WEBVTT - Part Two: Part One: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard? 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:07.840 Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, Part two 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:12.080 of the Oprah Winfrey series, being filmed once again from Sudny, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:17.040 Las Vegas, Nevada, where I am exhausted and deeply hungover, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:22.159 unlike my guests today, who are both health nuts and 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.920 extremely responsible people, the wonderful Bridget Todd and the also 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.800 wonderful Andrew t Sorry for giving me the also there, Andrew, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:32.240 but one of you had to get it. I can't 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.159 remember another nice word, just one. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.880 Oh yeah, today I was I thought you were gonna 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.600 apologize for the health nut business. I'm barely hanging on, dog, 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:47.919 I'm kidding. How are you doing? Everybody? I mean, I'm 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.560 alive and try to try to help folks out on 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.480 Still in your home, Still in my home, trying to, yeah, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.920 trying to, trying to. We're at the where the fires 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.360 are still raging as record in Los Angeles. But I 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.920 am lucky enough to be able to try to fucking 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.280 help some folks concentrating on the schied Row right now. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.240 But I will just. 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.600 Say, for all, for all, you right wing lunatics are 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:20.920 scared of the Antifa super soldiers and the upcoming war 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:22.280 against socialism. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:24.680 It's going to be really hard for us to make 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.360 sure all our super soldiers are showing up on time 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:28.240 to the battle. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:33.520 Yeah. Yeah, that's that's never been our strong side, being 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.440 a manner, but the scheduling. 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.520 Scheduling has been a real thing these last couple of days. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.360 Bridget, Are you feeling better about your decision to stay 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:45.920 on the East Coast now? I? 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:47.200 Well, sort of. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.320 I mean I'm in d C where they just put 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.360 up all of the like safety scaffolding for the inauguration. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:56.840 I guess there's no safe place. 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.120 I went for a walk and I was like, damn, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:01:59.960 this happened. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.120 We're the city is like getting ready, so like there's 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.720 plywood over windows being put up, so you know, there's 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.440 no wildfires, which I'm grateful for, but I wouldn't say 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:14.400 I'm feeling pumped. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.200 Not the chilliest here on the East coast. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:25.360 God, well, are we all ready? Are we ready to 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.600 get back into the story of Oprah Winfrey? 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:30.639 Tell us things? 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.080 Okay, okay, let's uh, let's let's let's do it back 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.480 back to the story. Yeah, I think this is probably 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.079 the most time we've ever spent on the early childhood 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.760 and adolescence of one of our people. It's it's just 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.880 Oprah and Joseph Stalin who have gotten two episodes devoted 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:46.760 to their childhood. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.440 Yeah, and a prize to the listeners for figuring out 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:59.560 the third in that series. Stalin Oprah, question Mark. Yeah. 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:04.840 Yeah, it's still being decided. But when we left off Oprah, 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.359 she'd just been taken to Milwaukee by her mother, who 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:12.000 lived downtown off of North ninth Street. So Oprah and 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.840 Venita lived in a single room in a boarding house 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:21.160 owned by Vernita's boyfriend, Vernita's boyfriend's godmother, which is not 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.920 an ideal living situation at best. Oprah later said, I 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.120 don't know why my mother ever decided she wanted me. 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:28.960 She wasn't equipped to take care of me. I was 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.520 just an extra burden on her. And yeah, I think 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.520 it's just this is probably what she was aware of 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:37.360 as a kid, because her mom was there the first 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:39.760 four and a half years, but she probably just doesn't 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.040 really remember that. So it's got to be this uncomfortable 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.800 situation where from her mom's perspective, I was just gone 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.120 eighteen months trying to like set up a life for you. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.560 From Oprah's perspective, it's like you were gone from as 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.520 long as I can remember, and then you moved me 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.320 into this terrible situation in a city. Right, it's so 0:03:58.560 --> 0:03:59.560 it's a bummer. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:01.520 So weird should be able to perceive. I don't think 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.839 I would have realized that was a bad situation when 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.560 I was five. Maybe I was just an oblivious kid. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.920 Yeah, I don't know. I have some pretty like my 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.280 dad was gone right around the same time, when I 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.600 was like five to seven. My dad was gone because 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.680 he had to move to like New York and you know, 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.880 earn money for us, because Oklahoma is not a great 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.159 place to earn a living. Rural Oklahoma not always a 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.320 great place to earn a living. And I remember being 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.520 pissed about it for a while and not really getting 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.679 as a kid that like, oh yeah, it's really hard 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.320 actually to be an adult and take care of kids 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.800 and sometimes you have to do shit that sucks. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:41.720 Yeah, And it. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.760 Reminds me of what Andrew was talking about in our 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.680 last episode of how much do you really truly remember 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.000 as a kid versus you're remembering how it felt? 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:52.680 Right, like, what do you? 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:52.919 I mean? 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.320 I think like and also like the idea that we 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.880 are talking a lot about these very very early years 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.039 in her life in this way of like, well, is 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.120 she a liar or not based on what she remembered 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:06.480 slash felt when she was four. 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:08.160 Yeah. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:08.520 Yeah. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.839 I went through this process when writing it and read 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.120 it when doing particularly the research, where I was like, ah, okay, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.800 all of her family say that she's lying about this. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.760 This is just Oprah being a bad person, trying to 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.160 myth make and make herself sound like she suffered more 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.240 than she did. And then I went through this process 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.200 of like, well, wait, what if her family's lying and 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.400 they're just angry about the money. And then I think 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.839 I've come back around to like, nobody has to be 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:36.360 lying here. It's just a completely different experience for her 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.920 and them, and neither of them really understand each other. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.400 And maybe communication isn't the family strong suit, which is 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:48.520 ironic given Oprah's living But like, I think that's where 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.640 I've probably landed. I don't know, there's some weird similarities. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.920 So I've been thinking a lot about like my own 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.320 situation kind of some of the stuff I was angry 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.960 for years with my parents over in terms of like 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.919 why did you put us in this situation that was 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.880 so clearly shitty? And you know, now as an adult, 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.680 I better understand that, like, well, shit just happens, you know, 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:10.360 And when you've got a kid, you have to figure 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.400 out how to like make your life work. It's it's 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.160 actually quite difficult to exist. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:17.760 Yeah, this is why we call you. This isn't why 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.920 we call you the White Oprah, but this is yeah, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:20.479 you know help. 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.840 Yeah, it's again because of all the geo metros I 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.320 give out, Right, you get. 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.880 Kind of a car, you get kind of a car. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.520 Sort of a car, kind of a car. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.240 So upon moving in with her mom, this is one 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.200 of the things where I do understand why Oprah is 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.279 not thrilled. So she she comes into this situation, it's 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.480 not they've got like one room, you know, it's very cramped. 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.200 She's not used to the city. And she also learns 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.039 upon arriving that she has a half sister named Patricia 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.920 and a half brother on the way who's going to 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.200 be named Jeffrey. And that is probably that is a 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.400 lot to spring on a little kid, Right, your mom 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.800 goes away and the first time you remember seeing her again, 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.160 she's like, you're gonna about to have two new siblings. 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.160 By the way, she and Patricia are never close, and yeah, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.800 that's that's a difficult situation. In Oprah's telling of things, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.280 she and her half sister are were immediately harsh competitors. 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.640 Oprah's interpretation is that she is the smart sister, whereas 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.120 Patricia is the hot sister, although again, they're both like 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.560 seven at this point. So I don't know if this 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.560 is Oprah later kind of thinking back on more shit 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.760 that cropped up when they were like teenagers and young adults, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.160 or if she was thinking that way from the beginning. 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.320 My guess is that this is a little like colored 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:48.120 from later experience, right, oh one, God, one would hope. Yeah. Now, 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.200 most of her insecurity here seems to have come down 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:51.720 to the fact, and this is something that she talks 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.320 about quite openly. She's she as a little kid was 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.080 kind of obsessed with the fact that Patricia was lighter 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:02.880 skinned than Oprah. Quote, I felt really ugly. The lighter 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.800 your complexion, the prettier you were. And she complained that 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.320 even though she was the smartest in the family, no 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:10.880 one praised me for being smart. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.240 Oh well, that is so that is like tail as 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:15.000 old as time. 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:20.840 I mean, yeah, even when you're really young, you definitely 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.520 get the sense when there's somebody in your family who 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.960 has a lighter complexion, you definitely are aware of that. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.920 And in a lot of families and a lot of dynamics, 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.840 there's like a very clear difference in how someone is 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.520 treated and the things that you might think of as 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:37.960 your gifts that should be very obvious, like I'm smart, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.120 I'm well spoken, i have the gift of gab, whatever. 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:41.679 You might not feel like. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.240 Those things are being praised comparatively to someone who's being 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.280 praised for their complexion, a thing they can't even really 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:49.520 control about themselves. 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.520 I definitely that really rings true to me. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.160 Yeah, And one of the things I do because I 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.679 think that's a tough thing to talk about. And one 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.120 of the things I do appreciate about Oprah's conception and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.280 how she talks about her childhood as she is, does 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.120 not at all like hide that aspect of things, like 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.080 she has strong opinions on it. This clearly had a 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.000 massive impact on her psyche growing up. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:13.880 And again I could see how her family would be 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.440 invested in that, like, oh, we were never colorist against 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:18.600 our own in this family. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.200 How dare she say that that's a. 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.120 Lot of r Yeah, Yeah, and they probably I'm sure 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.480 it wasn't conscious, right, like or at least not usually, 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.320 you know, that's the way these kind of things tend 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.559 to work, I would guess, but you know, like again 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.040 it's it's I don't think Oprah's I'm certain Oprah's not 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.280 making this up. It's just far too consistent in her story, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.640 and like you said, it makes total sense. Like this 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.000 is definitely a massive has a massive impact on the 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.360 way she perceives herself and the way she perceives her family. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.360 She told one story to Life from when she was 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.560 about nine years old, where she was reading in a 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.640 back hallway and her mother ran up through the door open, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.080 grabbed the book in her hand and shouted, you're nothing 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.439 but a bookworm. Get your butt outside. You think you're 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.840 better than the other kids. Oprah later remarked, of all this, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.000 I was treated as though something was wrong with me 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:12.000 because I wanted to read all the time. And again 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.760 you get some denials from the family on this point. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.960 Whoever's kind of more accurate there. Oprah isn't stopped from 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.559 reading in like a major way, Like she remains an 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.520 excellent student and a voracious reader into adulthood, like I mean, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.600 we could talk about the book club stuff, but yeah, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:31.679 this is one of like the big discrepancies between her 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.160 and her mom. But she's like, yeah, I got punished 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.880 for being smart and for reading. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:43.160 Yeah. Yeah, God, Because it also is like that's exactly 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.920 what you remember as a like Turnentine, is these conflicts 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.040 that like don't probably resonate as much with the adult. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.880 Yeah, like maybe for the adult it's this. Well, one 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.000 time I was frustrated at her because she was spending 0:10:58.000 --> 0:10:59.559 all her time indoors, and I told her she was 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.880 a book work to get outside, and you know, the 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:03.600 rest of the time she was fine reading. I got 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.200 her books. But you know, as a kid, you remember 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.760 the one traumatizing mom your time your mom yelled at 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:09.280 you for reading. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.360 Yeah. Well, or it's like, you know, I was always 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.320 trying to help, you know, make this kid in my 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.800 image or whatever image I thought, and that you know, 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:21.280 you hang on to different. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:26.360 Things, yeah, child memories. So, given some of the other 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.800 context clues of the way that people who were near 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.200 the situation talk, I think that Oprah's recollection of events 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.480 obviously like there's a lot that's true there, but there 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.920 are some inconsistencies because one of the things that Oprah's 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.920 doing in this time she continues from when she was 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.120 living with her grandma, is she keeps traveling around to 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.600 all of these churches in Milwaukee, all these like black 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.199 churches and social clubs where she'll read poems and stories 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.720 from the Bible and stories from literature. And so she's 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.720 you know, if her mom was like so ardently against 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:57.920 her reading, her mom wouldn't have been driving her around 0:11:58.040 --> 0:11:59.800 to do all this stuff, like taking her to all 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:01.880 of them different events. So there clearly is like a 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.120 good deal of support and like people in her like 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.560 her momb recognizes, Okay, my daughter has this kind of 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.960 gift for like public speaking and talking, and I need 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.920 to do something to nurture that, right, And that's definitely 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.120 a part of the story too. In People Profiles book Oprah, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.400 Merril Noden wrote, quote, Oprah gave recitations at black churches 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.040 and social clubs. A particular favorite was Invictus, a stirring 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.120 declaration of courage by the nineteenth century English poet William 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.960 ernst Hinley, which closes with the couplet I am the 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.839 master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul, 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.199 and this is a great poems, the first poem I 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.959 ever memorized. Oprah loves it. And the third famous person 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.400 who loves this poem is friend of the pod Timothy McVey, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.920 who recited it has his last words before being executed 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.680 by the state. So this is yet another thing that 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.839 Oprah and cousin Timmy have in common. There's so many 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.080 of them now, I mean, you don't even need to 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:57.760 go back and listen. 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.440 Could you say that Oprah is the black Timothy mcvayh. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.680 Just absolutely absolutely. I mean I think Regis was the 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:10.160 first guy to say that, to point that out. But anyway, 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:11.960 still a good poem. It's not the poem's fault that 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:19.120 Timothy McVeigh liked it anyway. Describing the reception of her 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.440 first performances, Nodan writes, although the audiences were impressed with 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.559 her skill as a speaker, it seemed to annoy her 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.120 mother and her peers teased her mercilessly, calling her the preacher, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.160 which I also believe that's exactly how shitty little kids are. 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.080 Yeah, lies going around and being like, I want to 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:36.880 recite this poem. 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.920 When how old was she with She's she's like eight. Yeah, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:41.920 if you're the poem kid, you're getting a nickname. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:47.920 Yeah, Phil's honestly not in the grand scheme of things, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:49.680 as bad as it could have been. 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.600 I mean, I don't. I mean that kind of stuff's 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.760 pretty traumatic as a kid, like I got Yeah, you 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.120 remember stuff like that, like little kids give you a 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.560 shitty nickname, and yeah, that's sticks with you. 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:01.280 Robert. 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.040 I feel like you're about to say something about a 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:04.520 nickname that you've had as a youth, and. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.800 Then you yourself. We're not bringing any of that up, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.600 but it is like it's it's very it's very sympathetic, right, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.320 She's this, she's this bookworm kid who likes to like 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.480 read poems to audiences of adults, and she that is 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.000 I can't imagine much that's going to isolate you more 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.640 than that, especially in like this period of time, right, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.240 Like it's even even harder back then and like harder 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.480 to find kids. There's no internet. Oprah would have thanked 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.360 God gotten on like four chan or something today and 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:40.480 then she'd be fine. But yeah, you're just a lonely, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.760 poem loving little girl at this period of time. That's 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:48.480 got to be difficult. The preacher. Yeah, so as an 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.840 adult in interviews, Oprah would claim that their landlady, who 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.040 is Againna she described her as a lighter skinned black woman, 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.800 didn't like Oprah for being darker than everyone else in 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:00.920 the house, and so Oprah was forced to sleep on 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.160 a porch in the back of the house while her 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.440 sister was allowed to sleep with their mom. As she claimed, 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.520 white people never made me feel less. Black people made 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.680 me feel less. I felt less in that house with 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.040 missus Miller. I felt less because I was too dark 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.920 and my hair was too kinky. I felt like an outcast. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:23.480 And this is I mean like that that's a tough thing. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.120 But this is also an area where there's like a 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.520 pretty major discrepancy between Oprah's recollections and recollections of the 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.040 other people in that house. And so I'll quote this 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.720 passage of Oprah a biography by Kitty Kelly next Catherine Esters, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.280 and remember that's Oprah's aunt. And like the family historian 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.080 responded sternly to Oprah's poignant memory, this bothers me more 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.480 than her corn cob doll lies in her cockroach lies, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.200 because it plays into the damaging discrimination practice by our 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.440 own people. I'm a dark skinned woman Oprah's grandfather, Earlis, 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.400 was black enough to be painted by a brush, and 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.800 Oprah is as dark as a preacher's prayer book. But 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:58.680 when she says things like that, she reminds me of 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.640 my cousin Frank, who did not wish to be what 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.560 he was and discriminated among his kin, preferring the lighter 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.320 skin to the darker skinned folks. Oprah slept on a 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:07.880 porch in the back of the room of the house, 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.160 but only because Vernita had to take care of her 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:11.880 baby and there was just one bedroom. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:12.360 That's it. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.760 Period. If Oprah was discriminated against because of her skin color, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.480 i'd tell you, says Miss Ester's a civil rights activist 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.400 who worked for the Urban League in Milwaukee. And I 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.280 can't really like cast that aside either, So I mean, 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.680 I don't really know what to do there other than 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.040 kind of read both of those very much conflicting stories. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:31.840 Systeings to you. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.200 I will say the tone of that passage, see, I 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.160 was initially going to indicate that she was going to 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.720 say that the sleeping on the porch was not factual, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.960 so to land on, well, she definitely was on the porch. 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:46.400 Is still a little like good. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:49.200 That's not in dispute. 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.080 That's not in dispute. She was, in fact sleeping on 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.560 the porch. Yes, just like, oh boy, it's just wasn't 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.280 you know, racism or just we have no space because 0:16:59.280 --> 0:16:59.960 we're very poor. 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.360 Yeah, I will say there's something about this conversation. I 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.720 don't know if it totally fits, but you know, I 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.639 think that a lot of black folks and folks of 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:11.840 color when you get older and you think about the 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.320 way that you showed up amongst your own people growing up, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.080 like I definitely went through a. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.600 Thing where, you know, I don't even know how to 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:20.040 put it. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.600 Like, you definitely can internalize like they don't my own 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.280 people are rejecting me because I like anime or because 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.680 I'm nerdy and too smart. And then you get a 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.400 little older and it's like, wait, am I a pain 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:33.520 in the ass. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.640 And that's why they're rejecting me? And like it's very 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:36.840 easy to like. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:42.359 Internalize some very self serving reasons for why you feel 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:43.880 the way you feel. And then you get a little 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:45.439 more mature and you're like, well, was that really what 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:46.000 was going on? 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.240 Yeah? And there's also like like a I feel like 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.399 with this type of thing too, it's like whatever the 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.280 real story is, it's like the kernel of truth, even 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.160 if just to like the phenomenon makes it really hard 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.720 to push back where you're like she was. 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:06.919 Still sleeping on the porch. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.320 Yeah, and I'm just like but but maybe but you know, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.879 and I'm like, even the it's in the middle of 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.920 it is just like probably just let this go. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.679 Yeah yeah, yeah, I fe only I had to present 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:22.879 both of these things. But yeah, I don't actually know 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.560 where the truth lies here now. For her sake, Catherine 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.439 Esters thinks that the explanation for why Oprah felt the 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.080 way she did is more benign, which is that once 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.520 she moved to Milwaukee, she was for the first time 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.679 and very suddenly not an only child and the center 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.480 of attention in her household. She was suddenly the oldest 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.080 of three kids, and her two baby siblings got more 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.080 attention than her, and this made her very unhappy. And 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.480 I'm sure that's not a non factor, right, Like that's 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.000 such a thing, Like I don't have any trouble believing 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.760 that that's that had a massive impact on her as 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.879 a kid right now. As I've noted, Kitty's book is 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.639 quite aggressive, and she is a woman who has built 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.800 a career off of puncturing the reputations of beloved famous people. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.119 Her work is caddie as hell, but she does make 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.280 a decent point here. Quote, the only photo I have 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.920 of my grandmother, she's holding a white child, Oprah said 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.159 at the age of fifty one. Yet a published picture 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.439 of Oprah's desk shows a photo of her grandmother with 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.119 her arm draped lovingly around Oprah as a little girl, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.040 with no white child in sight. And it's stuff like 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.760 that where it's like, well, okay, that's that's not a 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.199 there's a discrepancy, but maybe no, that's like, that's just 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.480 obvious myth making. You've got a photo of your grandmother 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:33.720 on your desk, all right, you just said that because 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.359 you know, it made a case to an interviewer or 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.760 something like, you've got pictures of your grandmother with her 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.840 with you. That was just like not a not a 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.440 not a true statement. So there's some there's some myth 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.760 making going on here as well, like that we can 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:54.560 kind of clearly lay out there. So again it's a 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.280 complicated most of this. I'm still on the whole as 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.560 a childhood. This is a very it's hard not to 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.399 be on Oprah's side at this point. And I believe 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.440