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Oprah Winfrey has always been an achiever. As a child she was a victim of sexual abuse. As a teenager she became Miss Black Nashville. Now, as an adult she is the worlds black millionaire in a white, male-dominated world. Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her name was believed to be Oprah from the Book of Ruth; however, the midwife got mixed up and so she wound up being Oprah on her birth certificate. (Adler 1) When Oprah was five years old she wished that she were white.
She would sleep with a clothespin on her nose and two cotton balls seeking for it to turn up. She prayed for Shirley Temple curls every day. Oprah wanted to be white because white kids didnt get whippings. She got beatings all the time from her grandmother. Old people raised kids like this. My grandmother would whip me for days and not get tired.
It would be called child abuse now. When she turned six years old she went to Milwaukee to live with her mother, Verna Lee, who was on welfare and worked as a cleaning woman. A month later Oprah started school as a Kindergarten student. She wrote her teacher a letter that expressed her thoughts.
Oprah thought that she did not belong in this grade and asked the teacher to help her. Her teacher decided that Oprah was right and moved her up a grade. She was now in first grade. One day she was going to get beat up by six white kids. To get out of this mess she told them what happened to the people who tried to stone Jesus of Nazareth. Afterwards, she was called the preacher and her peers did their best to try and stay away from her.
As a result of a test that was given to her at the near the end of first grade she was being elevated to the third grade as soon as the semester began in September. However she went to live with her father and her stepmother as soon as she concluded the first grade. Her stepmother realized that Oprah was going to begin in third grade but she didnt know how to multiply or divide. So she spent the summer learning the multiplication table. (Adler 3 - 8, Mercy 6 - 8) Oprah moved back with her mother when she was nine. Her mother promised her a real family because she was going to get married and we can finally be normal Oprah, being young and immature agreed.
However, Oprah wasnt prepared for the brutal sexual assaults that she encountered at the undeveloped age of nine. Her nineteen-year-old cousin deprived her innocence from her. She knew it was wicked and sinful because it was awfully painful nevertheless she didnt tell anyone because he advised her that they would both get into trouble. Shortly, someone told her where babies come from and she was tormented and worried for a whole year thinking she would have a baby. At her own home her mothers boyfriend and other men raped her repeatedly. One of the men that raped her was her favorite uncle whom she had loved so much.
They were having a discussion about males and her uncle asked her whether she had ever kissed a boy, and the next thing I know, he was taking my panties off. My uncle whom I adored. Oprah thought that what continually caused her to be sexually assaulted was being in a a family that she didnt think would support her if she told them. It directed her to become a sexually deceptive teenager. She became obscure and confused and it made her seek out love in the wrong places by running away from home and bringing boys to her house when her mother wasnt there. This sexual abuse and her scandalous activities continued until she was fourteen years old.
At this age Oprah gave birth to an unlawful baby. Her mother sought to house her in a juvenile foundation. Luckily enough for Oprah they had to wait two weeks and her mother couldnt wait that long so she sent her to live with her father. (Adler 13 - 26, Mercy 12 - 34) Oprah would break curfew, stay out late at night, and she would run the streets when her mother was raising her. At 14 she went to live with her father. Nevertheless, living with her father was a totally different story.
He is a strict enforcer of rules. He made her work in the little grocery store that he owned even though he knew that she loathed every minute of it. However, she realizes that he did it for her. His discipline channeled my need for love and attention into a new direction. (Adler 29 - 32) Academically, Oprah was doing terrific. Her grades were marvelous and she loves to learn. At the age of seventeen she entered a local Miss Fire Prevention contest because she was being a sponsored by WTVF, a black radio station.
She was the only Negro and she was victorious in the competition because of the fashionable way she presented herself and the manner in which she answered one of the questions. She was asked, What do you want to do with your life? Her answer was I believe in truth and I want to perpetuate the truth so I want to be a journalist. Afterwards she won Miss Black Nashville and Miss Black Tennessee. The radio station that was sponsoring her decided to hire her to work a part-time job after school as an afternoon news anchor. That worked for her a little while until she found something better. (Adler 35 - 39, Mercy 42 - 47) Oprah attended Tennessee State University around the same time that the black power movement was proceeding.
Even though Oprah is very proud of her heritage she did not take part in their activities. She was to busy trying to be a regular human being to participate and have black power and anger. She felt that she was hated in college because of her lack of participation and because she never spoke in dialect. She was harassed for talking proper like white folks; for selling out.
She was known as the Oreo Cookie black on the outside but white on the inside. (Adler 40) In 1987 Oprah was asked to give the commencement speech of Tennessee State University. She said she would do it except she would have to finish her class credits first so that she can finally get her own degree. So she gave the commencement address and when she was finished she thanked her father for the superior influence that he had on her. (Adler 41 - 42, Mercy 56) In her early twenty's while still working at WTVF Oprah was going through a drug use stage. I had a perfect, round, little afro, I went to church every Sunday and I went to Wednesday Prayer meetings when I could... and I did drugs.
She wasnt addicted to the drug but she was doing it for her boyfriend. She thought that they communicated more when they smoked cocaine. (Adler 43, Mercy 57) After working at WTVF-TV in Nashville, she outlined and became co-anchor on WJZ in Baltimore. She wasnt good at it. It was like acting for her. She was too emotional and would cry if a story was too sad. She felt reckless because she would blurt out statements that she felt on a personal level.
Oprah did this for a period of seven months all the while she was sorting out her mind trying to comprehend what interested her most. (Adler 47, Mercy 62 - 63) On April 1, 1977 Oprah was ostracized and located on a talk show interviewing the characters of All My Children. She loved what she was doing and knew then that this was what she wanted to do. She enjoyed every minute of the show and at the pinnacle of it she didnt even make use of the screenplay. When she told the producer that hosting a talk show was like breathing to her, the producer said that she did not have the looks of a talk show host. Your eyes are to far apart, your nose is too wide, your chin is too long, and you need to do something about it. So Oprah decided to do something and asked them for a makeover.
They sent her to a New York beauty salon where this Frenchman applied a French perm in her black hair. The French perm blazed her cerebral cortex and she didnt tell the man that it was burning. By the end of the week she was bald. She couldnt work when shes bald headed and there where no wigs to fit her head -its twenty four inches around so I had to walk around wearing scarves for months After this episode she had a very low self-esteem and she went through a identity-discovery phase.
You have to find other reasons for appreciating yourself. Its certainly not your looks. (Adler 56) After discovering her true personality Oprah felt it was time to leave Baltimore so she depart and arrived in Chicago on September 4, 1983. The minute she reach her destination she felt that she belonged there. She heard of A. M. Chicago and decided to meet the producer.
In that small encounter he hired her as the host of A. M. Chicago. During this stage Oprah gained a lot of weight because every one told her that she was good but that she will never be as good as Phil Donohue. She wanted to be just as good as Donohue. Oprah's own show debuted nationally in September of 1986.
Everyone would tell her that she was getting there but she still was not as good as Donohue. Her show competed with Donohue's in many markets. In 1987 she won her first Emmy and she gratefully thanked Phil Donohue for curving the path for their kinds of shows. In 1987 Oprah was at the peak of Donohue's ratings and was awarded another Emmy. In 1993 she won the Outstanding Talk Show Host Award and again paid her acknowledgment to Phil Donohue. Shes had the Oprah Winfrey Talk Show for a little over ten years and she says that it marks her growth.
In that time period she bought her own producing company and had taken possession of her own talk show. (Adler 81 - 94, Mercy 102) Oprah finally met Mr. Right in her early 90 s. Stedman Graham, Jr. She stood him out a couple of times but actually went out with him the third time he asked her out. Now they are very much in love although they still are not married. They have all the support for each other that any couple can have.
He is supportive as he is lovable. Oprah has traveled all over the world with him. She definitely plans to keep Stedman as hers forever. (Adler 98) OPRAH WINFREYS QUOTES SUCCESS Dont be satisfied with just one success and dont give up after failure. MR. RIGHT (Before she was involved with Stedman Graham) Mr. Rights coming but hes in Africa and hes walkin.
RESPONSIBILITY To those of us that much is given, much is expected. HER BUSINESS ABILITY I dont do anything unless it feels good. I dont move on logic. I move on my gut.
And I have a good gut! LIFE Dont live your life to please other people. (Mercy 148) BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Bill. The Uncommon Wisdom Of Oprah Winfrey Secaucus, New Jersey, Carol Publishing Books 1997 Mercy, Timothy Oprah Winfrey: Black, Wealthy And Famous Battle Creek, Michigan Birch Lane Publishing 1994
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Research essay sample on Oprah Winfrey Sexual Abuse
