Is It Racist To Criticize Oprah? Raina Kelley Responds

Not everyone responded positively to the NEWSWEEK cover story on Oprah's role in promoting questionable medical advice. Several commentors questioned if this article is another example of how, as reader Doris Grayson (graysond) writes, "the media can't accept a powerful, decent Black woman as a role model."  Another reader, pencilcase, thinks, "Oprah's being attacked because the thought of a poor overweight black looking black woman from the ghetto transforming herself into one of the richest & most influential people in the world (& daring to use thatt influence to help make a black man president) makes the white media elite's stomach turn."

These are not the only criticisms of the piece, nor are they the most frequent. But since this blog looks at not just our health and our bodies, but how the media and society address those bodies—including the gender, skin color, and age those bodies present—it's a point worth addressing here. And because Raina Kelley Is Smarter Than I (a phrase I'm considering trademarking and putting on a mug), she's going to be the one to address it:  

Though I am not in fact NEWSWEEK's Special Correspondent of Strong Minority Women Maligned in the Press, Unfairly or Otherwise, I wanted, as a strong minority woman, to respond to these comments and to all the other people who might have been thinking the same thing. The fact that Oprah—as the richest and most influential black woman in the world—is rarely ever questioned or constructively criticized is itself a bit of insult. Oprah has no need for special protection from life’s insults because of her race, and she is more than capable of defending herself against a NEWSWEEK cover story.

It is rare to reach the thin air of fame that Oprah inhabits without taking some hits along the way, and I suspect that many of her critics (and she does have them) fear that if they say something negative about Oprah, they will be perceived as racist and then of course, there’s the fact that she’s the most influential woman in the world. As free and equal citizens of the U.S., we strong minority women have the same rights, privileges and opportunities as everyone else protected by the Constitution. (And if you don’t, you should fight for them.) Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad which means we also have the same access to criticism, questions, censure, disapproval and even arrest as everybody else. We’re not inferior because we’re black but neither are we special because we’re black … and even Oprah isn’t perfect. I agree that sometimes we black women are judged to be wanting based solely on our race and gender (substitute "black" with "Latina" in the case of Sotomayor) but this is not one of those times.

Of course, Raina's position as someone who is a) a woman b) a minority and c) smarter than I doesn't make her word the final one. What are your thoughts?