She did it mostly by pandering to a huge, huge amount of dumbass stay-at-home vagina-owners.
Oprah had just another talk show, but being big fat and black, she became the "Earth Mother." She became mammy to all these idiot white vagina-owners who figured they were gettin' it "like it is, like it is," with plenty of syrup and just enough smokey bacon for it to go down easy. Like moronic white males solemnly listening to Muddy Waters and Ray Charles, or snapping their chalky fingers to "The Temps" of Motown or the long-suffering Miles Davis, "white guilt" is palpable and profitable.
To be fair, Oprah could be a lot more engaging and emotional than her soon-to-be-vanquished rival, Phil Donahue. But mostly she was trivial. Mostly she gave the world the "off key bellow." Instead of politely introducing a guest, she'd bellow the name in a retarded elephant trumpet voice making sure the last "note" of the person's name was horribly off key and jarring. Pay attention, everyone!
She also, of course, came along at the right time when blacks began to over-populate AND get enough welfare to stay at home and watch TV all day without having to riot to get one from a store window.
Most TV personalities get a ribbing now and then. Barbara Walters was routinely insulted by Gilda Radner via a broad caricature of Barbara's speech impediment. But Oprah? QUEEN OPRAH? It's been a one-way street. As she solidified her hold on daytime TV...comics didn't make a lot of fat jokes. Nobody on "Saturday Night Live" routinely dressed up like her to make fun of her and how often her TV episodes were trivial and idiotic in discussing make-up and gossip and clothing and ninny nonsense. Few showed disgust, even in a comic way, for how she accentuated her power and wealth (she once gave a car to every moron in the audience). Even the tabloids were often afraid to headline why her "boyfriend" didn't becone her husband and was not seen with her as often as Gayle King. King, Oprah admitted, shared her panties from practically the moment they met (um, there was a sleep over and the girl needed a fresh pair that next morning? Let's not even go there, girlfriend.) Oh yes, and not allowed, to be repulsed by Oprah's catch-phrases, GIRLFRIEND.
Again, Oprah's done some good. Her show with the maimed Charla Nash was one of the best of Winfrey's "quick, grab the headliner of the day, I want an exclusive." But mostly the attention was, and remains, on Oprah...her traumas, her childhood, her sob-worthy early years, her inspiring rise to becoming Queen of daytime, and then Broadway and film producer as well, and owner of her own magazine and her own cable network called OWN. The woman can do no wrong. Ever.
That includes playing the RACE card yesterday and equating a punk kid's bravado and attack on another man in 2013, with an ignorant hate crime from 1955...a crime, by the way, that probably would've happened to a white man as well. You simply do NOT talk to a redneck's wife if that redneck is a fucking redneck with no brains and a violent temper.
Trayvon Martin, in his gangsta hoodie, a school troublemaker, a punk who had a cell phone and no supervision and was strutting where he didn't belong and calling a security guard a "Cracker," didn't avoid a fight...he provoked one. He just picked on the wrong Whitey (who isn't even white). He picked on a guy who had a concealed weapon...and fired it ONCE...to get Trayvon literally OFF his back.
By contrast, Till was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From Chicago, he was in Mississippi to see some relatives, and may not have known that you have to be a little careful if you're chatting up a white woman. Not in the heat of August, 1955 in the segregated South. Her husband and one of his pals beat him and shot him, and tossed him into the Tallahatchie River. They got away with it, too. Except that the outrage of the trial and their acquittal helped start the Civil Rights movement. A movement that still needs work today, on BOTH sides of black and white.
For Oprah to say "in my mind, it's the same thing," is stupid. Dumb. It leads to ugly headlines that don't help matters at all...just as Roger Waters' use of the Star of David on a pig doesn't help matters.
But before we finish with this Trayvon-Emmett whine, let's turn from Roger Waters and his Star of David, to David Letterman...who is still shuddering and snivelling over his encounters with Oprah and having "offended" her.
Oprah, the most powerful personality on daytime TV was bigger than Letterman at night. He wasn't making OPRAH money. And he didn't see why not. Or what made Oprah any better than himself, Leno, Barbara Walters, Phil Donahue or the rest of the interviewers and stooges keeping America entertained or disgusted but watching nonetheless.
Dave once made fun of the jerks of "The Today Show" via a bull horn from his dressing room at NBC (with cameras rolling). He made fun of CBS execs when he got there. In the tradition of every wise-ass comic from Milton Berle to Andy Kaufman, he would sometimes pull a stunt off-camera, with nobody watching, just because he could.
With no reporter present, nobody to re-tell with admiration the cheeky anecdote, Dave pulled a stunt on Oprah. He and his long-time girlfriend Regina were in a restaurant, and Oprah and her "boyfriend" were there, too. Dave: "I said to Regina, 'Oh, this is hilarious, I'm gonna make Oprah buy us lunch.' He told the very gullible waiter, "This woman right over there has been kind enough to take care of our check," and waved to Oprah. The waiter was fooled. A while later Oprah got the check. And because she's black, she felt victimized? Because she's QUEEN OPRAH she was angry? Whatever..."the feud" began.
She made sure Dave squirmed for years, and years...and he whined, sweated, openly begged her to appear on his show, and made a fool of himself apologizing to her IN CASE she was watching. He even destroyed himself as an Oscars host by trying to get into Oprah's good graces. On a stage double the size of the one for his own show, he commented in his opening monologue on some of the stars in attendance, who may not have even been introduced to each other. He pointed to Oprah. And way on the other side of the audience, Uma Thurman. And like a fool, he raced back and forth, pointing, and saying "Oprah? UMA!" ..... "UMA? Oprah!" No, it did not get a laugh. It was one of the most awkward moments on the show and the focal point of "David Letterman BOMBS." All because he was still trying to apologize to Oprah, and give her attention and show the world that she was indeed more important than he.
Ultimately, when she felt she could use him to her advantage, she accepted his apology, appearing on his show to promote something or other. A few days ago she appeared on his show again, this t ime to hawk the newest "feel guilty, Whitey" movie she produced. He was nervous, gracious, fawning, and continued to apologize and literally kiss her hand and beg forgiveness for having been so "stupid" to her years and years ago. PS, Dave, you were stupid to ME years and years ago, and I wasn't offended, because you're David Letterman and that's what you do.
Fine, Oprah, say that "in my heart," it hurts. It hurts to see a black "child" shot down. Why, just the other day in NYC, a 14 year-old with arrests for shooting people, being a delinquent, and endangering the lives of innocent people by firing his GUN all over the street...got shot and killed. ONE shot to his loudmouth jaw after police ordered him to put down his weapon and he fired it instead. What do you think? One of his retarded relatives was screaming into the TV cameras about how he was just a "boy" and the cops had "no right" to defend themselves. Hey, who you callin' "BOY" lady?? But this is how people think. Or don't think. And if Oprah thinks, in her heart, any time a trouble maker doesn't get a kiss on the cheek, that this is another horrible racist wound, fine. But to think that with her brain? What a fool, what an irresponsible idiot.
The fact is, Oprah and others are getting plenty of opportunities to make any kind of movies they want, say any RAP they want to say, and flood Broadway with "all black" versions of white shows. Why? Because blacks are affluent enough to support it, and there are plenty of whites, guilty-lily-white or not, who will pay to be humiliated or hipped, as they case may be. And gee, sometimes Oprah does things for white people, too. Like inflicting Southern Cracker Phil McGraw on the nation. She didn't get a black therapist to offer insights into why morons are morons and maniacs are maniacs, she chose white "Dr. Phil." As Gomer Pyle would say: Golllllllly!" PS, McGraw was such a drawling hayseed stereotype that one David Letterman actually mocked him continually when the "Dr. Phil" show premiered, showing embarrassing clips of McGraw out of context, or stuttering like a boob. Only after the show became a huge hit did Letterman once again wimp out. Today, Dr. Phil and Dave joust happily whenever the drawling doc makes guest appearances on Letterman's show...which happens all the time.
So, Oprah, as a black woman, "in your heart," you have every reason to have a pang any time a black is in the news. There are white women, Arabs, Jews, Brits, Canadians, Scientologists, mass murderers...who also "internalize" any time something happens to one of their own. There are people who cry when even a rabid dog is shot down. Oooh, if only they just put doggy in a nice kennel till the end of his doggy days! Oooh, so he bit a baby. Killing doggy won't bring baby back...oh, "in my mind" it's the same thing as killing the baby." No, it isn't. Your heart and your mind are two different things. Like your asshole and your mouth.
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