Here are some photos from last night’s NYC premiere of Selma. I’m including photos of Oprah Winfrey (she’s acting in it and she’s a producer), plus photos of Corey Reynolds (wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirt), David Oyelowo (playing Martin Luther King, currently on the shortlist for Best Actor) and director Ava Duvernay (who became the first African-American woman to be nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes). Incidentally, Brad Pitt executive produced Selma, but he was not in attendance last night (perhaps because he has the pox too?). I don’t really get why Oprah is wearing a lovely green blanket (festive!), but she looks great. During the media day for Selma’s promotion, Oprah and Oyelowo spoke about how the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60s still has relevance today, in the wake of the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
During a call Sunday to discuss Selma (in select theaters Christmas Day, opening wide Jan. 9), Oprah Winfrey told USA TODAY that outrage over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner has served as a national wake-up call.
“Of course,” says Winfrey, who also took a small part in Selma as a black woman repeatedly denied the vote in Alabama in 1965. “I think everything is a wake-up call if you’re paying attention. Everything is happening all the time to get our attention. And when you don’t listen the first time, it becomes more and more forceful. So if you didn’t listen to Ferguson, then along comes Eric Garner.”
“In Selma, it was voting rights,” says David Oyelowo, Globe-nominated for playing King in the film. “Initially, it was a black problem. It wasn’t until Bloody Sunday, and the world seeing Bloody Sunday, that it became an American problem. It’s the same thing in Ferguson. When it was just Ferguson, it was a black problem. But when you see the undeniable injustice of this man being murdered on-screen in the shape of Eric Garner, similarly, the nation rallied.”
Adds Winfrey: “It’s the same thing that James Reeb (a white Unitarian minister who came from Massachusetts to join the 1965 protest and was killed two days later) says in the movie: ‘I came because I saw injustice. And I thought it was wrong.’ The same reason he came to Selma is the same reason black people and white people all over the country are marching now. They understand that adage of Dr. King is really true: That injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And that’s why people are marching in the streets.
“What (Selma) offers is an opportunity for people, particularly young people, to see that the marches were built out of a strategy and an intention. And that the leadership required to develop strategy and intention is necessary when you really want to make true progress. And there is power in peace.”
Yes, she’s absolutely right. I like that Oprah isn’t shying away from the comparisons or minimizing what’s happening today in civil rights versus what happened fifty years ago. There’s still progress to be made on all fronts.
Oprah was also chosen as one of Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating People of 2014 – you can see the video here (Oprah actually spoke to Walters). One of the most interesting things Oprah said was this: “I could not have had the life or the career in the way that I had it if I’d chosen to have children.” That’s really interesting to me. I kind of think she’s wrong? She still could have had her amazing career and been a mother, but it’s fascinating that she doesn’t believe that at all.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
She’s not wrong. She’s speaking of her own capacity and limitations, not to anyone else and their capacity, etc.
I agree. I think having children requires a certain amount of stability and selflessness. I think Oprah is saying there were selfish choices that she wanted to be free to make without having to consider the impact it would have made on the life of a child. That’s not wrong of her. I find it insightful and thoughtful.
So true. And I tend to agree. I felt like my career had to take a step back so I could attend to my child the way I wanted him to be attended to. It may not be true for all people, but it is true for Oprah and she is entitled to speak that truth.
Definitely. If she was going to be a mother she sounds like she would have wanted to be hands on. An impossible feat when you are also building the Harpo empire. I think pretty much all her male equivalents would acknowledge that they had to miss much of their childrens upbringing. Its the necessary sacrifice for that level of success.
I agree with Oprah. She’s a self-made billionaire. How many women billionaires are there? Like probably 0. It takes making selfish decisions like @hh said and devoting ungodly amount of time into building something like that. If she had children, they probably would never have seen her.
@sally – Sara Blakely is another self-made billionaire. Coincidentally doesn’t have children either.
I will say, I only take exception to the ‘selfish’ part. Why is a career more selfish than motherhood? Both of those decisions involve choices intrinsically related to self. If she had children then they might have suffered or the career could have. That would make her thoughtful, as to her own decision, rather than ‘selfish’. Being selfish is a personality characteristic that applies across the board to mothers and non-mothers alike. Being a mother, or choosing to be a mother, isn’t automatically ‘selfless’.
I completely agree. I think it UNselfish to realize that you can’t be the kind of mother you want to be and have a career that demands all of your energy, and then to chose one. It think it would be selfish to try to have both, knowing that you aren’t capable of it.
Exactly. None of us know how many hours a day she puts into her work. It’s entirely possible it’s not compatible with being a mother. Or being the kind of mother Oprah would want to be for her children.
It’s her life experience. How is she wrong? Not everyone wants the whole package.
shes not wrong. because none of us have any idea what she has had to do behind the scenes, and what would have not gotten done had that time gone to children or a husband or anything else besides what it DID go to.
theres no way of knowing what her career would be right now if she had had children, but i believe her when she reflects on what shes had to do and says it would not have been possible had she had children in the mix.
Word, Oprah, word. I also hope that this movie serves as a reminder that a lot of what we have today like voting rights, civil rights, birth control, labour rights, and on and on and on, is possible because people raised hell about it. They organized, they marched and they progressed. It seems like now protesters are looked down upon as lazy ne’er-do-wells who are taking breaks from video games.
I think history will look at these protests now in much the same way as the protests in the past. It is always painful going through something while it’s happening. I take the comments about the “sorts” of people who partake in the protests with a grain of salt. If there are no protests, there will be no change.
I agree, Santia, and this is my hope as well.
Hawkeye, I think the protesters of the early 1960s *were* more organized and had a more comprehensive plan for what they wanted to achieve. Nobody wants unarmed men to be killed by the police, but how do we achieve that goal? Body cameras are great, but they wouldn’t have saved Eric Garner. Also, protesters of the early 1960s had educated, dedicated leaders like MLK. Who are the leaders in Ferguson? Who was there when people were looting and burning and throwing rocks at journalists? It’s very hard to compare the two protest movements, one nonviolent with specific goals, and the other just an open wound of anger.
I never make comments on here, but I couldn’t disagree with that comment more. There has been minimal looting and violence compared to the organized peaceful protests, demonstrations, and marches. The media chooses to focus on the small amount of violence (which hasn’t even happened since the night the Brown/Wilson verdict was announced and when the Garner verdict was announced) because it’s sensationalism and that’s what sells. I live in St. Louis and have been active in protests in both the city and Ferguson so I see all of it firsthand. Please don’t buy into everything the media is putting out there. Also keep in mind there have been TONS upon tons of peaceful protests and marches going on every single day in cities and colleges all over the U.S. The peaceful protests VASTLY outweigh the few people who became violent in the beginning. To keep focusing on that and bringing it up, particularly when it isn’t even happening anymore, is a disservice to the whole issue and everyone who is working so hard for change. As for leaders, no one clear leader has stepped up as of yet, but give it time, it will happen.
Most of the protesters in Ferguson were or are non violent. People from outside communities came in rioting and looting. The movement has more or less been hijacked by people who aren’t protesting the death of Micheal Brown.
Very good point ultraviolet, no protest movement is perfect but you can’t really compare them; different generations and attitudes,etc. Look at all the civil rights protesters -many black, white, etc. in suits and ties, females in dresses – I know how you appear shouldn’t be the primary concern, but your manner of public presentation does matter, and to ignore it completely is foolish and short-sighted.
Also the marches and protests are very organized with specific goals. I marched to Governor Jay Nixon’s office in downtown St. Louis and we had an entire sheet of goals we wanted to present to him. I attended a meeting last night in Ferguson which was extremely organized and several organizations had speakers and pamphlets about the goals that they are striving for in this movement. One group, the Civilian Review Board, has been working on police accountability in St. Louis police departments for the past 30 years! I’m sorry but your statement just isn’t true. If you’re talking about the tiny minority of people who looted, sure, but there are thousands of us working on this every day so please don’t make remarks like that without knowing all of the information. The meeting I attended in Ferguson was full of well-dressed (so that comment wasn’t necessarily true either) St. Louis residents with their Masters degrees and PHDs, lawyers, all kinds of incredibly intelligent, educated, hard-working people, and a majority of us have marched on the streets. So that “jobless uneducated” (and poorly dressed) stereotype of current protestors is also absolute rubbish.
@Ultaviolet- re: achievable goals>>> we also must take into the types of racism being fought against today. We are not talking the overt, systemic racism that can be easily proven (voting rights, segregation, etc.), but a more insidious, pervasive, and more importantly ***SUB-conscious*** level of racism. This is something that’s not solved by a single protest. In fact, it will take *at least* one generation to remove and undo. The protests serve to highlight the fact that this form of racism is alive, will not go unnoticed, and will not be tolerated. When you think about it, the solution for police and the justice system is to treat a black individual the same way you’d treat a white one. It’s literally that simple.
@theoneandonly – “Look at all the civil rights protesters -many black, white, etc. in suits and ties, females in dresses…” >>> I can’t begin to comment on the level of naivete to think that the reason for a slow response to injustice in this case has to deal with “presentation”.
UltraViolet, I don’t have the answer/s, other than to say that change starts with you and me (us literally, and the in a grand-scheme kind of way) using our voices. When I talk about protests, there are many very recent protests that we can look at beyond Ferguson and the Eric Garner, and I was not making a comparison: the Arab Spring, the Taksim park protests in Turkey, Hong Kong’s umbrella protests, the 2014 Olympics LGBT protests, the People’s Climate March, the Internet blackout days in protest of SOPA and the FCC for net neutrality, and so many more. My initial point is that protest is not a distasteful activity, and should be remembered and used as an effective way to initiate change. I would also have to respectfully disagree with your asking who the leaders are in Ferguson. The message of those protests doesn’t have to be represented by one person to be meaningful.
Ultraviolet:
The important thing to keep in mind is simply because two groups of people are doing the same thing at the same time does NOT mean they are working together.
You see looters and others doing horrible things and you lump them in with the peaceful protestors because??? Because why?
These people are sacrificing their time to try to make a difference and speak on issues present in a society that is killing them and you focus on the people in the background not affiliated or working alongside them? It’d be nice if you really thought about why your views are that way.
@theoneandonly
Why do individuals always focus on the secondary small aspects of a larger issue? So you believe if in this winter people wore three piece suits and dresses that would somehow validate how they are demanding respect and a change to the system?
Makes perfect sense! It’s not like the protests have anything to do with judging others for how they look and what they must be and how that determines their treatment. If Garner had only been wearing a suit…
In the end of the protestors appearances gives you pause you are again turning away from the real issue. These aren’t people in bikinis. They’re people, some very low income in a community that has effectively shoved them down to the dirt, dressed for winter taking time to march for hours in the cold.
Lots of important comments above. As someone who has watched the protests quite often via livestream since August, I have to defend the protestors. If you are not there or not watching via livestream, you are not getting even half the story. That’s just true. The protestors are incredibly organized and focused. Many have trained in deescalation techniques. The media loves to play up the very few incidents of looting and destruction, which, incidentally, is sometimes being done by white people who are taking advantage of the situation to bust things up for fun. I think it’s crappy to play respectability politics about who is dressed “well” and who is not, but if it’s important to you, plenty of protestors are actually wearing suits and dressier attire. But you are rarely going to see this on the mainstream media. No movement is perfect, but the Ferguson protestors made it possible for a national movement (with international support) to happen. It’s quite impressive. I support them 100%.
I will say this…maybe she could have had her amazing career and been a mother…but maybe she felt like she wouldn’t have been an AMAZING mother.
I realized recently I’m a type A perfectionist. Everything I do I want to improve and become better and better, especially when it’s ‘important’. So far that’s translated in interesting and exhausting ways in terms of hobbies and work, but…just thinking how it would work with kids exhausts me.
I’ve done long-term babysitting and tutoring and I wasn’t satisfied till those kids were up one reading grade level in 6 weeks and doing multiplication and division by 2nd grade. I get what she’s saying completely. Yeah, you can be a mom but if that drive pushes you to always strive for perfection then maybe she understands she’d probably have been a less than stellar mother because of the competing demands of work and home-life.
Also YES to the protests. It’s truly stunning and beautiful to watch young people march the street chanting or lie down for 4 minutes deathly still just as a small echo of how a human being’s body was treated.
Much as how Garner’s body and humanity was meaningless as they held down his head and ignored his choking dying words.
There’s a lot being exposed and talked about now and I realize it’s uncomfortable for many but it’s exactly he discussions and actions that need to take place for some change.
It’s also revealed a LOT of cops and organizations racist beliefs which is always good to bring them out of the shadows.
spot on. The comparisons are so relevant to what’s happening now.
I think it was incredibly mature and strong of her to realize she couldn’t be the kind of mother she wanted with the career she wanted. She seems to be speaking for herself, not in general to the “having it all” dream.
I am kind of hitting the point, biologically, where I would have to make the same kind of decision. I know who I am, what I can give, and what I want out of life. I am leaning toward the same kind of decision as Lady O.
Can’t believe I’m agreeing with Oprah, but Kaiser is wrong. Her focus on her career made her what she became. If she‘d had children, she would have — at best — had to split 50% of her attention towards raising her kid/s. That definitely would have changed how she was able to take what opportunities came up. I believe this with all non-Oprah women, too. You leave a lot of career-advancing opportunities when you take time off to have children.
When you have kids, you can’t work 16-hour days, 7 days a week — unless you have a spouse who is going to pick up ALL the slack at home, and then your relationship with your kids is also at risk when you spend so little time with them. Ask any male CEO/entrepreneur who’s sacrificed time at home to do whatever it took to work his way up the corporate ladder or turn the business into a multi-million dollar company. Better yet, ask their kids.
Never mind that many women just seem to slough off the career ladder altogether after having kids, preferring to spend more time with them than at work. I’ve heard over and over again many women saying their priorities completely shifted after meeting their baby for the first time. It’s hormonal and it’s powerful. I think Oprah is completely aware of this, especially with so many friends who have kids.
Best story of the day. Because Oprah is actually intelligent and interesting. And sorry to everyone that has kids, but I agree with Oprah. To accomplish all the things she has done, would just have been nearly impossible with children. Kids can weigh people down. Not everyone, but some. It is one of many reasons I’m staying childless, because for me it would.