The ‘powerless’ need to hear the truth, too [Clarence Page]

Jewish World Review ^ | January 8, 2007 | Clarence Page

[2ndDivisionVet]

Oprah Winfrey's poke at the short-sighted materialism of some low-income students has delighted conservative commentators, but that doesn't mean she's wrong.

Liberals love to "speak truth to power," but the powerless need to hear the truth, too. Knowledge, after all, is power. Don't keep it to yourself, I say. Spread it around.

That's why the Queen of Daytime Talk did poor folks a favor when she candidly explained in a Newsweek interview why she decided to build her lavish new school for impoverished teenagers, the $40 million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, in South Africa instead of the United States. South Africa's students, she said, show a greater need and appreciation for education, even though American schools are free.

"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools (in America) that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there," she said. "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."

[My2Cents]

Translation: How dare anyone question the richest black person in America?

[trimom]

In my mind, she did what she wanted to do with her own money. She need not justify it, rationalize it, excuse it or explain. Subject closed.

[popdonnelly]

Journalists should apply these kinds of questions to what the government is doing with our money. Then we'd be getting somewhere.

[OldFriend]

Perhaps Mr. Page can look inward. See if he's talked about root causes, excuses, excuses, for unacceptable behaviour in his own community.

Ugly hatefilled lyrics in music, Vote or Die shirts that insinuate that serving your country in the military is some kind of punishment.

[Chi-townChief]

Interesting - Clarence the Crosseyed Page with boldly "take on" Bill Cosby but tuck tail and run from Oprah.

[headstamp]

"......even though American schools are free."

Oh really. Tell that to the taxpayers getting hammered with school taxes every year.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

ignorance is the enemy of mankind - no matter what the color. If you think the cost of education is high, take a look at the cost of ignorance.

We need to convince the students that an education is valuable to them and to the country - including a working knowledge of US history.

[RonF]

Oprah Winfrey's poke at the short-sighted materialism of some low-income students has delighted conservative commentators, but that doesn't mean she's wrong.

Perhaps she should clean up her own house as well. Every year, Ms. Winfrey runs a show where she takes all the goodies that she gets sent and gives them away to the studio audience. You should see the audience reactions. Greed and avarice personified; I watched about 5 minutes one night (I came across it while channel surfing) and had to shut it off.

[art_rocks]

But this same audience complains when it gets the tax bill.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

"The sense that you need to learn just isn't there,"

There it is. And it is true.

[Phantom Lord]

But this same audience complains when it gets the tax bill.

Indeed they do. I remember their whinning and crying about having to pay taxes on what Oprah gave them. Especially the cars.

[the_devils_advocate_666]

In the end he offers the solution:

Besides, if we really want our kids to appreciate education, we should follow Oprah's example: Fix up the old, crumbling structures into which we herd too many of our students here at home. If we want our kids to appreciate education, we have to show some respect for it, too.

Of course, we need to spend MORE money on public schools. And we all know where that money comes from... (hint, it isn't Oprah)

[My2Cents]

I agree, and yet here is Clarence Page running to the defense.

[billhilly]

The subject shouldn't be closed. She simply pointed out in a simple sound bite, and $40,000,000 of her money that natural selection is for real. Survival of the fittest. If Oprah was a bear, she would smack the crap out of her cubs until they learned to become self sufficient bears, otherwise, she would watch them perish, as natural law intends.

This country prefers feeding the bears garbage, while watching the spectacle at a safe distance through TV lenses, while stentorian British voices extol the goodness of Elmer the cub, seen defecating on some suburban homeowners deck.

[DMZFrank]

My problem with Oprah is not how she chooses to distribute her largesse. It is with the fact that she is a secular progressive liberal who is seemingly oblivious to the truth that her program has enabled the sort of mindless multiculturalists who helped to create the very environment that she decries. As another example of the cognitively dissonant nature of her complaints, she worships at the altar of Barack Obama, being a self confessed Obamamaniac. I recall an instructive moment during the US Senatorial debates between Alan Keyes and Barack Obama. (Should anyone care to review those debates, it is obvious that Obama has no answer to the perspectives of an intellectually rigorous conservative) They were speaking to the issue of school choice, and Obama was disclosing his satisfaction with a private schooling program at an elite educational institution in Hyde Park that his children attended. Alan Keyes riposted by saying that is precisely why he favors school choice, he wanted all parents to have Obama's option and satisfaction about school choice for THEIR children. Obama looked slightly stunned, and stammered out an inadequate response. My impression of him was that of a liberal elitist beholden to the Teacher's Unions and unwilling to give or to trust people with viable educational options to improve their childrens lives.

Winfrey is probably unwilling to confront the fact that Obama would promote the very policies that would deny a voucher to poor parents for the very sort of private school that she has built and would offer a meaningful alternative to the ignorance factories that inner city public schools have become. To do so would damage her cred with the libs that she currys favor with. Oprah, connect the dots and it shall set you free!!!

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Well said. I don't understand why FReepers bash Oprah. She made it on her own. Isn't that's what capitalism is all?

Plus she's a gifted actress, I wish she'd do more roles. Loved her in "The Color Purple."

[norton]

There is always the slim chance that hearing this from the queen of afternoon TV, goodness, and 'success despite the handicaps' will stir a few folks who are capable of benefiting from it.

Or not.

[boop]

Maybe, just maybe Oprah realizes that giving even more money to a inner city American school would be just like flushing it down a toilet. How much do we spend per pupil in the worst school systems already? It sounds like the South African girls will actually appreciate the donation and get something positive from it.