If you are paying attention to the news media, the topic of “white privilege” is semingly everywhere.
Oprah Winfrey recently made some controversial, if not completely racist comments about white people.
She claimed that white people, no matter what their economic status may be, always have a “leg up” on everyone else.
Ted Cruz is having none of it, as the Senator tore into Oprah for her racist comments on the topic by calling her comments “utter, racist BS.”
Our friends at Fox News have more on this war of words:
Sen. Ted Cruz condemned comments that media mogul Oprah Winfrey made about White privilege and succeeding as a person of color on her new Apple TV+ series, saying in a tweet early Thursday morning that her points were "utter, racist BS."
"Billionaire Oprah lectures the rest of us," Cruz, R-Texas, said before quoting some of the comments Winfrey made in the first episode of the series, titled "The Oprah Conversation." He added: "What utter, racist BS."
The episode featured former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho, who hosts a Youtube series called "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man." During a conversation on White privilege in the episode, which premiered last Thursday, one of the guests on the show said that many White people grow up without privilege or power. Winfrey then went on to make the comments that upset Cruz, and others on social media.
"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," Winfrey said.
Also during the episode, Winfrey said of White privilege's meaning: "You still have your whiteness. That's what the term 'White privilege' is. It means that whiteness still gives you an advantage, no matter what."
Cruz was one of many to criticize the comments by the media mogul. Trump-supporting "Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams and others also weighed in.
The Hill has more on Oprah's conversation with Emmanuel Acho:
Acho called on white parents to help teach their children how to be anti-racist.
"Here's what I told my friends with their white children," he began. "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 added that white people “run American.”
“CEOs, Fortune 500 companies, execs, ownership, they run America. Not an individual white person, but collective white people,” he continued. “I firmly believe that if the white person is your problem, only the white person can be your solution."
The episode comes amid a time of national conversation around racial inequality and police brutality following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed in police custody. A white officer was seen kneeling on his neck for several minutes while Floyd said he could not breathe.
Winfrey recently sought to bring attention to the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black EMT killed by police in Louisville, Ky., by using Taylor’s image on the cover of O magazine. It was the first time someone other than Winfrey has graced the cover.
Cruz was not the only conservative who knocked Winfrey for discussing white privilege as a billionaire
Irene Armendariz-Jackson, a GOP congressional candidate running in Texas, tweeted: "And now why is Oprah, maybe the richest black woman in the world, trying to shame white people as privileged? Miss Winfrey, you are the personification of WHITE PRIVILEGE!"
It's amazing that someone like Oprah Winfrey, who is one of the richest people in America, has the gall to talk about privilege in this country.
Until Oprah takes a long look in the mirror, perhaps she should should keep her opinion on privilege to herself.
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