Friday's Oprah - 4/7/07

Sat Apr 7 18:11:49 EDT 2007

- FRIDAY'S OPRAH SHOW

I'm baffled.  We all realize Oprah's incredible power and influence and if
you watch the show you know that she cares deeply about girls and women and,
really, about all living things. We know that the last thing she'd want to
do is present information that would do damage - in the short or long run.
We also know she has a huge staff - and they must have every resource and
access to vast information.  That's why Friday's (4/6/07) show leaves me
totally baffled.   

They used a new format. Oprah sat on stage alone and discussed "news" items
with the audience. The item that generated the most discussion was the stat
taken from the Jan 07 NY Time's article and flashed on screen as a talking
point: "51% of Women Single".  Oprah explained that in America single women
now outnumber married women for the first time ever.  No correction or
explanation about how these numbers were calculated or that this info has
since been corrected, even by the NY Times - that the author came up with
the 51% which was defined as women "living alone" and included women whose
husbands were working out of state or out of the country; deployed to Iraq,
Afghanistan, Korea or elsewhere; or in prison. It also didn't explain that
the 51% included 10 million little girls "15, 16, 17...." and women who had
outlived their husbands and are now "living alone" but after long marriages.
It was presented on Oprah as though 51% of women aren't marrying.  An
audience member expressed concern saying that she thought marriage was
important for the community and for children and concerned that due to
celebrity marriages and devaluing marriage, this trend might grow.  Oprah
said she wasn't concerned, said she saw the trend as "evolution". Oprah next
introduced a 39-year old audience member and in her intro explained how
happy this women was in her single state - how much she was enjoying her
single life, dating, and sex. The women then absolutely glowed and quivered
as she talked about how wonderful her life was - that she could do whatever
she wanted.  This was greeted with beaming and applause.  No mention of the
fact that over 90% of our daughters still say it is their goal to marry and
have children.  No one asked this woman how she felt about never having
children.  

Then another "new" stat was flashed on screen: "70% of Black Women are
Single". Oprah expressed amazement: "Who Knew??!".  Much discussion ensued
with Oprah's strong advice/solution being that because of the huge disparity
between the numbers of Black women and available Black men, Black women must
not be waiting around to marry a Black man. That was the root of the
problem. She said she's been preaching this to all her girlfriends, like
Gayle for years - that they have to 'get real' and be willing to marry
non-Black men.  An agitated Black women in the audience explained that she
was very happily married to a Black man, and exhorted Black mothers to raise
marriageable Black sons, and then introduced her 33 year old brother who was
sitting beside her, whom she said was very marriageable. Another woman stood
up to express her concern that the discussion was disparaging marriage and
said how wonderful her marriage was and how important it was to her
happiness. Oprah allowed that, yes, there are some good Black men and
marriages BUT asked the woman - aren't you and aren't all of us glad that we
now have a choice. That back in the day, women had to be married to have
lives. They went to college to find a husband.  Now we don't have to marry
or have arranged marriages to have wonderful lives. And, then she repeated
what she says so often, that she's got a perfectly wonderful Black man but
it is her CHOICE not to marry.  She did a show earlier in the year where she
made a declaration that she would never marry because, as the theme of that
show spelled out, a woman is in great danger of losing herself and her
individuality - who she is - in a marriage.

No one on Friday's show mentioned the co-incidence that 70% of of Black
children born out of wedlock - most, of course, fathered by Black men. The
only mention of children was by a concerned audience member to the effect
that marriage was good for raising children. This remark was countered by
Oprah with "we all know it takes a village, a community, to raise children"
- affirmed with much applause.  No discussion or question was raised about
how many of the 70% of liberated, unmarried Black women were struggling
single mothers or the correlations with out-of-wedlock birth rate. The staff
is asleep at the wheel. This is evolution?  This is what CHOICE is about?

I keep saying it's not just the lack of good information about marriage but
the mis-inforamtion that's killing us. And, it's the media that provides the
info and creates our combined cultural understanding of the benefits of
marriage and understanding about why and how marriage succeeds or fails. I
cannot understand why Oprah's staff would leave her out there dangling in
the wind presenting such misleading information. Why they wouldn't her staff
give Oprah an updated explanation of the 51% stat and, instead, just let her
go on the air and look ignorant?! Or, with her strong concern about helping
GIRLS, why wouldn't they give Oprah the overwhelming research on the
benefits of stable marriages on the future health, happiness, and well-being
of our girls and their children?!  As I said, I'm baffled.  Maybe the whole
Marriage Initiative grant money should have gone to help Oprah's staff bone
up on research.  I'm convinced her show has more effect than all our
programs combined. 

And, WHY don't they book Diann Dawson, director of the African American
Healthy Marriage Initiative and sponsor of plays, hip hop songs, and
convener of research panels and think tanks on strengthening Black Marriage?
Why don't they do a show on Nisa Muhammad's crusading effort to found Black
Marriage Day - established in 2002 and now celebrated annually in cities all
across the Country?? Nisa - as a working single mother of five kids decided
we can turn the epidemic of out-of-wedlock births and struggling single
mothers around - she decided to do something for ALL women and children and
she certainly deserves one of Oprah's Angel Network contributions. Or
Rozario Slack and Nisa, creators of the Basic Training program for Black
Singles and Couples. Give them a chance to teach the basics on the show.
Give Rozario a platform to talk about the "marriageability" of Black men and
give his "Message to Our Sons".

Or, speaking of THE SECRET, feature Kay Hymowitz and her book "Marriage and
Caste in America" with it's clear and logical explanation of what the
growing Marriage Gap is doing to our children - that the great divide in
health, wealth and well-being boils down to who marries and who doesn't.
Oprah should be teaching her audience the facts: Finish high school, marry
before having a child, do not have a child until you are 20, and your
chances of being poor are only 8 percent! That should be her mantra.  And
it's the real SECRET - the secret is NOT about positive, wishful thinking -
about wishing on a star and hoping you'll attract good things. It's about
having a "north star" plan by which you can organize your life to have it
all - education, love, marriage, AND kids. Oprah needs to teach that doing
things in the right order - in the right sequence - is THE SECRET.  It's
key. It's crucial. (For those of you that don't know Oprah has
single-handedly put the book "The Secret" at the top of the charts and
revived a Norman Vincent Peale 'positive thinking' frenzy.)

Or, when she does her shows about the sexual abuse of children (another
Oprah crusade) her staff should help her present the research on how much
more likely it is that children will be abused if they are not living with
their biological father. The stats are overwhelming and make clear that we'd
get much further in reducing sexual abuse by keeping daddies in the home
than by putting predators in jail. It's true of Oprah's own story - she
lived with her single-parent mom and was abused by a male relative.

This is all information that Oprah's audience desperately NEEDS.

I knew this front page NY Times article "51% Living Single" was going to
have legs, but guess I wasn't aware of how far it would run us in the wrong
direction. I thought with all the corrections and discussion in the press it
would fade away.  Now, having been amplified by the Oprah lens this
MIS-information is now beamed into the brains of millions of young women
around the planet. And, the horror is that it was presented in a celebratory
manner: "evolution" - progress for women.

For analysis of the NY Times article, in case you missed it here are just
two:    
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/2007-January/003260.html
And here: 
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/2007-January/003263.html

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