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Oprah Winfrey wants people to understand what “real power” looks like.
On Thursday night, Nancy O’Dell launched her new talkshoplive channel, and welcomed the media mogul on as her first guest for a wide-ranging intimate conversation.
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“I think so many people in our culture today, in our Instagram culture, are working to be perfect, are working to have an image that looks like it’s perfect, are working to have an image that looks like I am somebody,” Winfrey said during their talk. “But when you can reach a place in your soul, in the core of your being, where you feel integrated and whole, and worthy, that is when you have real power. Authentic power. And that is what I wish for everyone. To understand what has happened to you that really created a unique world view, because each of us comes into the world with a unique world view that allows for our life experiences.”
Winfrey also talked about working to provide relief to people through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have always lived a blessed life so I haven’t suffered the way so many people have suffered, so I spent a lot of time trying to help other people,” she said. “I literally have been, people don’t know this, going through the newspaper finding stories of people who weren’t doing well in their life, sending them money, trying to help because I know I have been blessed and so, I consciously have made an effort to reach out to other people who may not be doing as well and offering them my assistance.”
Talking about other recent events, Winfrey shared her reaction to the guilty verdicts in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
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“Well, I purposely did not watch every moment of the trial. I wasn’t in front of the TV set and watching the trial,” she said. “I would get summaries at the end of the day, mostly from Gayle King. And, would be updated as to what was happening. I wanted a general idea as to what was going on. I didn’t watch because I didn’t want to take in all of the – I didn’t want to have to continue to relive the trauma because I realized that I had watched the tape too many times – as it was repeated over and over on the news.”
She continued, “What I really want to focus on is what is the verdict going to be. And, as I was watching, having literally having turned the television on for the first time through the week because I had really just been doing summaries, I was surprised that hearing the first guilty verdict, I could feel myself welling up, and then I saw photographs of people in the streets. And then I was full on into the boo hoo cry…then I was like what is this, this feels like it’s more than just for a verdict, it feels like validation, it feels like this time we were seen, we were heard in a way that we hadn’t been. I thought about Emmett Till, I thought about all the names that we have seen, protesters in the street talking about Breonna Taylor, and Mr. Castille. I thought about all of those people who didn’t get justice in the way they deserved and how those lives seem somehow, in this moment, justice was served for all of them by this verdict. It was bigger than this moment.”