|
?:reviewBody
|
-
Oprah Winfrey delivered a rousing speech on racial and gender equality while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes ceremony on 7 January 2018, prompting media speculation about a future political career, including a possible 2020 presidential bid. It also prompted the spread of derogatory rumors by her detractors. One such rumor centered on comments Winfrey made during a 2013 BBC interview in which she was asked whether or not she believes the problem of racism has been solved. Her alleged response? In order for the problem of racism to be solved, old white people have to die. Here's an example of a tweet asserting that Winfrey said it: This way of framing Winfrey's 2013 remarks isn't new. Among other places, we also encountered it on the xenophobic fake news web site Jews News in May 2015: And one finds similar statements in sources contemporaneous with the BBC interview, such as this article published in FrontPage Magazine in November 2013: Despite what's stated above, however, Winfrey's remarks weren't specifically targeted at white people. She did not say All old white people have to die, or White older people have to die, or any other fabricated, race-based version of her actual remarks. In fact, she never uttered the phrase white people at all. Here is the full BBC interview: It's valid, given the context, to infer that the majority of the people Winfrey was talking about are white, but invalid to infer that her remarks targeted all older white people, or only older white people. In other words, those accusing Winfrey of racism draw a false equivalence between generations marinated in racism and all older white people. However contentious and impolitic it may have been for Winfrey to claim that older generations steeped in prejudice will have to die before the problem of racism can be solved, the objection that it was racist of her to say so is absurd.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}