Oprah,Obama. Obama,Oprah. Oprah,Oprah,Obama,Obama for the past week or so that's all that's been in the news. It's been sickening and I'm sure Uma is somewhere feeling very left out.
I'm not going to say much about it (besides the fact that my hatred of Oprah has grown to the point where I'm no longer going to see The Color Purple with my Mom this weekend because she produced it and that I'm thinking about having a symbolic bonfire where I burn every book she's ever recommended in her damn book club, except for A Million Little Pieces, for mockery's sake) other than I was thinking about it and one of the reasons Oprah gave for building her school in South Africa and not America was because "our kids are too materialistic" but this whole thing of her selling out stadiums for Barack is based on her celebrity and her cult of celebrity and the fact that celebrity and materialism and want go hand in hand in hand in our society and so what Oprah is doing by trying to use her celebrity to influence voters is an attempt to take advantage of a celebrity driven materialistically obsessed culture which she'd decried. Or something like that, I haven't fully formed my thought on that subject.
But I'm not the only one who isn't a zealot in the Oprah cult and views her as a little hypocritical
"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools [in the U.S.]. If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school."
While Oprah’s frustration with the condition of urban schools is reasonable, her deployment of a Cosby-esque “blame the victim” approach to the American educational crisis is both facile and counterproductive. Instead of pointing to property tax-based funding structures, unresponsive curricula, or the ill-conceived No Child Left Behind Act, Oprah reduces our nation’s own educational apartheid to music and footwear. Worse, Oprah “Everybody Gets A Car!” Winfrey sees no irony in the fact that her own show pushes many of the products that she says contribute to our youth’s wanton consumerism.
More important than Oprah Winfrey’s personal understanding of educational reform is its contribution to the broader discourse around public education. In light of her comments, Oprah’s latest project feel less like global humanitarianism and more like an extravagant rejection of American public education. Given the current neo-liberal assault on all things public, Oprah’s gesture only facilitates the dismantling of public education in favor of privatized structures that will further expand the current socio-economic divide. Every time a suburban American housewife or middle-class Black person, who comprise a large sector of Oprah’s constituency, reads her comments and actions, it sends the message that “Even Oprah gave up on our schools and our children.” While I do not believe that Oprah shares these sentiments –after all, she has donated exorbitant amounts of money to African American children and organizations– her words, combined with the current public obsession with paternalistic African philanthrophy, only push domestic suffering to the back of our collective consciences.
In addition to her comments about America’s urban schools, Oprah’s school in Africa further reiterates an anti-democratic sensibility. Instead of building public education structures that would accommodate tens of thousands of students, Winfrey erected a single $40 million magisterial artifice for a few hundred students complete with indoor and outdoor theaters, a spa, and full yoga studio. In addition to reproducing the very consumerist pathologies that she allegedly detests –after going to school with a movie theater and full day spa, won’t these students eventually become preoccupied with iPods and sneakers?– Oprah is preparing a breeding ground for a South African Talented Tenth that denies educational access to thousands of equally young, gifted, and Black youth.
That's exactly what I was trying to say (the guy's a doctor so I don't feel so bad.) And even in Oprah's "target audience" everyone is not impressed with her, recogninzing the glamour and celebrity that Oprah focuses on and brings instead of the real issues that affect everyone
From the New York Times post entitled "Not Feeling the Oprah Love"
...on a conference call today, supporters of former Senator John Edwards expressed dissatisfaction with Ms. Winfrey for coming here but not addressing issues like education, health care or poor conditions facing senior citizens.
“If you can build a school in South Africa, build one in South Carolina,” Linda Dogan, a member of the City Council in Spartanburg, said on the conference call, which was organized by the Edwards campaign.
The stated purpose of the call was for several prominent African-Americans who support Mr. Edwards to discuss the candidate’s “plan for opportunity.” They said that Mr. Edwards was emphasizing issues like poverty and education, that he was paying attention to rural areas and to the criminal justice system, that he had a “Southern strategy” and that he could win.
[snip]
Ms. Dogan said that as a black woman, Ms. Winfrey’s visit “doesn’t mean anything to me” if she is not going to deal with local issues. “It makes me a little ill,” she said, noting that Ms. Winfrey is extremely wealthy. “Oprah coming here means absolutely nothing to me unless she’s going to do something for South Carolina,” she said.
John Moylan, Mr. Edwards’s South Carolina director, said that the call was not about Ms. Winfrey but about opportunity.
Tyrone Freeman, president of the United Long Term Care Workers West, of the Service Employees International Union, suggested that Ms. Winfrey was the only way to get the attention of the news media, which, he said, had been “unjust” by not covering the important issues that Mr. Edwards is raising. “All of us would do this call every week,” he said. “It’s only now because of Oprah we can get your attention."
well, at least she's good for something.
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