Celebrity media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey put on a progressive showcase during her commencement speech at Tennessee State University over the weekend, advocating that graduates tackle wide range of liberal issues once they go out into the world, including climate change and systemic racism.
Winfrey spoke at the graduation ceremony for her alma mater on Saturday, where she laid bare a summary of her liberal beliefs about the world. She urged graduates to have hope that they can change the problems in society, that also included a “corrupt” Supreme Court, and attacks on LGBTQ people.
Winfrey also devoted time to praising Tennessee state Reps. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), the two Tennessee lawmakers who were expelled from the state legislature after participating in a raucous leftist protest at the Tennessee capitol last month.
She claimed that both liberal lawmakers are “building on the legacy of giants and mentors of mine, like John Lewis.”
A little more than halfway into the commencement address, the TV network owner and former talk show host waded into deep political waters, giving a portion of her speech that covered most, if not all the major grievances leftists have.
She began with police brutality, saying, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how much of your lives have already been spent grappling with the extremely complex issues of our time because you are the generation that is forced to depend on body cams to obtain justice.” She added, “And even then, accountability, as we’ve seen again and again, can be so hard to come by.”
Next, she moved on to the January 6 riot and mentioned the loss of voting right’s alongside women’s rights. She said, “You’ve witnessed the storming of the Capitol and the death of civility. You are acutely aware that voting rights are being gutted, women’s rights are being dismantled, books are being banned, and history is being rewritten.”
Then Winfrey mentioned her problems with the conservative-majority Supreme Court, the GOP’s position on the debt ceiling, and climate change other left wing grievances. She claimed, “The Supreme Court is being corrupted. The debt ceiling is being held hostage. The climate is changing. The LGBT+ community is under attack. The Cold War is back.”
The former talk show host made a gun control overture, saying, “The leaders are behaving like children. The children are being gunned down by military-grade assault rifles.” After enumerating her political issues, she declared, “We live on a planet where there is more than enough wrong to keep you busy trying to make things right for the rest of your natural life.”
Oprah subsequently praised the two Tennessee lawmakers as role models for graduates concerned about these issues: “And unfortunately, you’re going to encounter people who will insist that it’s not actually possible to make any real difference. But I believe Tennessee has a couple of Justins just a few miles from here who would respectfully disagree.”
She added, “Representatives like Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson are using their lives to prove the cynics wrong and they’re building on the legacy of giants and mentors of mine, like John Lewis, whose fight for justice started right here in Nashville, and who now speaks to us from eternity.”
Later in her address, Winfrey also complemented the graduates for having abided by COVID-19 mandates, saying, “Your generation has masked up and locked down for a pandemic that ravaged the world. You, my TSU friends, have trained for complicated times. And I don’t care how hard life after college gets and it’s going to get hard, we need you to dream big. We need audacious thinkers.”
