls, like me, had a black role model. It marked a major turning point in our collective psyche. Sure, there were great black singers before her, like Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross - ladies who made major inroads in pop culture. Some might even say there couldn't have been a Whitney without them. But by the time Whitney came along white America was ready to embrace a black woman as their own, rather than just standing back and admiring her from afar.

It was a time when white kids began to emulate black performers. A whole world of black artists from Prince and Michael Jackson to MC Hammer began to influence what we wore, how we walked and what we believed. Oprah Winfrey became the most respected woman in America, and a bell weather for cultural norms.

In the beginning Whitney took a lot of flack from the black community for not being "black enough." With her "good girl next door" reputation and her main stream musical style, some accused her of abandoning her gospel upbringing go white. In the end though, what she really did was further the integration of black culture in mainstream America.

It's amazing how much one person can change the perceptions of others by just being. Whitney was the greatest female singer of our time. She fostered the dreams of a generation of young girls - black, white, brown and yellow. She gave them something beautiful to share, and lead them to the realization of all they had in common.

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