My hot take on the prospects of an Oprah candidacy (which I am offering since everyone else seems to have one) will be quick and consist mostly of literary texts by African Americans.
First, Frederick Douglass from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first of three autobiographies written by Mr. Douglass.
Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.
Mr. Paul Revere Williams, the ‘’Architect of the Stars,’’ the subject of one of my Black Kos essays, as stated in the August 1963 issue of Ebony Magazine:
“Why do you want to be an architect? Why don’t you study to be a doctor or lawyer? That was the first question the student advisor asked me when I entered high school. He stated that very few Negroes build important buildings and that I could never get a job in a top architect’s office. I think that I told him that I had heard of only one Negro architect in America and I was sure that this country could use at least one or two more. The architect that I had heard of was Booker T. Washington’s son-in-law, Mr. William S. Pittman.
I remember when I was a youngster, a friend of the family asked me the usual question—“What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was that I wanted to be either an artist or an architect to which he replied, “ I have never heard of a Negro architect—you had better study to be an artist.” Well, it was the challenge that decided my future.
The notable thing in the story that Mr. Williams says here is that his high school counselor doesn’t think that he can’t be ‘’successful,’’ it’s that he can’t be successful in something that he really wants to do and has developed a love for.
Malcolm X in The Autobiography of Malcolm X
He told me, "Malcolm, you ought to be thinking about a career. Have you been giving it thought?"
The truth is, I hadn't. I never have figured out why I told him, "Well, yes, sir, I've been thinking I'd like to be a lawyer." Lansing certainly had no Negro lawyers -- or doctors either -- in those days, to hold up an image I might have aspired to. All I really knew for certain was that a lawyer didn't wash dishes, as I was doing.
Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, "Malcolm, one of life's first needs is for us to be realistic. Don't misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you've got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer -- that's no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to think about something you can be. You're good with your hands -- making things. Everybody admires your carpentry shop work. Why don't you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person -- you'd get all kinds of work."
The more I thought afterwards about what he said, the more uneasy it made me. It just kept treading around in my mind.
What made it really begin to disturb me was Mr. Ostrowski's advice to others in my class -- all of them white. Most of them had told him they were planning to become farmers. But those who wanted to strike out on their own, to try something new, he had encouraged. Some, mostly girls, wanted to be teachers. A few wanted other professions, such as one boy who wanted to become a county agent; another, a veterinarian; and one girl wanted to be a nurse. They all reported that Mr. Ostrowski had encouraged what they had wanted. Yet nearly none of them had earned marks equal to mine.
It was a surprising thing that I had never thought of it that way before, but I realized that whatever I wasn't, I was smarter than nearly all of those white kids. But apparently I was still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be.
It was then that I began to change -- inside.
These three texts will suffice.
There are literally hundreds and maybe even thousands of texts in African American literature where a black person is told that they cannot do whatver it is that they want to do at a point in time.
One more…
For the record, I have my issues with Oprah for a host of reasons and would not want to see her be a candidate for President of the United States.
But one thing that I also know from my own life, from the successes of a few African Americans that I personally know, from African American literature…
..please tell me what I can’t do, what is possible for me, what I have ‘’no business’’ being.
That ‘’I’ll show you’’ tic is as evident in Oprah Winfrey as it is in...Barack Obama (and you can’t tell me that President Obama didn’t have that tic...game spots game).
If Oprah wants to become President of the United States...I wouldn’t bet against her doing exactly that...and I wouldn’t bet against her setting the highest standards for her job performance and actually doing a pretty good job at it.
It’s what she’s always done.
UPDATE- At work, I’ll be back into the discussion in a bit...a few people here seem to be missing the point.
Thursday, Jan 11, 2018 · 10:42:31 PM +00:00 · Chitown Kev
Thank you everyone for your comments, those that I agree and disagree with.
As I have been reading through the comments, the title of Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s sermon, Audacity to Hope, keeps occuring to me.
So much emphasis has been placed on the ‘hope’’ and not enough on the ‘’audacity’’
1.
boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.
2.
effrontery or insolence; shameless boldness:
His questioner's audacity shocked the lecturer.
It takes a lot of f’n audacity to be a Frederick Douglass, a Paul Revere Williams, a Malcolm X, a Barack Obama, an Oprah Winfrey...or, for that matter, a Bernie Sanders or to conduct a campaign in the way that Donald Trump did.
(Didn’t like a damn thing that Trump said or what he proposed or how he continued to conduct himself but, at times, I found myself admiring his audacity.)
A certain former president talked about that same sense of audacity decades ago