It is a fascinating rhetorical strategy conservatives are using to shoo away the circulating conversation on racism. They are not merely saying racism is now inconsequential. They are not merely blaming the victim.
Conservatives say racism talk is breeding disunity, disunity between the races. It is driving the races apart. Racism is not causing disunity. It is talk of racism causing disunity, they say.
This is their common comeback to Americans protesting against Zimmerman, the verdict, and mass incarceration. Time and time again over the last two months, the anti-Zimmerman protesters have been labeled racist, are told they are polarizing America.
Oprah Winfrey shared her thoughts on the case recently while promoting her new film, The Butler. “Trayvon Martin paralleled Emmett Till,” she said. “In my mind. Same thing.”
The next day, fill-in anchor Jesse Watters responded to Oprah’s comments toward the end of Fox News’ The Five. “It was a big missed opportunity for Oprah Winfrey,” he said. “I was expecting her to kind of take the high road and elevate the conversation and bring the country forward and add a little unity here. But instead she made this atrocious analogy, and I am a little disappointed in Oprah.”
Michael Meyers of the NY Civil Rights Coalition, as a guest on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, said Oprah’s “comments are so outrageous, so racially offensive, such racial rhetoric, that I say she is now engaging in idiocy and racial poison.” The racism is not the poison, according to Meyers. By talking about racism, Oprah Winfrey is poisoning America.
