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    The Audacity of Oprah
    By Patricia J. Williams
    The Nation

    24 December 2007 Issue

    This Christmas, the film The Great Debaters will come to theaters nationwide. Starring Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey, it tells the story of an award-winning team of debaters from Wiley College, a small, historically black institution founded in 1873 and located in Marshall, Texas. In the 1930s the debate team, coached by poet Melvin Tolson, surpassed nearly every other team in the country in contests against universities as far-flung as the University of Southern California and Oxford. Nonetheless, the Wiley team was never officially accorded championship status because the national debate society of that day did not formally recognize black participation. Though unrewarded then, many of the graduates of Wiley's debate team went on to become the most eloquently influential movers in the civil rights movement, most notably James Farmer Jr., who founded the Congress of Racial Equality.

    Recently the New York Times ran a front-page story titled For Struggling Black College, Hopes of Big-Screen Revival; it was about the effect that the film is having, even before its release, on Wiley College today. Wiley did not fare well through the 1980s and '90s and came very close to closing. Thanks to the glow of celebrity interest, however, the school's buildings have been handsomely refurbished, Wal-Mart has promised to set up a scholarship fund and enrollment has suddenly doubled. The Times story ends with a moving description of a young woman about to graduate, of her plans to attend medical school, of the room Wiley has given her to dream.

    It's a feel-good story, no doubt: a very satisfying saga of the aspiring little engine that could, then did - and still had to wait all these years to be heralded for its remarkable accomplishment. It's also a story that plugs into a deeply iconic American narrative: the battered underdog picked up, brushed off and ultimately saved by the success of the spotlight - and nary a moment too soon. The story is also iconically American in the way it loops between reality and Hollywood dream. The real Wiley College gets legitimated in its educational mission by virtue of a fictionalized representation.

    The role of media, particularly the entertainment media, in allowing us to understand our civic life is not to be underestimated. Great actors, great orators and great businessmen draw upon similar thespian skills - it's what makes them likable, salable, commercial. We Americans shovel money at those who can best perform our fantasies.

    I say all this because I'm intrigued by the brouhaha attending Oprah Winfrey's decision to endorse Barack Obama's candidacy. The Internet is positively foaming at her decision to campaign for him. Celebrities - from Toby Keith to Sammy Davis Jr., from Barbra Streisand to Jon Bon Jovi - have always stumped for candidates, but a lot of people seem to feel that Oprah is different. She's not a background singer; she is no mere decorative backdrop. Oprah can turn a book into a bestseller!, fume the blogs. When she lends her magic touch, it's somehow complicated or even unfair. I suspect that some of the controversy comes from those who like Obama and don't relate to Oprah's television persona, or vice versa. But it's interesting to contemplate: what does it mean that some people are so concerned about whether this particular celebrity ought to express herself in the political realm?

    In a very straightforward sense, it's no wonder that the Double O's are such an arresting team: one of the world's most influential black men links arms with the world's most powerful black woman, and together they sell out an 18,000-seat arena in Columbia, South Carolina, so fast that the computers crash. It's an unprecedented performance of black power in the heart of the old Confederacy. For someone who lived through the most hateful moments of the civil rights era, it's exhilarating and hopeful - and vaguely scary in the vertigo it induces.

    From another perspective, to many people Oprah embodies a comforting sort of motherly everywoman, whose embrace has been perhaps too comfortably nonpartisan. If some part of her audience felt betrayed when she lost more weight than the average soccer mom, it stands to reason that they'll feel betrayed when she takes an overt stand in the political realm.

    Beyond that, however, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama are indeed remarkable for how unstilted they are in the public arena. Like the Wiley College debate team of old, they defy the sideshow of the exceptionally "articulate" colored person. The two of them are our most fluent contemporary orators. They are brilliant speakers, easy with large audiences, and both have a talent for translating hard topics into lucid argument. There's good reason both Obama and Winfrey are so often described as trustworthy.

    In addition, their particular form of raced celebrity enshrines the notion of American mobility at a moment when it is - in reality - sorely vexed. As I observed in an earlier column, Obama radiates a kind of hope that crosses the immigrant epic with a romantic desire for rainbow diversity. Similarly, Oprah is the black, female, Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches story of our day. From her humble beginnings as a traumatized little girl, albeit pluckier even than Orphan Annie (we Americans do love "pluck"), Oprah reinvented herself by sheer will and rose against all odds to the very top of the phantasmagorical bubble machine we call the entertainment industry. There's a general fear of, as well as attraction to, that bubble. Is the celebrity a platform or a dog-and-pony show? Is it serious debate or entertainment? How easy the purchase of cynicism.

    But if we're lucky, maybe something enduring comes of artfully imagining our ideals. Maybe, as with Wiley College, that's how we escort them into renewed life. Maybe indeed it is not too much to hope that the redemptive power of an intelligent dream might reinvigorate the exhaustion of our embattled political landscape.

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    Patricia J. Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University, was born in Boston in 1951 and holds a BA from Wellesley College and a JD from Harvard Law School. A member of the State Bar of California and the Federal Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Williams has served on the advisory council for the Medgar Evers Center for Law and Social Justice of the City University of New York and on the board of governors for the Society of American Law Teachers, among others.

 

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    Oprah, Obama Take It on the Road
    By Robin Abcarian and Louise Roug
    The Los Angeles Times

    Saturday 08 December 2007

As polls show the Democratic hopeful gaining in three critical early states, his campaign plays its celebrity card.

    Des Moines - "Oprah and the Obamas." It sounds like a musical act, and there is indeed something of a rock-concert quality to Oprah Winfrey's three-state swing this weekend with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

    The Obama campaign is preparing for an outpouring of tens of thousands of supporters - and, more important, potential supporters - in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the crucial early states where Winfrey will attempt to scatter some of her stardust.

    In all three states, the contest for the Democratic nomination has been in flux. In New Hampshire, where New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls for months, the gap has narrowed to single digits.

    In South Carolina and Iowa, Obama has recently edged into first place, according to some polls - including among female voters. TV talk-show host Winfrey, whose embrace of Obama marked her first endorsement of a presidential candidate, has an overwhelmingly female fan base.

    But whether she can help the Illinois senator win is anyone's guess.

    "The honest answer is that we have no way of knowing," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who is not affiliated with a candidate this year. "This is outside the normal range of experience."

    Winfrey, he said, "is a unique figure in America, and to be honest, she has a pretty good record of moving product." She's also got a golden fundraising touch: On Sept. 8 at her Montecito estate, she raised some $3 million for Obama.

    In Columbia, S.C., where Winfrey and the Obamas appear Sunday afternoon, demand for tickets was so great that the campaign moved the event from an 18,000-seat site to Williams-Brice Stadium, an 80,000-seat football stadium that is home to the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, according to Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for the candidate.

    "We know we are not going to fill all that venue," said Griffis, "but we wanted to make sure we gave everyone who wants to see Oprah and Sen. Obama a chance."

    Winfrey's appearance in South Carolina - where African Americans count for half of Democratic voters, and African American women are a highly courted bloc - was expected to be especially helpful to Obama. Tickets in Columbia were first offered online, Griffis said, and thousands of people claimed them within hours. A week ago, fans hoping to pick up tickets in person started lining up at 6:30 a.m., 3 1/2 hours before the campaign office opened.

    The Clinton camp is responding with some star power of its own in South Carolina. President Clinton will campaign for his wife in the state today.

    Singer Barbra Streisand announced recently that she supports Clinton. Though it's not clear whether the diva will stump for her candidate, Mellman mused that Bill Clinton and Streisand against Winfrey "is probably a fair fight."

    In Iowa, the Winfrey events are being used as a recruitment tool and reward for campaign volunteers.

    "This isn't about star power, it's about building an organization here," said Obama's Iowa communications director, Josh Earnest.

    Though anyone who asks for a ticket can attend, the best seating is being reserved for two groups - precinct captains, who are asked to distribute them for maximum political advantage, and volunteers willing to put in four hours before Winfrey shows up today.

    "I'm giving tickets primarily to folks leaning toward Sen. Obama," said Mary Burke, 43, a nurse and precinct captain from nearby Lisbon, as she recruited supporters Wednesday at Cornell College in Mount Vernon after Obama spoke there. "They're coming to see Oprah," said Burke, "but you can't see him without deciding that he is one of us. And Oprah may make a difference."

    Last month, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a national co-chairman of Clinton, downplayed Winfrey's popularity here.

    "I'm not sure who watches her," he told the Washington Times. "Maybe young moms, maybe people who are retired. But we have the support of most retired Democrats," said Vilsack. (The average age of the Iowa caucus-goer is about 55.)

    The Des Moines Register dinged the former governor for that, reporting that Winfrey has a big Iowa audience, drawing an average of 40,000 viewers each weekday, according to Nielsen Media Research.

    In Des Moines, "there's an energy, a buzz, an excitement around the office that you can feel," said Tommy Vietor, Obama's Iowa press secretary, as ticket seekers streamed in. When he arrived Monday morning around 7 a.m., he said, people were already outside waiting for tickets.

    Kimberly Reed, 59, didn't need tickets to board the Obama train. "I love Obama - his honesty, his integrity," she said. "Oprah has the same traits. She's all about supporting the people ... and so is he. I think it's a very good fit."

    For Jan Bates, also 59, who picked up tickets for her mother, daughter and sister, the Des Moines rally is a girls' night out. Though she described herself as "a women's libber" - adding, "I burned my bra a long time ago" - she said she would probably support Obama rather than Clinton. "I'm rather impressed with Obama - his overall attitude," she said.

    Some folks just want to see what Winfrey and the Obamas can do. Bonnie Calkins, 41, who planned to take her two daughters, said the rally was a good way to while away a Saturday afternoon.

    "There's nothing else to do in Des Moines," she said.