The media mogul spoke to the BBC about the racism of the past that still exists today and how no one is above it. ‘There’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs ... because he’s African American,’ she said of Obama.
Winfrey talked about race-based disrespect of Presidend Obama to the BBC: ‘There's no question about that. And it's the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody's thinking it.’
Oprah Winfrey has never been one to hold her tongue.
That remained true when she sat down with BBC's Will Gompertz and detailed how no one is above the racism that still exists in this world today … not even the President of the United States, Barack Obama.
"There's a level of disrespect for the office that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he's African American," she said. "There's no question about that. And it's the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody's thinking it."
U.S. President Obama clasps hands with Oprah Winfrey during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s ‘I have a dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington August 28, 2013.
Winfrey, 59, used the example of Republican congressman Joe Wilson shouting out "you're a liar" during a 2009 speech President Obama gave.
"Remember that?" she asked Gompertz.
Oprah Winfrey was talking with the BBC to promote the film, ‘The Butler,’ when the conversation turned to history and politics.
The media mogul was promoting her movie "The Butler," which debuts in theaters in the U.K. and Ireland on Nov. 15, and naturally the conversation turned to historical references of slavery and bigotry from the past and now.
"It would be foolish to not recognize that we have evolved and that we're not still facing the same kind of terrorism against black people en masse as was displayed with the Scottsboro boys," she said drawing reference to the film "12 Years a Slave." "It's gotten better."
US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama chat with talk show host Oprah Winfrey in 2011. Winfrey told BBC that racism is still a problem. ‘There are still generations of older people who were born and breed and marinated in that prejudice and racism and they just have to die,’ she says.
Still, she remarked that there are places all over the world from Africa to Russia to the South, where she was born and raised, that people are scrutinized simply because of the color of their skin. But unlike the past there are laws in place to try and protect people from that today.
"If I'd been born five years earlier, none, not any of the benefits that I've been blessed to be successful with would have occurred," Winfrey, who was born in 1954 in Mississippi, said.
Oprah Winfrey puts it bluntly during her BBC interview, ‘It would be foolish to not recognize that we have evolved and that we're not still facing the same kind of terrorism against black people en masse as was displayed with the Scottsboro boys.’
However, she pointed out that despite the progress the underlying problems of racism are far from solved.
Movies like "The Butler" and "12 Years a Slave" don't paint a picture of the racism that existed in the past to show us that everything is great today, she said. Instead those films define the root of the problem that sadly still runs rampant in our society.
"That's where it all started, this is how far we've come, and this is how much further we need to go," she said. "Of course, the problem is not solved."
Winfrey feels that these dilemmas will remain unsolved until the deep rooted bigoted thoughts of class and race and the just cause of human indecency that comes along with it and has been taught throughout so many generations fades away.
"There are still generations of older people who were born and breed and marinated in that prejudice and racism and they just have to die," she added.
據(jù)《紐約每日新聞》網(wǎng)站11月15日?qǐng)?bào)道，美國(guó)著名主持人奧普拉·溫弗瑞接受采訪時(shí)直率表示，當(dāng)今世界仍然存在種族歧視，沒有人能夠超脫，包括美國(guó)總統(tǒng)奧巴馬。
59歲的奧普拉從來不會(huì)保持緘默。11月15日，她的電影《白宮管家》(The Butler)在英格蘭和愛爾蘭首映。在宣傳期間接受英國(guó)廣播公司記者威爾·岡珀茨采訪時(shí)，她的談話自然轉(zhuǎn)到涉及過去與現(xiàn)在奴隸制與偏見的歷史。
她說，《白宮管家》和《為奴十二年》之類的影片并不是通過描繪過去存在的種族歧視現(xiàn)象向我們證明，現(xiàn)在一切都很好，而是要明確說明，這些問題的根依然可悲地在我們的社會(huì)蔓生。從非洲到俄羅斯以及她出生和成長(zhǎng)的地方，世界各地仍有一些地方的人只因?yàn)樗麄兊哪w色不同而接受詳細(xì)檢查。
談到奧巴馬時(shí)，她說，“在某些情況下，也許可以說許多情況下，他不受尊重，因?yàn)樗欠且崦绹?guó)人。這是不容置疑的事實(shí)，是那種沒有人說出來，但是每個(gè)人都在想的事情。”她舉例說，2009年奧巴馬講話時(shí)，共和黨議員喬·威爾遜曾高喊“你是個(gè)騙子”。她問岡珀茨，“你還記得嗎?
不過，她也表示應(yīng)該承認(rèn)：“我們已經(jīng)取得進(jìn)步，我們面對(duì)的不再是當(dāng)年斯科茨伯勒男孩遭遇的針對(duì)黑人群體的恐怖行為。”“現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)好多了。”而且與過去不同的是，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)有法律在努力保護(hù)他們。
她說，如果早出生5年，她根本得不到讓她取得成功的任何幫助。但是，雖然有所進(jìn)步，潛在的種族歧視問題還遠(yuǎn)未解決。
奧普拉認(rèn)為，如果不消除根深蒂固的階級(jí)和種族思想，以及隨之而來教導(dǎo)許多代人無禮待人的合法理由，這些難題將得不到解決。“現(xiàn)在還有許多生長(zhǎng)并浸泡在那些偏見和種族歧視之中的老輩人，得等到他們?nèi)ナ馈?rdquo;
