Like umpteen million other people, I watched Oprah's last show yesterday. I've had a love/hate relationship with Oprah for years, everything from instantly changing the channel at the mention of her name to wishing I had her for a good friend. I've had a lot of "AHA!" moments, sitting in front of the TV listening to her and her guests, and I've also wanted to throw my iced tea glass through the screen at times. Oddly enough, when I look back at it, the shows I absolutely despised were probably the ones I learned the most from. They made me think about and see things that were wrong in my own life, just as they showed a lot of wrong-ness on the part of the guests (and very, very occasionally, perhaps Oprah herself).
Oprah made me confront the genteel racism (yes, I do believe there is a genteel form of that evil) that was part of my growing up. The times when I felt she was "uppity" were the same times that made me consider why I thought that. My upbringing was in a segregated south, a place where people of color were "nice" (those who worked hard, often at menial jobs, kept their houses and yards neat even if their neighbors had unpainted and sometimes decidedly rickety houses) or -- well, there were the ones we referred to by the N-word. Of course, there were also white folks (people who worked hard, sometimes at menial jobs, but who kept their houses and yards neat) and what we called "po' white trash," white people who lived in houses that needed repair, with unkempt yards and frequently yards full of rusting bed springs, tin cans, junk autos and the like. The place I grew up was definitely a racial and cultural dichotomy. I saw a lot of good in it, but Oprah made me think about the worst parts of it and change the way I thought (and reacted) to someone who didn't fit preconceived stereotypes.
Oprah expanded my world. The program I perhaps remember most vividly of all came on one afternoon in, I believe, 2004 or 2005. Oprah's guest was a British woman who sat upright in her chair, hands clasped in her lap and who spoke of things I'd never imagined. Dr. Catherine Hamlin and her late husband had gone to Ethiopia and eventually founded a hospital devoted to women with fistulas, holes in the body and organs, particularly the intestinal, urinary and vaginal ones that caused constant leakage of blood, urine and feces. The fistulas was caused by pregnancy and delivery, usually in very young women whose bodies were not yet mature enough to be ready for such a trauma, and whose tradition dictated that they give birth totally alone, without nurses and doctors, midwives or even a sympathetic woman to assist in the birth. The result was often a dead child and a woman with a disgusting leakage; her punishment was not just the fistula but the ostracism brought on by the byproducts of the injury -- the smell and the offal. This hospital was their last chance, and Dr. Hamblin spoke of and for them just as she helped to heal them and taught others to do the same. Before that show, I didn't know such a thing existed. What Oprah did for me that day was open a window to see a totally foreign world but a world where women I should be calling "sisters" were suffering and dying because of a patriarchal (and often connivance of the matriarchy) desire and cultural dismissal of women having any rights, even rights to the most primitive of medical care and help. That show started me on a journey that may not have produced much fruit but which has expanded my consciousness about the world and the plight of many who live in it.
Recently Oprah branched off with a network of her own, the OWN network, one with, I think, a very prophetic acronym. I really resented the OWN network -- which took over a favorite of mine -- and determined it wouldn't be something I'd watch. Then I saw several episodes of the "Master Class," hour-long dialogs with people who had something to teach the world from the lessons life had taught them. The first one I watched was done by Maya Angelou, a woman I admire greatly. She spoke of her life, the difficulties and challenges as well as some of the bright spots, and in that monologue/life lecture, I saw and heard things that resonated with my soul. The next one I watched was a double episode with Oprah herself, talking about her life as a whole and the lessons she had learned and sought to pass on. Comparing the two women, both so successful in their chosen professions and lives, I saw the similarities, the struggles that were common to both women long before they became mentors and friends. It gave me a perspective I hadn't had before, one that said that all of us have struggles to deal with, and how we learn to cope with them and use them determines how well we succeed (or how badly we fail) at the one life we have some control over, namely our own. While circumstances may happen to us that are out of our control, what is within that control is how we deal with it and move on, taking responsibility for our actions and decisions, learning from them and using those experiences to shape who and what we are ourselves. My self-esteem should not depend on what others think of me but rather what I think of myself. I alone can build it up or tear it down. I am responsible. I know that lesson has sunk in mentally --- it's at the gut level that I still have to work on it, and work on it very hard.
So, Oprah, thank you for the insights, the experiences shared, the stories told and all the examples of life overcoming odds. Thank you for the education in so many forms, and thank you for believing hard enough and deeply enough to want to make a difference. Please don't stop, even if people (including me) sometimes think it's "uppity" and disturbing. You have a way of reminding me that "uppity" is a two-way street and that by judging you (and others), I'm being the very worst kind of "uppity."
Keep preaching, Oprah, 'cuz we sure need the kind of sermons you lay on us. It will be interesting (and, I'm sure, enlightening) to see where your journey leads you. I'm betting there will be a lot of us watching and listening --- and turning around to follow and to do. That, I think, will be your greatest legacy.
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