Not many are bold enough to utter the obvious, but Oprah Winfrey isn’t just anyone. The media mogul who used all her industry clout to campaign for President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 election isn’t holding her tongue anymore about the racist undertones that have existed throughout the president’s five years in office.
During a sit down with BBC’s Will Gompertz, Winfrey said:
“There’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he’s African- American,” she said. “There’s no question about that. And it’s the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody’s thinking it.”
Winfrey used as an example the incident during the president’s 2009 speech when Republican congressman Joe Wilson shouted, “You’re a liar.”
“Remember that?” she asked Gompertz.
Winfrey, who’s promoting the release of her latest film “The Butler” in the U.K., spoke more about the progress society has made against racism, but noted that the fight is far from over.
“It would be foolish to not recognize that we have evolved and that we’re not still facing the same kind of terrorism against Black people en masse as was displayed with the Scottsboro boys,” she said drawing reference to the film “12 Years a Slave.” “It’s gotten better.”
She added, “If I’d been born five years earlier, none, not any of the benefits that I’ve been blessed to be successful with would have occurred.” Winfrey was born in 1954 in Mississippi.
“That’s where it all started, this is how far we’ve come, and this is how much further we need to go,” she said, still drawing reference to “12 Years a Slave” and “The Butler.”
“Of course, the problem is not solved.”
Winfrey said she believes that the problem of racism will fade when ” generations of older people who were born and breed and marinated in that prejudice and racism” pass away.
If only it were that simple.
