Oprah on the Pressure to "Pass for White" | The Oprah Winfrey Show | Oprah Winfrey Network

yes ma'am next to her I'm growing up it was very evident to me this is my mother she's not gonna like me for saying this but she's very fair and growing as a very dark-skinned child people tell me oh your mother's so pretty what happened to you and it was constant but the one thing I do like is that I have children and they are brown or you know but your complexion and the fact that they can see someone like you and they can aspire to be like that and know that that's all of a partner well thank you that's why I'm here one of the reasons but you know even when I was coming up I think let's see when I was you know it's not even starting out there was Jane Tian remember Jane Kennedy oh yeah yeah and so you know part of the culture was that if you're Jane Kennedy and you got long hair straight hair you're pretty and I'm telling you I know nobody wants to hear it now but when I first came to UM Chicago I got some of that I got some of that from our own people like well what did you do to get this job national not long right you don't have long hair and you ain't pretty so and you know cuz nobody could understand you are pre but it takes a gorgeous from Fatima but no nobody had ever seen you could mean this is just 15 years ago nobody had ever seen anybody like me on the air who is just an average looking black person gorgeous though I am but Ronnie no frills no whatever and I look back at some of my videotape I don't know how I got to be successful huh myself wearing summit at those hairdos and those are outfits but you see what I'm saying because it was it was a it was actually the first time nationally anybody of this skin color was on it's true and myself yeah matter more to women than it did to men so in other words men it wasn't as important to its sort of an issue about women were judged more on our looks than we are on no no it was it not it wasn't you know now say saving mana to get opportunity you had a bad opportunity and certainly the whole passing thing that's a whole nother as a whole nother subject ax passing thing but you know the thing about passing for those who did pass and LU leader was saying this for and her family once you pass the decision to pass means you giving up your whole entire family you know that you can never go back cuz you all understand that right cuz if you're passing you just can't have your black mother show up how do you just cannot explain for black women in your kitchen all of a sudden well you know I experienced this early when I you know I was shifted from one parent to the other and I came to live in Milwaukee with my mother who was rooming with a lady and my mother has another daughter so I have a half-sister who was light-skinned and younger than I and they were allowed to stay inside the house and I was forced to sleep outside in the hallway cuz I was the brown skinned person and you know and my you know my mother did it just because otherwise we'd have no place to sleep but the place was owned by a white not white but I thought she was white MS Miller who also passed and just didn't want the brown skinned child in her house it's just really racism passed on to ourselves that's what it really is in it in a very strong way and the issue of black men you're asking the question about me that is a completely different story know how to begin because the the thing that I think we have never been able to get across in this country and I've done hundreds of shows on it and just gave up trying to explain it is that the reason why racism still exists and the reason why you have the breakdown and the families still today the reason at the prisons are filled with predominantly black men is because of what happened a hundred years ago men were not allowed to be with their families we're not allowed to even stay and take care of their families and because they felt so helpless and so hopeless many of them just disappeared a band so-called abandoned their families because of it and that was just a part of the culture you know you weren't even allowed to marry you weren't even allowed to marry because you were considered property and so at any given time you can come back and he's gone he is gone or I used to think of this all the time you know you're a mother you go to work in the fields you go to work in the fields and you come back from work and your children are gone maybe one is gone maybe two go all your children are gone or your mother is gone your family is gone and it in you know at any given time in your life that can happen that really for me was a lesson a beloved and I you know have studied black history been a black person all my life and all that very connected to the whole black thing but it really was the first time that I really got what the what the sorrow was the steep deep sorrow was no free will it was no free will and that is your right as a human being is free will that's what you have anyway I thank you for your time thank you for your time I'm gonna go there okay thank you oh gee hi youtubers I'm excited to give you an update about our own YouTube channel now you can find new videos every day they're the kind of videos it will make you look at life differently they may even make you laugh a little bit who doesn't need a daily dose of that so here's just a taste of some of what you'll see

Channel: OWN

Views: 648,198

Keywords: OPRAH, OPRAH WINFREY, OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK, OWN NETWORK, OPRAH WHERE ARE THEY NOW, Iyanla fix my life, super soul sunday, tyler perry, the have and the have nots, full episodes, love thy neighbor, if loving you is wrong, Interview, iyanla vanzant, livin lozada, evelyn lozada, lindsay lohan, episode, season, Oprah on the Pressure to Pass for White, #oprahwinfreyshow, Oprah Winfrey Show, oprah show, oprah interview, maya angelou, Livin Lozada, Lindsay Lohan, how-to

Id: P_6YJEfRLDM

Length: 6min 6sec (366 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2015