Oprah Winfrey has received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. The speech the celebrity delivered from the stage is by far the most significant one throughout the history of the Golden Globes ceremony.
In her emotional address, Winfrey mentioned Recy Taylor, a black woman who had died 10 days before. She was kidnapped and raped by white men in 1944. Although she told about this crime, the rapists were never prosecuted because, to quote Winfrey, “justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow.” The TV presenter said proudly that those days were undoubtedly gone now.
“So I want all the girls... to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘me too’ again,” she said.
Following this brilliant speech, Western political media and celebrities launched the hashtag #Oprah2020, journalists and columnists rushed to compete in eloquence, assessing the legendary TV presenter’s prospects in the election race. At the same time, the column of Ashley Feinberg in The Huffington Post suddenly became one of the most often quoted sources. “If we are to be ruled by political dilettantes, some people seem to think, why not a dilettante beloved by all? Because Oprah is the antithesis of Trump: a well-spoken, incredibly smart and confident black woman who energizes people not with hatred and anger but with hope and vision,” the article says. However, “Oprah and Trump aren’t so different in their relation to their fans. They both offer catharsis on the cheap, with Oprah as the liberal-values alternative to Trumpism – a better, more humane alternative, certainly, but the choice of a people determined to suppress the real conflicts at the heart of the country.”
“Fortunately, we live in a world where we do not have only two options... The answer is to elevate politicians who do the politics better than the other guys. Liberals who think their program will prevail because of the nobility of their character have had the run of the Democratic Party long enough. Time’s up on them, too,” the columnist says.
