They year was 1968. Aretha Franklin (aka Queen of Soul) was getting into her limo in Milwaukee.
A young black runaway approached her sobbing. asking for money. The generous star handed the girl $100 U.S. (that’s $724 in today’s dollar).
Little did she know that young girl would grow up to be the World’s ONLY black billionaire and the most influential woman on the planet.
In Aretha’s day, the idea that a black woman could be become such an influential billionaire was unimaginable, but thanks to the trail Aretha helped blaze, they are finally getting their R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Pumpkin Person 
This an open thread?
No. Tomorrow.
that was hard to predict.
If she’s ugly then her behavior had to be all the more adaptable to win beauty contests and make billions in a field as visual as television.
As I’ve mentioned before, decades ago there was a black man on Oprah who said he rated women’s looks out of 10 and had high standards. Then some black lady in the audience and asked him how he would rate Oprah.
Sensing she might be humiliated if he gave a low number, a quick thinking Oprah immediately turned the situation to her advantage by cutting him off by saying:
I don’t care if you think I’m pretty or not. I realized a long time ago I wasn’t pretty so I decided to be SMART instead. It worked for me!
The audience roared with approval.
Ability to adapt.
ability to be a magic negro.
Ability to please several demographics. Jewish approval would have meant nothing had the army of middle class Midwestern Christian white women who made her famous decided to turn on her, and she also had to appeal to whites and Jews without blacks thinking her a sellout. An incredibly difficult balancing act, far beyond your skill-set. Like solving a social rubik’s cube, and she did it all in the 80s when racism was twice what it is today.
Just because the audience approved doesn’t mean anything. I mean, look at the average person that watches those shows. They’re easily manipulated.
They’re easily manipulated.
Says the Stephen Jay Gould fan. Hilarious.
I’d give Oprah 2/10.
“Says the Stephen Jay Gould fan”
What did Gould say/do that was wrong? Morton? Don’t make me laugh.
Its sad that when young black runaways like Afro now ask Oprah for money she says no and doesnt remember where she came from.
Is that a true probably false story Oprah told once ?
Nb : she doesn’t look like she has the personality to be begging in the street wich is a high risk low profit activity. I think she likes « great » gesture story but don’t really follow through. I don’t know her at all – in France nobody does – but she doesn’t look like someone giving privately and not making a profit from it. So maybe she is generous but not probably Not’desinterested. But that’s very good. Here in Spain they say « no sirva a a quien sirvió ni pida a quie pidió »
«
Oprah Winfrey’s ‘secret son’ Calvin Mitchell, whom she helped raise and wanted to adopt in the 90s, is destitute and begging for help from the billionaire TV titan.
Calvin, now 37, was just 11 when he offered her a cold soft drink on a Chicago movie set. The kind gesture created a loving relationship that prompted Oprah to try and adopt him – but his biological mother refused to separate him from his
While generous Oprah picked up the tab for him to attend a posh private school, she withdrew her support “when he failed to meet her standards” of behaviour, according to US magazine National Enquirer.
Oprah told the story decades ago but it’s never been independently confirmed. She wasn’t panhandling in general, but she needed money after running away from her single mother, and when she saw Aretha at her limo, she thought up a sob story about needing money to get back to Ohio. “I liked the sound of Ohio” Oprah recalled.
It sounds false but he may be true. If she was a mythomaniac, she would have made a score of such claims – mytho can’t refrain themselves – and I guess that you would be aware of this trait. That’s like a beautiful christmas story. Love it. Aretha must have been happy in retrospect. It makes her look good too.
And I also appreciate the way you have disguised the news. Like a micro-IQ test because it’s such a big unknown un-believable claim, that should have been the topic, and you just used « young black runaway » , « that young girl » and « first black billionaire » to tell the story about Oprah and Aretha.
Story sounds implausible, but…whatevs…
I’ve heard crazier…
Oprah might have made it up. She does lie sometimes, just not about her head size.