Oprah Winfrey was in Colorado Springs Sunday to plug her book while delivering the commencement address at Colorado College’s graduation.
Seriously, she’s shameless:
Her legacy to the Colorado College Class of 2019 was not only being their Commencement speaker; Winfrey also personally handed each graduate a copy of her most recent New York Times bestseller, “The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life’s Direction and Purpose,” which features short essays on her life principles, peppered with quotes from luminaries.
Her speech was mediocre and uninspiring with offerings such as “life is about decisions,” and urging them to dedicate their lives to service.
But Winfrey wasn’t talking about the military or becoming the butler or housekeeper at Downton Abby.
She urged them to use that expensive college education to get a job protest stuff.
Take your pick, Oprah said, in ticking off a litany of today’s issues — gun violence, media bias, protection for “Dreamers,” homelessness, prison reform, misogyny and other societal ills.
“You will speak up. You will show up. You will stand up. You will sit in. You will volunteer. You will vote. You will shout out. You will help. You will lend a hand. You will offer your talent and your kindness however you can, and you will radically transform whatever moment you’re in – which leads to bigger moments.”
And who should today’s graduates look to for inspiration?
Why that would be Marxist radical, militant activist, and former communist candidate for vice president Angela Davis, from whom Oprah borrowed this quote:
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically change the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
Winfrey’s insipid speech of radical transformation was radically outshined by the commencement address delivered by billionaire Robert F. Smith at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Colorado native gave those graduating students a gift of “liberation,” freedom from their school loans debts, which he will pay off through a grant he’s created that is estimated to cost $40 million.
In return, Smith urged the class to pay it forward to future graduates of the college.
Now that’s a legacy.