On The Subject Of Race

On the Subject of Race

By Oprah Winfrey

Editor’s Note: The following was published in O Magazine in May of 2017 when O Magazine was still a print magazine.  Oprah wrote these words in her ‘What I Know For Sure’ column. I thought her comments were important to repeat, now six years later.

We Bleed the Same

On the subject of race here’s what I know for sure: We the people of planet Earth have made it far more complicated than it needs to be. Whether you’re type A, B, AB, O, positive or negative, you bleed the way I do, and your pain feels the same as mine. This is the ultimate lesson I’ve absorbed, person by person, from the thousands of interviews I’ve done over the years. Members of every race have heartache. Circumstances may differ, but sorrows are the same.

More Alike, Than Unalike

Joy and triumph are felt by people of every creed and belief. And though it’s true what Maya Angelou always said-“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”- it’s also true that our unlikeness makes us whole. A whole family. A whole community. A whole nation. A whole world. It’s your differences that make you you. 

“It’s So Simple”

I sometimes feel a wave of sadness for us spiritually deprived, unconscious creatures who just don’t seem to get it. Years ago on my show, a grieving mother recounted her dying son’s last words and final breath, “Oh, Mom,” he said. “It’s so simple.” Those words made a lasting impression on me.

A Similar Journey

It is so simple to see that we’re all on the same journey, carving our paths with every choice and experience. With every action and reaction. Quite simply, to live well, we need to love well.

Harm To The Collective Soul

The audacity it takes to judge another because they don’t look or sound or act like you goes against the current of humanity. Every time we discriminate against a woman in a headscarf, the whole of us suffers. Every time we treat a brown skinned man with a Hispanic name as though he’s the “other,” we do harm to our collective human soul.

An Accuser’s Lies

Emmett Till’s accuser has finally admitted-after six decades-that the young boy’s racist murder, a murder that tore the soul of our whole country, was wrong. Shouldn’t have happened. And though she can no longer remember exactly what occurred, she says it didn’t take place the way she testified.

The List Of Names Is Long

The senseless injustices will continue. Trayvon Martin, Laquan McDonald. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice. Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian engineer fatally shot in a Kansas bar in February (2017). The nine good people killed at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. All different names and different circumstances, but all Emmett Till. When will it end?

When we decide to end it.