Ageless Kenya Moore is "Gone With the Wind" fabulous!
If asked to name three black beauty queens, most people would only remember two or three. Tops. Remembering Vanessa Williams—actress, singer, blue eyes—is easy. Scandal tends to make a lasting impression. Out of that scandal rose another ray of sunshine, Suzette Charles who, without the black cloud of scandal, has gone on to live a normal and, therefore, perfectly forgettable life.
Then came Kenya.
Over the years, former Miss USA Kenya Moore has starred in various B movies. Forgettable movies. Like a shadow passing over a lawn, thankfully . . .
No one really noticed.
Anonymity is underrated. Anonymity is better than salt or ice for the preservation of a reputation.
Before her debut into the world of reality television, Kenya Moore was two parts beauty queen and one part black Barbie. Her personality and life events were whatever perfection we imagined them to be.
Unfortunately, reality television has pelted and bruised the fantasy of Miss Moore more thoroughly than a public stoning. Reality television, the scandal hovering over her like a storm cloud threatening to open up, seems to be pulling the arms off the black Barbie. Breaking her down to diminish her, so to speak.
No one can say with certainty why Kenya Moore stepped down from her pedestal to join ordinary womankind. But since then, ordinary womankind—who will never appreciate the weight of the crown—the sacrifices made or the internal muscle it took to carry it—has attempted to trample it. Ordinary womankind has been pulling her hair as if it does not grow from the scalp of her own pretty head. Ordinary womankind (and honorary woman, Andy Cohen) wants to pretend that her beauty is too dark to be as lovely as Beyonce’s—that like a shadow in the dark, it does not exist. Ordinary womankind wants to call the beauty queen Miss This or Miss That, trying to make her a misfit or any old worthless Miss Thang but Miss USA 1993.
Reality television may be the dismantling of Beauty Queen Black Barbie. The pockmark Real Housewives of Atlanta is inflicting on Kenya Moore’s reputation is tragic. What doll wants to be depicted as batty or delusional?
But there is hope yet for the doll that is Kenya Moore. As ugly or ordinary as womankind can be, when kept real, flaws and all, a touch of reality can be more interesting than fantasy. To keep Kenya Moore on the pedestal—to want her to slide back into a box only to peek outside a cellophane window at life—is unfair. Unfair to Kenya Moore, the woman.
Kenya Moore, the woman, is complex and in no way plastic. Kenya Moore, the woman, wants to assert herself in the world and be respected for who she is and what she can contribute. Kenya Moore’s desire for a “Gone With the Wind” fabulous life is what most women (in some version) desire for themselves.
Sooo . . . if that means she must set the fantasy and perfection of beauty queendom and black Barbiedom aside on the Real Housewives of Atlanta to realize or enlarge her dreams, perhaps with some regret, more power to her.
