It Was Just A Speech!!!! #30

All this week I have heard and seen a multitude of comments about Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance speech at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards which was televised just a few days ago,where she was the first black woman to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award which is an honorary Golden Globe given for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. I did not watch the broadcast of the awards show, but all the comments that I have heard and seen over the last few days about this “powerful” speech made me feel the need to hear it for myself. I searched for the speech on YouTube and of course just as I suspected I immediately found that a numerous amount of people had posted high quality video of the speech there. After listening to it I’ll be honest I really didn’t understand what all the excitement/uproar behind the speech was about, because to me it wasn’t any different from anything that I have ever heard Ms. Winfrey say before.

I’m honestly not her biggest fan but I do feel like she seems to always try to be encouraging and empowering towards women especially young women and girls. The fact that I didn’t understand why so many others were so enthused by a simple award acceptance speech that was similar to many speeches that others have given stayed on my mind. I felt like there was something that I just wasn’t hearing so I listened to it again the next day, actually I listened to it a few times back to back to back repeatedly. I know it might seem like I was a bit obsessed but I really wanted to understand what I was missing that everyone else in this world around me was excited about after hearing this speech, I mean this speech led the media and others to spreading the rumor that Ms. Winfrey has political aspirations and plans to run for president of the United States in 2020. I am sure she could not do any worse than the current but that’s a perspective to be shared on another day. Maybe I am still missing something, but I am not excited about her words, I’m not trying to be a negative Nancy, but I feel like they are just words, yes, words that were very relevant to things currently happening in the world, words that were well put together and very eloquently spoken but just words. Words that were possibly only empowering and encouraging for the moment because of who they were being spoken by. Words that unfortunately aren’t going to change anything, words that are one of this week’s hot topics on social media and in the news that will only be discussed this week and forgotten by next week because the masses will be discussing the next hot topic accompanied by a hashtag.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am completely aware that Ms. Winfrey’s words were inspired by the #metoo movement which I believe was created because of all the recent incidences of men with jobs in the public eye being accused of sexual harassment and being sexually inappropriate with their female colleagues as a way to show other victims of sexual harassment that they are not alone and finally the victimizers are having to suffer the consequences of their actions. I stand in solidarity with anyone who is against women being treated wrong in any way but I feel that it was simply a speech, just words, words not meant to stir up the type of commotion that they did, not an admission of political aspirations, simply a speech made by someone concerned about the things happening in this world.

That’s just my perspective💜