Quote

You have to be taught to be second class you're not born that way. But the slanting process is so subtle that you frequently don't realize how you're being slanted until very late in the game.

Lena Horne

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Lena Horne
Age: 92 †
Born: 1917
Born: June 30
Died: 2010
Died: May 9
Actor
Dancer
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Musician
Pin-Up Girl
Recording Artist
Singer
Stage Actor
Television Actor
New York City
New York
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Game
Realizing
Slanting
Taught
Slanted
Class
Frequently
Games
Subtle
Born
Late
Process
Realize
Way
Second

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Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
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It's ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.
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I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
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Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death.
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I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.
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I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.
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After I got over the terrible pain of having something of mine taken from me, I began to think how bad everybody else must be feeling. It wasn't a nice time.
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You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your autograph.
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50 years old is like springtime to me.
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My identity is very clear to me now, I am a black woman.
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I remember the day tDr. King died. I wasn't angry at the beginning. It was like something very personal in my life had been touched and finished.
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You have to be taught to be second class you're not born that way.
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I'm still learning, you know. At 80, I feel there is a lot I don't know.
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The naked female body is treated so weirdly in society. It's like people are constantly begging to see it, but once they do, someone's a hoe.
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In my early days I was a sepia Hedy Lamarr. Now I'm black and a woman, singing my own way.
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A little nepotism never hurt nobody, honey. If you got it, use it. Press on with it. Remind them of it.
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I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.
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I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
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I had my schooling right there in the Cotton Club.
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music became my refuge and then my salvation.
Lena Horne