As a Star Trek fan, I enjoyed the character of Guinan, the mysterious but wise hostess of the Ten Forward lounge on the starship Enterprise D captained by Jean Luc Picard. Guinan was always good for a word of advice, sometimes treading on counselor Deanna Troi’s job function. But nevertheless, the character of Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg, was a welcome addition to the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast.
However, as a person I have never been a fan of Caryn Elaine Johnson, the woman better known as Whoopi Goldberg. The woman burst onto the scene in the early eighties and has never done anything to affiliate herself with the black community. She talked her then boyfriend Ted Danson to show up at a news conference in black face and laughed at the slight to the black community despite the obvious lack of taste or of good racial sense. And when people, black and white alike, express outrage at her tasteless prank the ditsy broad has the nerve to get upset.
The closest Ms. Johnson/Goldberg has ever come to portraying a positive relationship with a black person was the suggestion of a lesbian affair with the recovering alcoholic Shug Avery, played by Margaret Avery, in the movie The Color Purple. However, Ms. Johnson/Goldberg has portrayed a number of positive relationships with white men in movies like Jumping Jack Flash working to help rescue the British secret agent Jack, Made in America where her daughter was fathered by Ted Danson, Corrina Corrina where she developed a relationship with the widowed father played by Ray Liotta, and Fatal Beauty where she developed a relationship with Sam Elliot’s character Mark Marshak. And let’s not forget the cozy relationship she developed with Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, on the Star Trek series. There’s plenty of evidence of Ms. Johnson/Goldberg distancing herself from the black community and embracing the dominant culture.
By just about any conceivable measure, Ms. Johnson/Goldberg has enjoyed a very successful career. At one time she was one of the hottest commodities in the entertainment industry. She was so hot that the people who call the shots at the Oscars wanted Ms. Johnson/Goldberg to host their show. She became the first African American to host the Oscars. She became the first woman to host the Oscars. She became the first African American woman to host the Oscars. She was the first Oscar winner to host the Oscars. She hosted the Oscars four different times, that’s one in every twenty shows. And yet, her achievements don’t make the cut as a significant event worth mentioning in a short mosaic dedicated to some of the greatest moments in Oscar history.
The oversight was taken personally and Ms. Johnson/Goldberg had to visibly fight back the tears of disappointment during a recent episode of The View. Somebody made the point that other host didn’t appear in the tribute. Steve Martin didn’t make the cut. But then again, Mr. Martin’s appearance as a two times Oscar host didn’t simultaneously break through racial and gender barriers as well. There was an apology from Oscar producer Gil Cates. And that made things all better for most people. However, it was obvious that Ms. Johnson/Goldberg found the apology significantly inadequate.
But there is a chance for Ms. Johnson/Goldberg to learn an important lesson here. In her perpetual push to align herself with the dominant community Ms. Johnson/Goldberg has divorced herself from the black community and has forgotten her roots. What goes around comes around and Ms. Johnson/Goldberg got a very public come around. Maybe at the next Oscars, somebody like Ted Danson will go up on stage in black face and locks and call themselves Whoopi Goldberg. I’m sure that would be good for a solid laugh or two by somebody. This black woman has spent practically her entire life chasing her dreams of assimilation in the dominant community and is now upset with the dominant community because it didn’t give her the recognition she felt she deserved for being so loyal to the status quo.
Ms. Johnson/Goldberg worked hard to pull herself up by her bootstrap. She paid her dues and did whatever it took to gain the attention of the public. She turned her back on black America a long time ago and never looked back. As a formerly hot commodity she has cooled off considerably. People don’t even bother to notice her accomplishments any more. It’s almost as if she has to face facts and come to terms with the condition of being black in America. It is disappointing when you look back on your career and know that you have made so many notable accomplishments. But those accomplishments don’t mean a thing when you’re competing to be noticed with the more readily identifiable members of the dominant community who claim to be racially generic but are predominantly white. The fact that Ms. Johnson/Goldberg was overlooked is remarkably similar to the way she has overlooked the African American community. Some of us may call it karma.
Whoopi Goldberg began as a cutting edge African American comic with some very incisive social commentary. What happened to her, happened also to Richard Prior, Ice Tea, Ice Cube, Eddie Murphy Queen Latifah and nearly every black Hollywood actor or personality. Their content was watered down to a very weak broth, neutralizing the powerful effect of the minds that saw the ironies of the lives we accept as real. This is the dangerous of the Causcasian liberal. They love black people as long as the message of just how much damage the American Reality does not only to its own citizens but to the world in general. The revolution gets co-opted by money. Money can buy just everybody and everything it seems.
It is this same money that targeted and bought hip-hop the dominant airplay on black radio across America. The hidden danger in this was easily discernible for me at the very start of this ugly phenomenon. The negative imagery of nearly illiterate gansta rappers with often horribly negative, hypnotic messages being played over and over again in the media, creates two distinct and highly undesirable results for African America.
1. a. The wholesale slaughter of decency in young black minds.
b. The isolation of black women from black men by the culture of gross and unacceptable disrespect for our beautiful sisters paints a vivid and nearly impossible to erase prejudice against black males,
c. an expectation of black females-that they are loose, immoral and money hungry-that is unfounded unless the ideas generated by this brain-killing acid is finally accepted by continuous repetition. In African culture music and rhythm have been proven over and over again to produce altered states of consciousness, states where possession and ultimately indoctrination can occur with ease.
d. The unrealistic and deadly expectation by too many young African American males that because a 1% representation of the population [if that] made it by selling out their families, friends and community with this drivel-they too will get to ride the gravy train and as such don’t need any other education, training or skill.
2. The subtle and exponentially expanding fear on the part of both conservative and liberal Caucasian Americans of African Americans. Is there any wonder we are witnessing the return of segregation and racism in full and undisguised form?
You know, I never thought of Whoopi being outside of the black community. She always was and will be a black woman.
Of course she’ll always be black. But whether she wants to be black is an altogether different matter.
Peace
OK, this is a bit much. Because she had white love interests in films makes her less “black”? Huh? Did you read anything about her experiences in her film career when her white producers told her that she was too black and ugly for white men to find her attractive. Thus, in Fatal Beauty, her love scenes were cut.
The reality is that most of Hollywood during the time Whoopi made her breakthrough refused to show interracial relationships in films; in particular, an African-American woman with a white man. I recall when Mission Impossible 2 came out and the excitement that Thandi Newton had been chosen as Tom Cruise’s love interest.
Why was that shocking? Because an A-list actor like Cruise had never had a black female co-star be his sexy leading lady, especially in an action movie. In the Austin Powers movies, until Beyonce showed up in Goldmember, Powers was randy with all of his girls. Beyonce’s characters and Powers, however, never got it on at all.
As for the special relationship with Whoopi’s character Guinan and Captain Picard, get real. That was a non-sexual relationship. Guinan was a 400-year-old alien wise woman whom Picard respected and went to for advice.
Let’s think about that. Picard, the brilliant white captain, sought advice from a black woman. Sure beats Captain Kirk asking for a status report from Uhuru.
And you are wrong about Goldberg only showing affection to another African-American with her lesbian lover in the Color Purple. Had you done your research and visited IMDB.com you would have found other examples.
For instance, Goldberg played the wife of Danny Glover in Good Fences, a satirical exploration of an African-Americans struggle to assimilate into a white neighborhood and psychological trauma it inflicts on them.
The reality is that Hollywood has gone out its way to neuter Goldberg of any sexuality because of its racist views of what is beautiful. With Goldberg’s stronger African features and her commitment to wearing dreadlocks, Hollywood has refused to offer her parts that give her any chance to be a real sexual being.
Moreover, as a woman over 40, Hollywood treats her like crap. Look at the roles most actresses have when they reach a “certain age”: mother or shrew.
That said, it’s sad that you also miss the point of a movie like Corinna, Corinna, which dissected the politics of race and sexuality in the 1950s & 1960s. As the plot explains, Whoopi’s characters is a college graduate who longs to write as a music critic and a record liner writer; however, the racism of the age prevents her from having that career. Her college degree is worthless and she is forced to serve as a housekeeper. Along the way, she falls in love with her boss who faces the racism of his family, friends and employers to love this woman.
Sorry, but that wasn’t a typical Hollywood movie.
What is apparent in much of Hollywood films is that black women are typically degraded and marginalized. Good roles are very rare and a certain standard of beauty is enforced.
Look at how Angelina Jolie got the role of Mariane Pearl! For god’s sake, Pearl is an Afro-Cuban woman. What? There aren’t any light-skinned black, mixed-race women of color actresses? I’m sure this must come as a shock to Janet Jackson, Halle Berry, Judy Reyes and the others. Frankly, I’m surprised that more Afro-Latina women didn’t rise up and protest.
And, let’s discuss this whole concept of a black woman somehow betraying her “blackness” by dating white men. Can we say sexist bullshit?! Was Malcolm X. or Martin Luther King any less “black” because they had a white grandparent through MARRIAGE.
Unfortunately, black men in the media, however, have rarely been allowed to have white women as love interests. Instead, they typically have black, mulatto/light-skinned/creole, or Latina lovers (or on some occasions an Asian) lover.
Will Smith is the number one action movie star but until today, he has never had a white female leading lady–not that such be a gold standard but simply “why not?” should be asked.
So having her white ex-boyfriend Ted Danson, whom is now married to his own,and also an actress, put on black face is ok? I think not.