There has been a great deal of speculation in the media lately about the relationship between Oprah and President Obama. In fact, to listen to some political commentators you’d think Oprah has become a woman scorned because Obama refused to give her the White House access she coveted (to exploit for commercial purposes) “after helping him get elected in 2008.’’
Of course, if Oprah ever felt thusly scorned, she would’ve had to get over herself when Obama won re-election in 2012, reportedly without her help.
This is why the little insight Oprah herself provided yesterday into the true nature of their relationship is so telling. She offered it during a BBC interview as part of her promotional gig for Lee Daniels’ The Butler, the critically acclaimed movie in which she plays feisty, sultry Gloria Gaines, wife of the butler Cecil Gaines. (The movie is loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen who served at the White House for 34 years, 1952-86.)
In fact, far from betraying any resentment towards Obama, Oprah defended him:
Asked if some of the challenges and criticisms faced by President Barack Obama were down to the colour of his skin, Winfrey said:
‘There’s no question. I think there’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs, and that occurs in some cases, and maybe even many cases, because he’s African American. There’s no question about that; it’s the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody’s thinking it.’
Obviously Oprah would not have shared this if she were harboring any resentment. Not to mention that nobody appreciates more than she does how such a politically incorrect observation might alienate many of the genteel White folks she needs to sustain the commercial success of her cable network, OWN.
‘When she backed Obama for president her audience, which is middle-aged white women, supported Hillary Clinton and so she found a lot of push-back by people who thought she was choosing her race ahead of her gender,’ says Eric Deggans, TV critic of the Petersburg Times in Florida.
(BBC, May 25, 2011)
This is why she should be applauded for being so daring and forthright.
I am constrained to note, however, that she is wrong to say that this is “the kind of thing no one ever says.” After all:
It’s demonstrably clear that Republicans are creating an economic crisis merely to further the only agenda they’ve had since Obama was elected: to destroy his presidency…
What troubles many Republicans is not the national debt, but the fact that Obama is the first Black president of the United States. None of them would admit this of course.
(“Washington Political Food Fight Over Debt Ceiling,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 25, 2011)
What’s more:
I took a lot of flak for asserting in my October 5 commentary, Super-rich Irony, that only racism explains why so many rich White folks – who benefited most from Obama’s presidency (with policies that rescued the U.S. economy from the brink of depression, created record corporate profits, and doubled the stock market) – are nevertheless insisting that he has been an abject failure.
(“Romney vs. Obama: Race (still) Matters,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 1, 2012)
But given her clout, influence, and trailblazing bona fides, Oprah may be forgiven for presuming that no observation in this respect is noteworthy until she makes it. Others, like me, can then be recognized as duly echoing her trendsetting opinion.
Related commentaries:
Washington political food fight…
Romney vs Obama…
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