As NewsBusters previously reported, Oprah Winfrey said of the George Zimmerman verdict Thursday, "It's ridiculous to look at that case and not to think that race was involved."
On Friday, conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck responded with a monologue that began, "Oprah Winfrey - you disgust me!" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary, relevant section begins at 9:25):
GLENN BECK: Oprah Winfrey - you disgust me! As a woman who has gone through hell and back and made it, and pulled yourself out by the bootstraps. You made it. You made it. You grew up with hate from your own race, you grew up with rape in your own race and you pulled yourself out. And the American people, both black and white, yellow and red, it doesn’t matter the color, they saw you make it! They saw you overcome everything that you had faced, and we celebrated that! So much so that you make $70 million a year! So much so you’re the most famous and most accomplished black woman in the history of America! You have your own network because we celebrated that you made it. You disgust me. Why are you telling everybody else they can’t make it? Why are you telling us that white people are the problem?
Oprah, I’m sorry to point out to you, people are the problem. Doesn’t matter what color they come in. Scumbags come in all colors. The scumbags in the 1950s that did that to Emmett Till, I don’t think there’s a dark enough, hot enough hell for those people.”
You tell the Emmett Till story and it breaks your heart. You tell the Emmett Till story and the thought of his mother opening up that coffin and part of his head falling out because insult upon injury when they put him in, they put lye in there with him to destroy his body. You can’t be a functioning human being and not feel that.
But vengeance belongs to the Lord alone. Justice will never be done here on Earth. But we can strive for it. And I weep for my country because I know God is just. And I weep for my country because we are on the verge and the precipice of just an unbelievable bright dawn. The whole world is starting to understand not politics, not bankers, not power, not houses, not cars, not fame, not stuff, but love. The whole world is on the verge of understanding true freedom, and just leave me alone. Just leave me alone and let me worship God in my own understanding.”
There are bad guys out there, but race has nothing to do with it.
Oprah, I choose to be the person that America thought you were. I choose to be the person that will overcome the bad things in my life. Nobody’s going to tell me what I can and can’t do and who I am. I know who I am, and I will not be beaten down by the system, and I will hold those people up that feel the same way, no matter what color. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. Give me the ones that you have told "You’ll never make it," send them to me, the tempest tossed. Because I hold my lamp beside a golden door.
