Speaking on a recent episode of “The Oprah Conversation,” TV host Oprah Winfrey insisted that a “caste system that’s been put in place” permits whites to have a “leg up” that gives them “an advantage, no matter.”
In the episode, titled, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man: Part 1,” Winfrey and NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho interviewed white guests who admitted they were racist.
At one point in the episode, Winfrey, who is reputedly worth $2.6 billion, stated, “There are white people who are not as powerful as the system of white people — the caste system that’s been put in place — but they still, no matter where they are on the rung, or the ladder of success, they still have their whiteness … [Whites have a] leg up. You still have your whiteness. That’s what the term ‘white privilege’ is. It means that whiteness still gives you an advantage, no matter. It is the fundamental issue,” The Blaze reported.
An interviewee named Seth said because he had never actively opposed racism, he must be racist, which elicited this reply from Winfrey: “You’ve become woke during this period, and realized in that awakening that you are racist, right? I just want to know how that happened.”
“I was born in the ’70s,” Seth answered. “I was born and raised in Manhattan. I’ve always considered myself to be liberal. Now I’m not only a friend of people of color, but also an advocate … But this movement over the last month has been powerful. … I realized that I couldn’t be not racist. I realized that I either was a racist or an anti-racist, and I wasn’t — I’m not — an anti-racist.”
When a woman named Lisa said she had “unconscious biases that white people have,” Acho asserted, “Here’s what I told my friends with their white children. I said ‘Y’all live in a white cul-de-sac, in a white neighborhood, in a white city, in a white state. If you were not careful, your children will live their whole white life, and at 26, 27, they’ll end up being a part of the problem, because you just let them and allowed them to live a completely white, sheltered, and cultureless life.”
He continued, “As a black person, white people — the proverbial phrase of white people — they run America. CEOs, Fortune 500 companies, execs, ownership. They run America. Not an individual white person, but collective white people … I firmly believe that if the white person is your problem, only the white person can be your solution.”
In 2013, Winfrey referred to an incident in 2009 when President Obama was speaking to Congress and Republican congressman Joe Wilson called out, “You lie.” She said, “Remember that? I think there’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases, and maybe even many cases, because he’s African American. There’s no question about that. And it’s the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody’s thinking it.”