Rebecca Traister has one of the more thoughtful pieces I’ve read about Oprah Winfrey’s decision to open a school for girls in South Africa, where she sympathizes with Winfrey’s cringe-inducing projection of her own issues onto these girls, particularly with her fascination with providing them with the luxuries she would have wanted at their age. I should put “luxuries” in scare quotes, because nothing the girls are getting is considered particularly luxurious by my standards, and I don’t make a lot of money by American standards. Seriously—200 thread count sheets? Those aren’t a “luxury”, they’re just nice.
And it’s in this that Traister smells what’s made me quite uncomfortable about the people who criticize Winfrey’s choices about what to provide the students at this school, which is that said criticisms imply that these girls don’t deserve these things somehow.
Having made her career by vivisecting, cooking and serving the tastes and prejudices of the American public to the American public, Winfrey might have known that news of her students’ swank surroundings might not wash with American critics, who don’t bat an eye at white hotel heiresses dancing on banquettes, or reality shows about sweet-16 parties at budgets that could build a home for a Katrina victim. But impoverished black girls sleeping on nice-ish sheets? That didn’t go over so well. The affronted sense that these girls deserved only bare-minimum accommodations and that a private citizen’s money should have been used to educating them in bulk rather than in gracious individual style reflects our own beliefs that the bare minimum is all poor (black) girls need. And in part, it’s surely that kind of attitude that has fueled Winfrey’s obsession with aesthetics. She told several publications that South African builders initially sent plans that made the school look like a chicken coop. “It was clear that the attitude was ‘These are poor African girls. Why spend all this on them?’” she told Newsweek. “It was unbelievably upsetting.”
Traister goes on to describe Winfrey’s desires to make sure these girls have things like gyms and beauty salons and people to fawn over how pretty they are as projections of her own desires to have had these things in her youth. While I think there’s something to that, I have to admit that I think that, cringe-inducing as it may be, Winfrey’s tendency to make every decision she makes seem to be the result of acting on her own irrational issues might actually be a stroke of genius on her part. See, part of me likes to think that Oprah is acutely aware of how hostile the white dominated patriarchy is towards an ambitious black woman, and therefore she dresses up her cold, rational decisions in emotional language as a decoy.
For instance, on this school thing. Sure, it’s cringe-inducing to hear Winfrey wax poetic about all the things she never had as a girl. But what if she had answered her critics instead by saying, “The thing is that in order for these young women to pass into the wealthy, educated professional class I’m grooming them for, they have to have more than book smarts. They have to have cultural capital, which means, for women at least, that they have to be well-groomed, familiar with certain luxuries and entertainments, and able to produce a convincing air of entitlement. Book smarts are all well and good, but they won’t get you very far if people in this class don’t want to socialize with you. I wish we lived in a less shallow world, but we don’t, and my first interest is in making sure these girls have no obstacles in their way.” I know I’d admire the hell out of her is she framed it in blunt, class conscious, rational language like that, but I guarantee you the press would be furious with her for not playing up to American mythologies of the meritocracy.
In fact, what made me mad about this entire situation was not what Winfrey is giving these girls, it’s the way she dismissed American kids by saying that they’re materialistic and want iPods and shoes. She was making the same mistake about American kids that her critics are making about the South African kids, which is to say dismissing the understanding that having luxuries makes people admire you and think you deserve those luxuries. As Steve notes, the reason that kids want iPods and expensive shoes is they grasp that these things signal that you’re not poor. Which then tends to have the result of people treating you better and even possibly giving you opportunities.
65 Responses to “Oprah Winfrey’s peculiar genius”
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I read this title as “Oprah Winfrey’s peculiar penis” and I was *really* confused for a minute, there.
Yeah, isn’t is awful how Oprah spent some of her money helping poor people by building something they could take pride in, when there are so many CEOs out there suffering the terrible burdens of maybe not having the Bush tax cuts extended? Oprah needs to get her priorities straight!
It’d be different if she was building some grim, grey, depressing quasi-prison where these folks could be taught their proper subservient role as inferiors, in an environment designed to impress upon them the hopelessness of their position.
I never found anything distasteful in Oprah’s presentations on this. I was moved that she was acting on her principles and really doing something. Are there American kids who need this help? That is criticizing her for what she didn’t do, and that’s endless, what she ‘didn’t do’. We could all be criticized endlessly for what we didn’t do. What she did do is what matters.
Yesterday I was in line at the grocery store and one of the tabloids had a giant screaming title page “Oprah insults US kids by opening $40 mil school in South Africa,” and my first thought was a) it’s her fucking money and b) aren’t we the wealthiest fucking country on the planet? We’d have to be in order to create people like Oprah. Why should we feel like we are entitled to her charity when really, if we had our shit in order our kids wouldn’t even need it.
I find it sad that people are making it seem as though she’s totally ignored America’s poor or disadvantaged. I think the comment about the I-Pods is being taken out of context and it was more a statement of fact because what kid - black, white, rich or poor - doesn’t want or have an I-pod? Her longstanding efforts in America prove that the I-pod comment wasn’t a really a slam but a realization that she could help people in a place where an I-pod isn’t even a dream because these kids don’t even have television to bombard them with all of the luxuries of America.
My concern is that even after all of this effort, the opportunities will not be there for these newly educated girls with an abundance of confidence - at least not in South Africa. Does she assume that doors will automatically be opened? They are still black (despite the end of apartheid) and still women (in a country where rape is probably also going to become the reality of all too many off those girls).
Yes, she’s launching a fairy tale for these girls and I see nothing wrong with her giving these girls all of the things she never had. That’s what many “parents” do. We’ll see if it really matters because if people are resenting her giving these girls the dream of a lifetime, they probably are going to resent who they become.
They’ll probably end up in America being toted around by conservatives as shining examples of what poor, unexposed and ignored children here could become - if only they weren’t so focused on sneakers.
I didn’t see it mentioned, but I suspect a side effect of this school will be that the girls who go there will be less likely to contract AIDS, which is a huge problem is South Africa right now. If they live at the (protected, secured) school, they’re less likely to be raped, and they may end up graduating with enough power of their own that they’ll be able to insist on condom use.
My concern is that even after all of this effort, the opportunities will not be there for these newly educated girls with an abundance of confidence - at least not in South Africa.
I suspect that the vision is that the girls will go from the school on to college in Europe or the U.S. By the time they get back to South Africa, they should have enough education to be able to enter the professions (law, medicine, teaching, etc.) I don’t think it’s as hopeless as you think.
Oprah is a great American who works through a pop-cultural vehicle to raise the quality of American discourse and cultural life. For the Book Club alone, she deserves a Medal of Freedom. Those are pretty good works she promotes to millions. That’s how you explain her remarks about the materialism of American teenagers.
Any American who’s traveled in the third-world can’t help to have been struck by the modesty and intellectual curiousity of many dirt-poor kids, and how it contrasts with the shallowness and incuriosity of many of our own kids.
Yes, she’s launching a fairy tale for these girls and I see nothing wrong with her giving these girls all of the things she never had. That’s what many “parents� do.
Qusan, I think you’ve hit on something here–people are “supposed” to provide luxuries and cool things and $100000000 of xmas gifts for their *own* kids, but god forbid you do anything for someone who is not your magically entitled spawn. Doesn’t Oprah know that charity is supposed to be limited to cheap socks and your secondhand clothes and a bit of moral scolding? Not to denigrated donating old clothes–it’s a great thing to do–but there does seem to be a huge undercurrent of “that’s all you get” if it doesn’t come from the supposed sweat of your own parents’ brows.
Amanda, I think you are exactly right about the class privilege/passing aspect of this. Traister’s comment on the bulletin board with the exercises clipped to it is related to this too. (Traister: “in her mind, if someone could have taught her how to burn fat at 11, rather than in her 40s, her life would have been better.”) Being educated is not enough for “upward mobility”–you have to be thin and pretty and well-spoken and well-dressed and so on.
If the girls finish school, go on to college and perhaps earn graduate degrees or specific licenses for professional work, what are the chances they’d go back to South Africa? Even if they did, wouldn’t a significant number of them identify with their “new” class identity and choose to work in established non-poor communities? Some people, when they’ve benefitted from charity or government programs or have a particular talent or educational track that they got on and allowed them to do well, give back to their communities and work to elevate the status of others. But some don’t. I really hope these young women aren’t the kind who abandon their roots. Some people don’t even contribute in small ways.
Last week I was very critical of this, because I assumed it was forcing western beauty norms on the young ladies for the sake of doing it. However, I was missing a key piece of information at that time: it’s in South Africa (I’d only heard “africa”, so I thought she was opening a school with a beauty salon in Sudan or Niger, which would simply be beyond morbid), so the girls already have the western beauty norms in all likelihood… and I hadn’t considered the possibility that they might want to go to college or grad/professional school in Europe or North America, and in that case looking good would certainly be an advantage. So, criticism withdrawn. Though, I still hate her censoring ass. =(
Someone please explain to me why ANYONE is complaining about what Oprah is doing, or how she says it. It’s her money. It’s her reputation. As for giving the girls what she would have wanted growing up - what else is she supposed to give them? How is using your own experience worse than taking a wild guess at what a bunch of girls whom you have never met would want?
It’s easy to forget how much even a working-class American has. Better to be born working class, in modern America, than at almost any other time in history or almost any other place in the world (excepting other industrialised nations), regardless of wealth. The opportunities - for education; freedom to choose a profession, a spouse, friends; the health care - are simply not available.
I was missing a key piece of information at that time: it’s in South Africa (I’d only heard “africa�, so I thought she was opening a school with a beauty salon in Sudan or Niger, which would simply be beyond morbid), so the girls already have the western beauty norms in all likelihood…
Women and girls all over the world want to be beautiful. I don’t think the intent is to enforce Western standards of beauty. I hadn’t taken beauty - or anyone’s impression of what beauty is - into consideration. Many of these girls were living in shacks with no water, electricity or food. Taking care of their physical appearance was probably low on the totem pole as far as basic needs. Still, they had to be presentable to go to their own schools and now they will have the opportunity to see themselves, daily, in nice, clean clothes and will their hair styled. Looking good is part of good self-esteem - no matter whose standard of beauty is used and it shouldn’t matter where you live or what profession you have. Sudanese women - if they weren’t being raped, brutalized and forced into refugee status would be gussying themselves up too and, as we know, they are some of the most beautiful women in the world.
I’m a little perplexed as to why the women in Niger or Sudan aren’t deserving of a beauty shop and the women in South Africa are … ???
As Steve notes, the reason that kids want iPods and expensive shoes is they grasp that these things signal that you’re not poor. Which then tends to have the result of people treating you better and even possibly giving you opportunities.
Dead-on. Not that these things aren’t good in and of themselves–expensive shoes fit better and are more comfortable than cheap, crappy shoes–but it signals status and wealth, and people treat you better and assume you deserve what you have.
I don’t care much about Oprah one way or another. I’ve never even watched her show. My awareness of her springs from standing in lines at the grocery store and watching her weight shift over time on the cover of tabloids. However, I fail to see anything negative whatsoever about her latest venture into charity. I’m completely not comprehending the issues anybody is having with it. If all she did was randomly pick *one* kid out of the teeming billions on the earth and give that kid a nice life and education, that’d be just as awesome. Pretend you’re that kid. You’re supposed to not be worthy because you’re only one person as opposed to many? wtf kind of weird projection shit is that? Also, who cares if these girls stay the hell away, as far as they can get, from their “roots?” I do from mine. They don’t miss me. I take that back–they’d like to leech off me, but other than that they don’t miss me.
I almost always feel ambivalent about the things Oprah does. On the one hand, she’s made a fortune, as Traister puts it,
This includes, perhaps most directly and frequently, gender prejudices.
On the other hand, she’s not only one of, if not the most successful women of our time, but easily the most visibly successful African American woman of our time, if not the most visibly successful African American, period. Regardless of how she got there, that’s saying something. It’s definitely saying something about the woman’s intelligence and social/business savvy. Hell, I think she’s even managed to make many middle-America white people forget that she’s black (in the sense that when they look at her, they don’t automatically see her race), despite the fact that she frequently discusses race issues in a pretty frank manor. That ain’t easy to do, ‘cause let’s face it, it doesn’t take much eumelanin to get white people to notice skin color. Sometimes, I think she’s smarter than all of us.
But one thing I haven’t felt the least ambivalent about is the school she’s opening in South Africa. It’s always felt to me like she’s giving these girls exactly what they need to begin on a path to success in this world, and that includes, as you say, a beauty salon. These girls aren’t growing up in a post-patriarchal world, where beauty counts for nothing in the social and economic worlds. That’s why I thought Twisty’s criticisms of Oprah’s project were too myopic. She
:I think where Twisty’s wrong is that you don’t expect “pink-faced [male] captains of industry” to understand the social and economic importance of “time-honored elements of patriarchy-worship” enough to include them in the curriculum. If anything, they’re more likely not to include the specific things that young girls will need to learn to make it in a culture that is rife with “time-honored elements of patriarchy-worship.” In other words, they’re more likely not to include the sorts of things that young girls by and large need to learn be successful within a patriarchal society. Men aren’t going to teach them how to play the game, because let’s face it, deep down, men own the game and aren’t all that interested in letting women play. Oprah is giving them exactly the things that pink-faced captains of industry never would.
Granted, in a perfect world, young girls wouldn’t have to learn these “time-honored elements of patriarchy worship” to make it, and in a less than ideal, but more ideal than we have world, Oprah would not only be able to be as successful as she is, and therefore capable of doing things like opening this school, but she’d also be able to directly challenge patriarchy-worship, and set up this school so that these girls would not only be given the tools for success, but they would also be able to learn how to counteract “patriarchy-worship.” But like I said, sometimes I think Oprah’s smarter than the rest of us, and I think with this school, she’s doing something subversive, even if only mildly so, and for the most part, she’s got us patriarchy-worshipers patting her on the back for it.
And sorry about the formatting issues there. I got carried away.
She’s never really bothered me before. She’s honest and upfront about herself.
But these comments did bother me. Because she presents a very materialistic image, and then was criticizing people for being materialistic.
I don’t like that sort of..it’s not hypocrisy. I think it’s more that thinking that the poor should be more dignified, like the people in the novels they like to read.
I assumed a salon on the school grounds would be part of teaching girls and young women about the (admittedly classist) importance of personal hygiene. It’s not just about applying make-up, it’s learning why keeping your fingernails clean and trim helps make a good impression.
I’m definitely no expert on South Africa, but I’ve spoken with a number of people who have visited and worked there. Black Africans actually hold a huge number of powerful positions. They often lack the education and experience that would be ideal (mostly because they were excluded before, but also because large numbers of the whites with experience were removed from their positions or quit, so there is a serious lack of institutional memory).
Training Black African women and providing them with a great education may have a huge impact on South Africa. In fact, they may find their race plays less of a barrier to their success there than here (whereas the poverty, rare educational opportunities, AIDS, and other challenges will make their life more difficult than the average minority in the US).
This could all be untrue, but it is the impression I got from those who have worked there.
I’m a little perplexed as to why the women in Niger or Sudan aren’t deserving of a beauty shop and the women in South Africa are … ???
You mean other than the fact that South Africa is the most politically and economically stable country in sub-Saharan Africa and doesn’t have an ongoing civil war?
Gosh, I can’t think of a single reason why she would choose relatively stable South Africa for this project over a war-torn nation.
It’s Orpah’s money. She earned it. She can do what she wants with it. Lord knows I wouldn’t want anyone combing over my discretionary giving.
Wonderful essay, Amanda!
Gotta plug for my best friend here. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania several years ago. While she was there, living in a village, she had what is known as a “housegirl” (or “houseboy” if it’s a boy)–it’s a Tanzanian kid, usually aged 11-14, who one of the village families sends to live with the Peace Corps volunteer in his or her little house in the village because most Americans don’t have the faintest clue how to survive without electricity, plumbing, wheeled transportation, grocery stores, etc. (I’d be the first to die, I’m positive.) She actually ended up sending her housegirl to secondary school–which is not free and often not even locally available in Tanzania–and is now putting her through nursing school in Dar es Salaam. It reminds me of the whole Oprah thing. I think it’s deeply positive. (Actually I’ve contributed a fair amount to the cause over the years.)
I really hope these young women aren’t the kind who abandon their roots. Some people don’t even contribute in small ways.
I hope they don’t grow up to be thieves or murderers. But I’m not going to raise that as an objection, or even a consideration.
I have no problem with what Oprah’s doing here. My only worry is that if the school is TOO lavish, the girls may feel alienated from their own homes when they go back on vacation. Which isn’t to say build it like a chicken coop or cut out the beauty salon, but it shouldn’t be decked out like a Four Seasons Hotel either (not that I’m saying it is decked out that way. It sounds like it’s being built like a standard boarding school in a western country).
Not only are these girls unlikely to have Jacuzzis at home, they’re unlikely to be able to afford Jacuzzis if they go into many skilled but not hugely well paid professions (teacher, nurse, social worker).
Yes, I know these jobs are stereotypically female, but bearing in mind the patriarchal society these girls are coming out of, it’s entirely possible their parents will push them to go into a ‘respectable’ career. I am reminded of the article about the Afghan man who said he wanted his daughters to go to school so they could be teachers or nurses.
He wanted his sons to go to university, naturellement, but wanting his daughter to get any secondary or post-secondary education at all was a radical break with tradition, given that his wife had been pulled out of school at the age of 10 or something, and many of his female relatives were illiterate.
A beauty salon seems like an excellent idea, in part for teaching grooming skills the girls may not have had the time or energy to acquire if they grow up somewhere without guaranteed access to clean water. I do hope, though, that the salon doesn’t encourage the use of chemical relaxers. I’m not saying ban them, but it’s entirely possible for a black girl to look lovely with short natural hair, or natural twists, dreds, or cornrows, or weaves (i.e. braids not made of their own hair).
I know hair gets intensely political, and some of these girls may end up having to adopt chemically relaxed styles if only to get their foot in the door at a company or profession, but I hope the salon doesn’t propagate an idea that straight hair=beauty.
P.S. I definitely support what Oprah is doing here. However, I wish she wouldn’t have paired it with a bash at “lazy” poor kids in the West. Structural poverty in First World societies takes a very different form from structural poverty in the Third World. But those kids are still part of the underclass and weighed down with obstacles to escaping structural poverty and becoming upwardly socially mobile within their First World society.
As someone who has some third world development experience i was aghast at the excess and Oprah’s self-absorption when i saw the news pieces on her school. She probably could’ve built 10 decent schools for the money she spent on that single lavish one. I’m glad that she’s doing anything to help, but everything she does has her creepy messianic, megalomaniacal prints all over it.
Tiger Woods built a ridiculously plush after school study center in Anaheim. They showed it when he was on 60 Minutes. I remember thinking that he could have built several dozen functional centers around the country for what that one cost.
I admit I don’t really follow the Tiger news, but I certainly haven’t heard anybody raising a stink over his fancy school. Maybe because it has boys in it.
Joe Kennedy brought up a similar point when asked why his Citizen’s Energy program accepts discounted gas from Venezuela. He asked why no one complains about rich people profiting from doing business with Venezuela, only poor people getting charity.
Tiger Woods built a ridiculously plush after school study center in Anaheim. They showed it when he was on 60 Minutes. I remember thinking that he could have built several dozen functional centers around the country for what that one cost.
Precisely my concern.
Exactly what Pablo said, including the having been to third world countries (though not doing development work, I did look around and assess as a civil engineer with some training in secondary education), and I share Raincitygirl’s concern.
I think it’s great Oprah is giving to others and trying to improve South Africa by planting such a seed. On the other hand, a slight reduction in lavishness could have possibly doubled the number of girls who could be educated and removed them less completely from their families and former lives.
Actually, shortly after I lost my temper regarding the fetishistic attachment to US military casualties in Iraq I wrote a post about Oprah’s school.
http://liberaldirk.blogspot.com/2007/01/not-everything-done-by-americans-is-bad.html
The thing is, I don’t think most Americans understand quite what life is like in South Africa. I don’t understand and I live here. Why, because simply by the act of communication with you in this medium, I reveal myself as one of the privileged elite.
However some of the people on this comment thread understand even less than I.
@Qusan, In South Africa those girls will know, thanks to Oprah a far greater chance for success than would be possible for them in your own country. Here the deputy-president (and sometimes acting president) is a woman. Yes, there are dangers (South Africa is a dangerous place) but compared to how their lives would have most likely gone had Oprah not decided to extend her hand in help. Even if they become what you irrationally fear they will, they will still be better off than living and dying in corrugated shack in Diepkloof.
@Mnemosyne, we have pretty decent universities in South Africa. Which are significantly cheaper (a years tuition at one of the foremost universities is equivalent to $2000) than and not lacking when compared to those in your country. And your right, it is not hopeless, it is in fact hopeful.
@deep6, why do you think they would leave? They would become part of the new elite. Oprah has connections to the elite in South Africa, those connections will also be made available to them. Also I do not think that they will become enstranged from their “roots”, you do not fully understand what their lives are like. It is terrible in the townships or at least from my view.
@MDtoMN, your understanding is correct. The government services aside from some tokens here and there is almost entirely new. I do not think the governments policy of making race a key criteria for government service was a wise one. At the moment 25% percent of various government departments budgets are being spent hiring consultants (some who used to be former civil servants), the institutional memory of the organs of state has been virtually wiped out. And you are right, if these girls can make it, their futures will be as golden as any of those in the country.
@Pablo, in SA it costs about R3-4 million to build a school. So she could have built about 40 average South African schools. She is building another one like this, for boys. I would rather have those 2 schools rather than the forty. Why? Because of the governments policies.
Even now, in South Africa the majority of the educated capital lies in white people. However the current government is almost as racially focussed as the preceding one. There are schools in South Africa that are much better than the one Oprah built. Schools where the tuition cost of a year is more than what you would pay for a doctorate degree in South Africa. And these schools are not limited to whites only, but they are limited to the rich only. Oprah now gives those who did not have the luck to be born to rich parents the opportunity to change their lives.
In short the government has a problem. It will not hire whites to work in the civil service or advance those who have not yet left, it will not hire young whites at all. Hence it cuts of a lot of intellectual potential. This leads to a more inefficient government that given South Africa’s developmental needs is actually endangering the future stability of the country.
For example, recently a young man took a home affairs official hostage. Why? South African Law requires that each citizen have an 13digit ID number recorded in a ID book. Without this, you cannot write your matriculation exams, get a job, apply for a vehicle license, open a bank account or even get married. The hostage taker had for the past 2 years tried to get his ID, then he snapped. The government airlifted him an ID to resolve the situation, then threw him in jail for 5 years.
So good for Oprah for helping my country have a future. Good for her, regardless of the penny ante bullshit floating around.
I think she’s trying to dellineate the difference between materialism (the iPods and sneakers) and “this is how to play by a shallow and materialistic society’s rules” (the salon and the designer everything).
While the former is about acquisition, the latter is about education, even if it’s not something that’s particularly positive– just informative and useful.
Raincitygirl, to address your concern about hair: According to the school’s official website, the girls are required, as part of the dress code, to wear their hair either short or neatly braided. It seems like Oprah is being careful not to impose white standards of beauty on these girls.
I wish we lived in a less shallow world, but we don’t, and my first interest is in making sure these girls have no obstacles in their way
Amanda, (and many commenters) thanks for the interesting perspective on this situation with its many ethical entanglements. I do agree that putting the status considerations front and center highlights the most interesting aspect of this episode, I might quibble with the term “shallow”, male peacock tails may be shallow, but if you’re a male peacock who wants to “succeed”, better get yourself one.
In humans, as you would expect for a social mammal, status drives much - your status self-image makes a difference in any and all social interactions (my perception of my status, my, perception of your status,my perception of your perception of my status etc.), characterized by constant feedback, “attitude adjustment” involving a myriad of subtle clues and context. Money + brains alone does not do it - for the most part you need pretty much the whole damn package.
Where I do think there may be grounds for criticism of Oprah (and they are very muted from me in this instance), are in her reinforcement of the legitimacy of the particular content of some of the dominant current consensus “1st world” status functions. I am not concerned so much that they are shallow, as that they in aggregate lead to severe issues for long-term environmental sustainability (and many other “global” problems.) With peacocks it’s gona be the tails, for now and a long, long time; for humans there is no such “locked-in” function. Am not meaning to ” go all evolutionary psychology”, but I think it is fair to say that rooting out “status” from deep in the psyches of humans is something for the long, long term. Changing the content of the culturally dominant status functions is to ones with less deletrious long-term results for humanity and other species is much more doable. (Although still a long, long putt.)
Bottom line: One can quibble if this is the best application of resources, but you better have some pretty good bona fides in pursuit of an alternative that addresses more fundamental ills of society if you want any credibility at all. (And this is singularly lacking in what I see of the critics.) And, as one commenter pointed out, Oprah’s credentials on this point via simple acts such as the book club are pretty good. (Want to change how humans evaluate themselves and others, how about getting them to expose themselves to some thoughtful treatments of the human condition that they might otherwise never encounter.)
Once again, very thought-provoking post.
Where I do think there may be grounds for criticism of Oprah (and they are very muted from me in this instance), are in her reinforcement of the legitimacy of the particular content of some of the dominant current consensus “1st world� status functions.
I find it appalling that people like us who benefit from the 1st world dominant status functions then demand that the poor of 3rd world countries do the hard work of overturning that with their lifestyles. We, apparently, can’t be bothered, but the poor have nothing better to do than prove their worthiness to us. If it sounds like I’m being hard, I’m sorry. But I am shocked at the people criticizing how Oprah runs this school when every criticism leveled at her is 500 times more relevant here in the U.S.
School inequality? Not just in our public schools, but why does Harvard cost more than a state university? We could take the money being poured into Harvard and spread it around and educate more people, and we should before we lash out at Oprah for choosing to do a thorough job on a few rather than a middling job on many.
Arguments can be made for both, but I think that there is an argument in favor of giving an elite education to a group of girls instead of a more egalitarin one to a lot. Depends on how much you think these women will change things from an elite perspective than a less elite one. Now, I am fairly certain that more education for more women will work better, but I can see why Oprah’s experiences incline her to focus on the elite.
Needless to say, the beauty salon criticisms feel good right before I blowdry my hair and put on make-up. I’m not going to demand the poor be more moral than I am when I can better afford to take a symbolic stand against the beauty imperative.
Re: iPods and sneakers. You may think that said items are just pointless materialism, but the fact of the matter is they are indicators of having middle class prosperity. If people see you with an iPod and Nikes, they assume you pull down enough to afford luxury expenditures of a couple thousand a year, i.e. you’re middle class. And they will treat you accordingly, which could help you actually become middle class. So poor kids who long for these things are not thinking as short term as one might think.
Great post and great comments. I was really interested in the tiger woods comparison. But I also want to point out that historically charity/education towards impoverished youths has, to the extent it was planned to actually work in the real world, included a large component of “cultural capital”–And it sometimes goes the other way. I’m thinking of the relatively large number of guys I met who went to school on “caddy scholarships.” It sounded so bizarre to me that I thought I’d misheard it but it was absolutely “of course” to them–they’d been caddying for wealthy golfers and had applied for scholarships through them. At MIT they used to have classes in taking tea for the geeks to get them to function in ordinary society. In schools with fraternities and sororities (through which many social and economic connections are made) any scholarship student who hoped to make it out at the end would receive some kind of boost into frats/sororities and at the same time some kind of social grooming. And if they didn’t? they weren’t getting the full benefit of the schooling. And of course from the middle ages on any kind of free or public schooling included some component of a dress code (to keep the students in line) and perhaps of class reconstruction to make sure students could associate with the upper classes who were, ultimately, going to employ them.
I find it appalling that people like us who benefit from the 1st world dominant status functions then demand that the poor of 3rd world countries do the hard work of overturning that with their lifestyles.
WORD. So tired of the notion that those simple, peaceful folk in the developing world wouldn’t possibly want iPods, cellphones, central heating or government-inspected food unless evil First World marketers tricked them into it; left to their own devices they’d cheerfully stick with subsistence farming. (We, on the other hand, are virtuous if we recycle our newspapers and bring our own bags to Whole Foods.)
Arguments can be made for both, but I think that there is an argument in favor of giving an elite education to a group of girls instead of a more egalitarin one to a lot.
There’s an argument in favor of pretty much anything. That said, I doubt even Oprah is going to be able to take the place of what the South African government should be doing. She’s doing something that will help many people; the fact that she isn’t helping everybody is not a valid criticism.
LiberalDirk–Thanks. You said most of what I was going to say, but much more articulately and with much more knowledge.
I do want to talk a little bit more about what deep6 wrote, though:
I really, really don’t like this attitude. It seems to me that people who were once poor and are now successful are criticized for “not giving back to the community” much more often than people who have come from successful, middle-class families. I have been asked by some very well-meaning people before why I didn’t use my intelligence and talents to help people in my very poor, rural, working-class town. If they think that it’s important to help the people in that area, why don’t they do it?
And I’m not from an impovrished township in South Africa. I think it’s wonderful when people go back to where they came from and assist the people in there community; I just don’t know why people stand in judgment of people who have made it out who don’t when there are millions of people who have done nothing as well.
We are talking about lives of individual girls here; I hope that they are able to help their communities, but I’m much more concerned about them succeeding and getting the hell out of poverty.
So let’s see, thousands of girls could’ve been taught to read and do math, or a hundred girls could have luxury suites, a yoga studio, and a beauty salon. Nope, no criticism is valid there, unless you’re a first world racist pig.
So, let’s see, instead of teaching a thousand girls to read and do math, Oprah could have funded ten thousand children getting AIDS treatment. Instead of ten thousand children getting AIDS treatment, Oprah could have funded life-saving anti-diarrheal treatment to a hundred thousand children who are war refugees.
We can play this game all day, pablo. Whether you are a first-world racist pig is a subject on which I have no opinion.
Actually i’m just thankful Oprah is putting her energy into something like this instead of say, getting some French minimum wage shop girl fired from the $10,000 handbag store for not opening it after hours for her.
Clearly you aren’t up on what is considered “luxury” in sheets. Personally I enjoy sleeping on 400-count Egyptian cotton, purchased fairly cheap. However, high-end vacation hotels do currently tout 200 count like it means something. So I bring sheets when I travel.
I saw a television interview in which Oprah very creditably backed down from her much-circulated line about lazy Ipod-loving American kids or whatever. She was like, of course that was an unfair generalization — there are lots of great kids everywhere — and then returned the conversation to what she was actually doing and why.
I must say I think the whole to-do over what she said about American kids got so harped on because Oprah makes a lot of people just plain mad (exhibit A in this thread would be Pablo). But because it is hard to criticize her on the merits, people belabor how she could do what she does do *better*, or how they like part A of what she does but have “problems” with part B, blah blah. What they mean is: that big rich smart successful black woman? Boy, she rubs me the wrong way.
Thanks for illustrating my point for me Ozma. Criticizing Oprah’s temple to herself = being a 1st world racist and now also sexist pig.
I often read criticism of some of the more boneheaded World Bank development projects, but now i’ll just have to remember this thread and say “Hey so what if they coud’ve funded clinics and schools, some kids are really going to enjoy that stadium. It’s not like they could’ve saved everybody anyway.”
I often read criticism of some of the more boneheaded World Bank development projects, but now i’ll just have to remember this thread…
Development projects that are supposed to meet specific developmental goals one person spending her own money as she pleases, as long as she does no harm.
…and there was supposed to be a ‘not equivalent’ sign between ‘goals’ and ‘one’, sorry.
I’m curious as to how much of the money was for capital costs, how much for annual costs and whether Oprah created some sort of trust to fund the school’s annual costs with part of that $40,000,000.
Ensuring sustainability and how that was done is much more interesting to me than sheet thread counts, brick color or embroydered initials. Actual building plans, physical plant design…. That would be interesting, too. I don’t wear make up, hang out at salons, do yoga….
I see Pablo’s point. I also see windy’s. I still don’t see that suggesting she spent some of this frivolously and would have reached more girls if she hadn’t is so bad a thing as it is true. That’s her choice and she certainly doesn’t have to justify it to me.
She should have known going on about such things ad nausium would be a PR blunder though. Is it perhaps a case of knowing criticism is better than lack of any notice? Huge numbers of people will remember her school now who might never have paid much attention if there weren’t some kind of hubbub.
“I still don’t see that suggesting she spent some of this frivolously and would have reached more girls if she hadn’t is so bad a thing as it is true.”
Nor do i think that suggesting that this could well be a vanity project, and that one is justified in fearing that as soon as it has served its PR purpose and she has become bored with it that it will be left to rot, is such a bad thing.
So let’s see, thousands of girls could’ve been taught to read and do math, or a hundred girls could have luxury suites, a yoga studio, and a beauty salon. Nope, no criticism is valid there, unless you’re a first world racist pig.
It is coming across like you’re saying, “Hey, these girls have no future anyway, so why give them ideas above their station?”
These are, hopefully, the girls who will turn into the women who will form the backbone of a new political class in South Africa and help it continue to develop. And, as many people have pointed out above, like it or not, there are certain class expectations bound up in being an elite. If these girls are expected to be the diplomats and politicians of a future South Africa, they DO need to know the same things that the rest of the world’s elites know about, not just the ones in the United States.
I know it offends our egalitarian ideals to decide that a small number of poverty-stricken girls should be helped over a larger number of poverty-stricken girls but, frankly, it needs to be done. You don’t want a girl who could have been the Prime Minister of South Africa stuck teaching in a Soweto classroom because she was never given the opportunity to broaden her horizons and get the elite education she would need for that position.
I couldn’t go to sleep before mentioning this: all of the brouhaha on this thread is reminding me of when they founded the Washington Jesuit Academy in a poverty-stricken area of Washington DC. The school is a junior high that helps prep minority boys for admission to prep schools and then on to elite universities. It has less than 75 students, all boys from the neighborhood who pay $25 a month in tuition.
The conflict was with a neighborhood group who had wanted the same building to use for a vocational school serving the same population. Their argument was that a vocational school would be more immediately helpful to a larger segment of the neighborhood’s population, because only a small number of boys (and it is a boys-only school) would attend the Academy. The Jesuits argued that it was unfair to NOT allow those talented boys to better themselves.
So … who’s right? Those who want to help a small group move far beyond what their background would otherwise allow, or those who want to help a larger group move a few steps up?
Mnemosyne is right (aside from the fact that we have presidents not prime ministers) Pablo.
The fact is that these girls will make more of a difference after going through Oprah’s generously donated school than they would be otherwise.
My countries new rulers have to come from somewhere, why not there?
PS Pablo, what have you done to help Africa today?
“It is coming across like you’re saying, “Hey, these girls have no future anyway, so why give them ideas above their station?â€?”
Of course wanting as many girls as possible to receive an education would naturally imply that i think said girls “have no future”. What the hell is wrong with you?
LiberalDirk- 3 Years Peace Corps Senegal, 2 years USAID, and 6 months with an NGO affiliated with John-Hopkins that specializes in post abortion care training. Go fuck yourself.
>>So let’s see, thousands of girls could’ve been taught to read and do math, or a hundred girls could have luxury suites, a yoga studio, and a beauty salon. Nope, no criticism is valid there, unless you’re a first world racist pig. >>
Are you equally pissed when a Harvard grad donates to Harvard? After all, it’s just benefiting people who, by definition, are already getting a first-rate education. Shouldn’t the Harvard grad with $10,000 or $100,000 to donate it donate it elsewhere, to please you?
Of course wanting as many girls as possible to receive an education would naturally imply that i think said girls “have no future�. What the hell is wrong with you?
You really need to think through what you’re saying, pablo. Your argument seems to be that it’s better to use finite resources to give a larger number of girls a mediocre education than it is to give a smaller number an elite education. Yes? In practice, that means that you are robbing at least some of those girls of the future they could have had, because you can only go so far with a mediocre education, no matter how smart you are.
If there was an infinite amount of money available, of course we should make provisions for all of the children in South Africa to get the best education possible. But when you have a single person with finite (if large) resources financing something, decisions have to be made. You seem to feel that Oprah should have gone for quantity over quality. I don’t.
(Thanks for the correction, LiberalDirk. I just assume that everyone in the world has a prime minister except us.
oh god: Peace Corps, USAID, the NGO world. Too, too beautiful. You are certainly well-trained in what little gobbets of assistance the world’s poor might merit, *if* they behave.
Y’know, I think it’s entirely possible to criticize pablo’s comments about Oprah without sneering at work he’s actually done.
Seems a good a time as any to plug The Riverkids Project. It’s a school for children in Cambodia at risk for child trafficking, set up by a woman who does not have nearly Oprah’s assets. If you can, you can help out by donating or buying something at The Riverkids Shop.
Crazy- I don’t really see how the analogy relates but i’ll have a go at it. If said Harvard grad demands that the school spend his donated money on a pool and patio, with a bar stocked with expensive single malt scotch for a frat house, and then he featured it in a PR campaign to show the world how wonderful he is, then yes that would piss me off.
Mnem- I don’t think beauty salons, yoga studios, suites stocked with designer items are necessary for an elite education. And “elite education” is probably over rated anyway; George W. Bush being a recipient of one. I’ve seen people do much more with less.
Mythago- thank you, but i’m curious as to Ozma’s view of Peace Corps. I’m guessing it’s the “you’re a tool of American cultural imperialism” shibboleth i’ve heard a hundred times, always by people who haven’t a clue as to what they are talking about.
Mythago — I think Pablo’s righteous denunciation of Oprah’s project, and his background in the foreign aid world, in fact go hand in hand. What Oprah is doing is lavish: that’s sort of the point. She’s pouring the kind of over the top attention into a set of poor girls that rich kids get from their families. That’s not the Peace Corps / USAID / NGO approach — an approach that makes a virtue of stinginess. And what I think is most notable about Pablo’s paired responses is (1) he’s enraged by Oprah’s “excess” (nice sheets for African girls! Thinking she should be allowed to shop outside regular hours at a high end shop just becuase she’s the kind of gaziliionaire celebrity for whom those shops are specifically designed! etc!) (2) he thinks having worked in development positions him to deliver moral smackdowns. These two positions are morally confused in similar ways.
(1) is morally confused because it gets ultra angry at the specific excess of ONE PERSON (not coincidentally, a black female one) and her lavishing some of it on poor people (not coincidentally, black female ones).
(2) is morally confused because it suggests that U.S. funded development work — a global racket on a grand scale if ever there was one, and calling that statement of fact a “shibboleth” is just a scare tactic — is *in itself* noble.
I could deal with someone saying, “I’ve worked in development and seen it do good things, but yeah it’s kind of a mixed enterprise”. But “yay me, fuck Oprah?” Please.
SO MUCH more moral outrage should be directed at (2) than (1), both in principle and in terms of real-world outcomes. So that’s where the connection lies for me; he’s misunderstanding causality in a specific, consistent, and pernicious way.
Oprah Winfrey’s Genius…
I have long had a huge amount of admiration for Oprah Winfrey — every few months or so I’ll ask Tivo to record an episode or two of her show just to see what she’s……
You’ve convinced me Ozma. To overcome my racist and sexist ways for daring to criticize the priorities of Oprah, and for the crime of feeling pretty okay with my past occupations trying to actually do something to help; i’m going to commit myself to a new philanthropic project. I’m starting an NGO to give the girls of Darfur a make-over! People subject to genocide often suffer a loss of self-esteem, and self-esteem is so important for succeeding in life later on. I’m sure you’ll want to donate so that i can fly these girls(first class of course)in for a 5 day stay at a luxury spa, for massages, facials and pedicures before they are unceremoniously dumped back into that hell hole. That’s development Oprah style! I’ll let know where to send your money as soon as i get the Pay Pal account set up because i don’t have Oprah money.
Bill Gates has money though. I was just thinking how silly Bill Gates is. He set up a foundation spending billions of dollars looking for treatments for malaria and AIDS. But will all of those lives saved be worth living if they never know the joy of sleeping in designer sheets? He needs to take a lesson from Oprah. Is it okay Ozma if i criticize his priorities? He’s a white guy afterall.
I think, given the fact that Oprah is being generous with her own resources, and the fact that she probably has researched the organizations she is funding and thus is more knowledgable about her actions than I am, it’s not wise to berate her for her actions. Her actions will be a positive influence on many lives.
That said, many of the comments I’m reading on here are raising my eyebrows just a tad. I’m getting the impression that had Oprah made the same financial donation, but one that didn’t address personal aesthetics as much, she’d be derided for some reason as well. I think basically, people of all opinions are extremely likely to second-guess charity if it doesn’t line up with their own prefered method of donation.
Mythago: “She’s doing something that will help many people; the fact that she isn’t helping everybody is not a valid criticism”.
I disagree: she’s doing something that will help a few, when she could’ve done something that would’ve actually helped (as you say) “many people”; that’s a valid point, IMO.
Not sure how this conversation turned into a (false) choice re: a “mediocre” education for many vs. a super-special education for a privileged few (an argument defending the right to learn for a celebrity-created & funded elite, at the expense of the many, btw—but it’s her money, after all! If she wants to create an elitist cohort, who are we to judge?!!).
For forty million dollars, Winfrey could’ve provided an excellent, imaginative yearly education for five times the girls (thus leading, far more quickly, to a tipping point for a whole generation of SA females) rather than indulging herself in playing out god knows what childhood mess is left stewing in her psyche. (And for any who care to call me a racist, sexist turncoat for bashing a successful, African American female, tell me—what do you make of the girls going to sleep on pillows embroidered with a giant, fancy “O”? Not, mind you, the initials of the academy or of the girls themselves, but an “O”: no doubt to remind them of their benefactress, every time they lay head to pillow.) That she refers to these girls as her “daughters” I find particularly off-putting (as if they had no families of their own, or as if their own families were of no account when it came to the ease of assuming the maternal role, and designating them your “daughters”.)
She’s treating the future of SA girls overall with the same quixotic, luxury-minded nature she treats her studio audience (”What’s under your chair today, people? A gift bag? A Rolex? No…it’s a car!! A CAAAAR!!” The fact that she gave cars to teachers– the best of whom will tell you they don’t need embroidered pillows or Italian marble countertops to teach children–is the goddamn cherry on the sundae.)
And let’s not muddy up this “Yay, Oprah! You go, girl!” conversation by thinking of how sickened the hearts are of the children she interviewed and then rejected. Let’s not think of all those girls left knowing that instead of a good education in less lavish surroundings (the choice Oprah didn’t make)they got sent back to their shanty town lives, as they didn’t have that special “light” Oprah yearningly tells us, on her website, that she was looking for in students for her school. (Sorry, honey, you just didn’t have that “Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!” thing she was looking for, so back to your shit classroom–if you can even stay there beyond grade six–and try working on that elite, charismatic thingy, ‘kay? And maybe some day another philanthropist will come along and figure out how to spend forty million to provide a decent education for more than 450 girls a year: here’s hoping they do it before you’re raped or infected by AIDS–good luck with that!)
I don’t think it’s in any way (consciously) malevolent, but Oprah is playing Lady Bountiful, here: the munificent lady of the manor handing out largesse to a deserving, precious few, picking through human lives like a woman searching for the sweetest cherries for a pie–throwing an unnecessarily lavish lifestyle at a handful of girls awash in a sea of rape and AIDS and shanty towns–all the while yammering on about how uplifted and blessed and fulfilled she is by it all (and failing, this time around, to bring the media fully to heel as she does so). God–it’s like Trump invaded her body, messed around with her unresolved childhood issues, then told her the best way to solve it all was to ignore every platitude she’s been mouthing since the early eighties, and just spend! spend! spend!, substance be damned.
But hey, who am I to carp? Over time, a handful of girls will sleep on O pillows (while internalizing crucial “fat burning” tips on their bulletin boards– per Oprah’s imaginary view of their future rooms)and eventually they will become SA’s “elite” (because a woman only needs an education if she’s going to be a world leader, right? As someone upthread so helpfully pointed out: why waste your time teaching in a classroom in Soweto?), with these elite women-to-be generously leading all the other light-less girls who didn’t make the Oprah cut to the better path awaiting a nation…the cross over promo we’ve all been waiting for: the arrival of Tyra Banks in 2012 (”South Africa’s Next Top Elite”)and Simon Cowles combing the townships for somebody who can sing soul like they mean it.
Maybe then, one of the light-less losers Oprah rejected will get a shot at a decent life, by singing the blues.
so, if instead of 450 girls a year, say it had been the 4x at 1800/year instead. that still leaves how many girls out in the fucking cold? would people stop howling at her then? or would they then scream that she should be helping 10,000 girls instead? it’s never enough when you hate someone.
i’m sure there are many things wrong with what oprah is doing, but you know…she’s doing it. i think she will create not just a cadre of well educated girls, but a social/political network that just might have the oomph to make some serious changes.
‘unnecessarily lavish lifestyle” kind of says it all.
when i lived on a military base, the bare minimum was the PX, commissary, a HAIR SALON, and recreation facilities, usually a pool, bowling alley and gym. they weren’t OMG CRAZY, they were just standard.
it seems like oprah is definetly chasing her own demons with this school but i can’t really fault her for trying. if exorcising her childhood trama involves helping girls she sees as reflects of her younger self? ok. there are alot worse ways to deal with that stuff.
i think those girls totally deserve that space. i wish every girl in SA and the world had that opportunity, but i’m really happy that at least some are getting it.
Alicia: “it’s never enough when you hate someone.”
I don’t “hate” Oprah, I despise what she’s doing–but if that’s your take on any sharp criticism of the woman, I guess you can chalk up this person below to being a mere hater as well (from Newsweek):
“The South African government has never said precisely why it pulled out of the project, though it’s not hard to guess. “The country is very obviously poor, and so few children have a chance at education,” says one South African school official who asked not to be identified because he didn’t want to offend Oprah. “It is hard not to see that many feel that what Ms. Winfrey is doing is too much.” Oprah’s response? “I understand that many in the school system, and out, feel that I’m going overboard, and that’s fine. 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.”
As to that “It” factor: Oprah interviewed five hundred girls, then cut that number down to 152—a process that guaranteed most of the girls would fail to grab their best chance at getting out of the horrific circumstances most of them live in—and I’m supposed to applaud her for that? Who the fuck sets up dirt-poor girls for failure, based on having “It”?
If she’d actually put aside her personal freak-out at what she considered “chicken coop designs” first submitted to her, and thought long and hard about what the point of all this was, she could’ve cast a wide net, drawing thousands of girls into a real future. Instead, she played M’Lady of the Manor, driven by her own demons, handing out goodies to a handful of The Poor. (Bravo! Next, she’ll be feeding amuse bouches to the starving in Darfur—because everybody deserves an amuse bouche, don’t they?)
I find it all driven by a deeply dysfuntional ego: there’s something perverse about deciding to help educate a nation’s girls—while also choosing to blow off that country’s educators—even as you proclaim yourself as knowing better than they do. (As if being rich and famous is proof enough of wisdom or superior vision, rather than evidence that you’ve successfully traded on a very marketable skill in the US media. Oprah likes having the experts on her show—but in real life? Not so much).
It smacks of The Civilized Other teaching the natives how best to run their own homeland—they don’t need books or a safe space to learn, they need to be “complimented on their dimples”, because that’s what Oprah craved as a child (Speaking of which, does Oprah not realize that her childhood, as sparse and troubled as it was by American standards, was a virtual paradise compared to these girls? That they don’t need a Yoga Center or a Wellness Center, but a clean, safe space, books, teachers and a future?) What is wrong with her, that she thinks she can impose her own adolescent desires onto a nation of girls, currently with no future? (And what is wrong with the world overall, that an educator is terrified to go on the record, out of fear of “offending” a talk show host?)
Here’s hoping Oprah’s included, in her Wellness Center, a class-A team of shrinks, because these girls are going to suffer the mother of all Survivor Guilt: they go home every three months–to their bitter, shanty-town lives–and god knows how they’ll make sense of what’s happened to them.
Alicia: “when i lived on a military base, the bare minimum was the PX, commissary, a HAIR SALON, and recreation facilities, usually a pool, bowling alley and gym. they weren’t OMG CRAZY, they were just standard.”
But Oprah’s choice wasn’t squalor vs. standard vs. the Trump-world she ended up picking. The original plan (when the SA gov was on board) was for ten million bucks: for forty million, she could’ve built four—or even five—beautiful schools, w/o the bullshit, consumerist bells and whistles (talk about exporting the worst of American values). That would’ve reached four or five times the girls she’s reaching now—in the face of that, why the need for a fireplace in almost every room? (A lovely common room with a fireplace, shared by ten or twelve girls, wasn’t lavish enough?) There’s a cafeteria dressed in marble countertops—so why the need for a kitchen in every room? (A kitchen, not a dorm fridge). Why an indoor *and* outdoor theatre, both fully decked out? Why Oprah’s obsession with embroidered pillows and tiles and silverware and marble?
High end computers, schoolbooks, great teachers, athletic facilities, pretty rooms for the girls — all good and fine and decent: but when you insist on building the equivalent of a luxury hotel (the kind celebs like Oprah stay at…hmmm) and because of that decision, flesh and blood girls suffer—well, fuck that, I’m not going to cheer her on, I’m going to point out that she’s showing less self awareness than she urges all of her guests du jour to exhibit, when discussing whatever past issue they’re grappling with. Oprah’s been blinder, dumber—and in the end, more selfish—than any guest she’s urged to face the truth and just deal—but this time, actual children will suffer for her lack of self awareness.
And this defense of Oprah’s blindness, IMO, comes down to an argument on behalf of things vs. people: the right of a few girls to enjoy luxurious surroundings, while thousands of others just have to grin and bear it (waiting for the day when the super-elite will lead them out of the wilderness of their own desperate, squalorous lives).
It’s Oprah’s List: someday, she’s going to realize that for every embroidered pillow and marble countertop, another girl ended up leaving school to care for an AIDS infected relative or ended up with AIDS herself, because she had to work the streets to stay alive—forgive me if I don’t think a fireplace in every room (and a chicken in every pot) is worth that trade-off.
One more example of what I (at least) consider evidence of her strained, polluted thinking: she dislikes poor American kids asking her for an iPod…and then turns around and gives a handful of the most desperately poor in South Africa an O-Pod—and I’m supposed to clap my hands and gush at her generosity?
Please.
Alicia: “it seems like oprah is definetly chasing her own demons with this school but i can’t really fault her for trying. if exorcising her childhood trama involves helping girls she sees as reflects of her younger self? ok. there are alot worse ways to deal with that stuff.”
She’s not really seeing her true ” younger self” in these children (only, IMO, the fantasy self she’s trying to rescue) as girls who’ve been pregnant or had any difficulties with drugs and alcohol can’t even apply to the school…well, Oprah was pregnant, so why not make room for a small percentage of girls who’ve lived what she did? Why not help upstream (into this supposed elite-in-training) just a dozen girls who’ve tried to keep at their education, despite their troubled pasts?
But no: I guess once you’ve birthed a baby at twelve (a pregnancy likely due to rape, abuse or prostitution) you’ve just lost that “It” factor so important to Oprah; maybe, if they’re lucky (and they have a semi-It thing going on) those light-less, failed girls will be flown into Chicago for a session with Dr. Phil—I’m sure, once he takes them to the woodshed, all will be well.