Oprah Winfrey Criticized for Ignoring Needy American Children
I’ve been saying for a while that stars like Oprah Winfrey ignore needy kids in the U.S., and white kids too. Here’s more:
Oprah Winfrey is firing back at critics of her decision to build a $40 million school complex in South Africa – saying she didn’t build it in the U.S. because inner-city kids here don’t appreciate the value of a free education.
"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there," the TV talk-show maven says in the current issue of Newsweek.
"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."
The tough talk comes as the famously philanthropic Winfrey unveils her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa – a sprawling, 28-building complex for impoverished teens that features a yoga studio and beauty salon, among other luxuries.
The 22-acre complex has taken more than five years to build and has raised eyebrows in the U.S. and abroad, she said.
"I understand that many …feel that I’m going overboard, and that’s fine," Winfrey said. "This is what I want to do. I wanted to take girls with that ’it’ quality and give them an opportunity to make a difference in the world."
Winfrey handpicked the 152 girls who will attend out of an application pool of more than 3,500. Winfrey has also supplied millions of dollars to educate needy children in the U.S. through the Oprah Winfrey Scholars program.
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can she do that to any other countries
Oprah is the most philanthropic black in American history. I can’t say enough good things about the wonderful things she is doing in South Africa. Ignore the petty ignorant criticism Oprah. We love you!
How many others have said it in the past? Slave traders, slave owners, lynchers, killers, murderers, robbers, whole societies? Police chiefs and govenors? Captains of Industry and scientific minds?
Black children just don’t count and aren’t worth it!
Oprah can sermonize about Black rappers exporting their own brand of Black self-hatred around the community and the world. But they haven’t the mega phone or world platform that she has.
For all the unknown heroic slaves. For all the unknown and known Civil Rights Movement soldiers.
You gave your lives so that a piss-poor Oprah could have a chance and not be left behind.
Oprah is the Black Lester Maddox and Grand Master of the Ku Klux Klan.
She echoed all that they have in the past: Black kids aren’t worth it. They don’t want to learn.
Thanks for broadcasting that to the world, you vastly rich and powerful and popular culteral ICON.
You’ve done us more harm in the new millenium than any rapper or racists of past or present could ever do.
Thank you, Oprah.
Oprah is right on in her comments, and her gift to SA children. Virtually no inner-city school in this nation is successful, regardless of how much money was pumped into it. There are lots of issues to address: benevolent dependency, entitlement, fathers in prison, etc. None of these can be addressed with Oprah’s scant fortune (relative to the government GDP), and hence she is confronting a situtation where she can actually have a positive impact.
Oprah Please girl do your thing. People are having children miss guiding them to think material things are the only things in live that are important and that EXPENSIVE things set their social status.. When black people in poverty see other black people doing well in thier live requardless of their up bringing they feel they should give hand outs. Oprah you struggled and worked hard to get where you are at today in your live you deserve what you have conquered. Just giving money to people who are in need isn’t the only way to help. Give resources and teach your child vaules and teach them to strive for their goals no matter the curcustances or how unfair life is. You have helped people all over the United States in different ways. American inner city children and parents don’t wanna face the facts that part of poverty and disfunctional families are sometimes at their own hands. People want you to give to their children but asked them about discipline, education,love, respect for themselves,or their parent. I thing you are doing a wonderful job in anything you touch. Keep helping where you see fit. That’s how we help each other. Yes I am a BLACK WOMEN I AM SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE I HAVE 2 DAUGHTER OF MY OWN. I am excited someone’s child is being helped. Negative Energy doesn’t solve anything. Thank you Oprah
Oprah is a sick idividual to me. She must feel like she is a GOD when she does something. She need immediate gratification for the things that she does. She is the most “LOST”, wealthiest person I have ever seen or read about.
She doesn’t even like being black. The black people that she does things for in America have already “made it”. She tries to validate what she doesn’t do for American children, yet she gives people of wealth and status things they can easily afford. She is so desperate for the attention of a certain group of people because she wants to be them. Oprah is a classic example of “money can’t buy you happiness!”
Also, she could have joined Danny Glover and Bono who have been working tirelessly in Africa to help the people over there. She needed to say “AND THE OPRAH SHOW, or AND “I” am going to do this. Oprah if you read this, you are an extremely selfish, self-centered individual.
You said that you did not know the levels of poverty and homelessness in the United States. Please, you weren’t rich growing up. You lived in the south. You read the Quicy Jones story and probably have more in common with him than you are willing to admit.
If you were truly interested in help children here, you wouldn’t mind teaching these children why their values are misplaced. You have the resources to get them on the right track with the right values. You have such an audacity to be displeased with these children who only have their immediate environment to relate to.
You did not do anything about your weight until you got around people who looked different. The change did not come over night. You hired a trainer because you could afford it once you were in the financial position to do so. Your life could be very different if your father had not guided you. After your father, came others who did not give up on you. OPRAH, you don’t like yourself so how can you like people that look like you!!!!
What you do in Africa is not for the children of Africa, it is for you (to massage your wasted ego)
I used to think highly of Oprah. Not so much anymore, especially after her comment that “she is not out to appease the white people.” Obviously she is not who she states to be. I understand that one can not make everyone happy, but I think her remarks have been senseless, hypocritical and racist. Coming from someone who grew up in America and was poor, one would think that shewould have more sympathy, but I guess when you start to make that much money, you think you can do or say anything you want. Her power comes from her bank account, not her heart.
When Oprah goes to Africa they treat her like a queen
in the U.S. she is treated like she has a lot of money but Africa makes her think she is Royalty. She is ego maniacal
We find it offensive that Oprah has categorized
the select few that she has chosen for her school as children with the “it” quality. What about the
children who were not selected? Do they have the “not it” quality? There must have been many qualified applicants who were not accepted and who were heartbroken by the process. Couldn’t she have had the decency to say something positive about those children who were not accepted? In addition, those not selected will continue to be victimized by what is clearly still a very inequitable society. Winfrey rubs salt into that wound by throwing a lavish New Year’s Eve party at a five star hotel with an almost exclusively celebrity guest list. Although it is nice that Oprah has funded this school, her behavior shows an extreme insensitivity to those not selected and to those who will never have an opportunity to be a part of the exclusive society that stays at fancy hotels and goes on safaris for pleasure.
Many people donate a lot of time, work, heart, money and other resources without having to have a celebrity bash attached to their good deeds.
One can’t help but wonder whether Oprah’s true motivation has at least as much to do with increasing her standing in the celebrity world as it does with helping African girls.
Also, we agree with the comments regarding Oprah’s insensitivity to inner-city school children in the United States.
If she had never given any of her money to causes, foundations, citizens of the U.S., then the criticism would have more validity. But she has donated quite readily; calls for boosterism and nativism seem very parochial to me.
It is quite true that Oprah can do whatever she wants to do with her money. But, what she will not do is get away with painting American inner city youth with her “What She Knows For Sure” shallow brush. As an educator at an inner city school, I am higly offended that Ms. Winfrey has painted such a distorted, shallow, one sided, stereotypical picture of our students. How can she compare South African young women with the inner city youth in America? Surely she is bright enough to recognize that there is absolutely NO comparison. Or is she? Unfortunately, too many people believe that if Oprah says something, it’s true. I don’t know what schools she has visited, but she has never visited my school – where more than 60% of the students live in foster or group homes. Yes, they like iPods and sneakers (thanks to Madison Avenue). But, I don’t know any students in my high school who would trade in a free education at a luxurious school for two items that value approximately $350. Thank you, Ms. Winfrey, for confirming the opinions that far too many Africans and others already have of our youth, especially African American youth. And thank you also for letting me know that I did the right thing by not renewing my subscription to your magazine. You are out of touch. Any tree limb that is disconnected from the tree and its roots will eventually die. (Ask OJ) Do what you want with your money; but keep your shallow opinions to yourself. Right now, I think that if you did visit our school, these street savvy kids who have had to come up on a very, very rough side of the mountain, will tell you to take your money and shove it. Also, to all the “stars” who grin and jump at Oprah’s every beck and call, live their lives by what “Oprah” knows for sure, and give a resounding “Amen” to Oprah’s every opinion, just remember, you need more than just Oprah’s support to maintain your lifestyles. I am sure that these sneaker and iPod loving youth who “do not value an education” have enabled you ‘aplenty’.
Hmmm . . . “If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers”.
If you ask a child whether they want ice cream or vegetables, which one will they choose?
Ms. Winfrey could have built 2 private schools (one in Mississippi where she was born, another in Tennessee where she went to college) and created an exchange program.
Anyway – it’s her money – she can (and has) done what she pleases.