by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: March 02, 2009

Oprah, perhaps the reason you never bore children of your own is because the children at the girls' school you founded in Africa are your children. This paraphrase is in reference to one of the comments you made at the time you were opening your Leadership Academy for girls in 2007. Anyone watching the airings as school enrollment admissions were sought by conducting interviews of hopeful impoverished girls couldn't possibly have missed the sorrow in your eyes knowing that after final interview stages you'd have to deny many girls opportunities they so desperately needed and deserved.

I recall that many of the girls were running households - more like shacks - at young ages because they'd lost parents to AIDs or crimes. Despite the adult roles they were forced into they forged ahead. They didn't let the fact that they had to walk long distances through neighborhoods ridden with crime to arrive at low quality schools they were attending at that time stop them. They didn't let the fact that they had to get up at the crack of dawn to perform chores before they could even begin to think about their own futures stop them. It was obvious that these girls had no intentions of letting anything stop them. No matter what their troubles, they had one thing in common - determination to make better lives for themselves and their families.

After hearing and seeing hardships many of these girls had to endure, listening to them talk, discerning their diction and use of language, one could only wonder how they managed to present themselves in the educated knowledgeable fashion they managed considering their adverse living circumstances. It was quite evident, Oprah, one could see whenever the camera zoomed in on your face, that you would have preferred to wrap your arms around and save all of the girls than to turn any of them away. But like a mother with three morsels and five mouths to feed you suffered the agony one suffers when having to choose amongst choices that should not have to be made.

Some suggest, Oprah, that your heart is filled with empathy for the young due to bouts of abuse you suffered as a young girl. It's quite apparent that, just like the African hopefuls, suffering is something you all have in common. The way I see it is your empathy comes not only from your passed sufferings but as a result of the overly massive heart in your chest that somehow manages to fit itself behind your human-sized ribcage.

And, Oprah, your aid to the young did not begin with your

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