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Entertainment November 14, 2016
Oprah Winfrey and her moviemaker friend Ava DuVernay have become each other’s rock in coping with America’s election of Donald Trump.
The duo said they were on the phone with each other throughout election night and came together Sunday to work out their feelings in public with a talk about the future of America under Trump on stage at, of all places, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
“I’m at the Museum of Tolerance, so I’m trying to be tolerant. But I can’t say the words ‘President Trump.’ I’m grieving and I’m upset. It’s going to be a long four years, and hopefully just four,” said Ava, director of race relations drama “Selma.”
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“I couldn’t breathe after the election,” added Oprah, who had publicly endorsed Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton back in the summer.
The media mogul learned a harsh lesson in Twitter use a couple of days later when she posted an optimistic tweet about America’s political future under Trump following the cordial White House meeting between the current and future President and, unusually, came under fire on social media for doing so.
“I expected tension, awkwardness and strain at that meeting…but President Obama was being so gracious and then I heard Donald Trump say, ‘He’s a good man.’ I also heard him say. ‘I’m going to be seeking his counsel.’ I literally went, ‘I can breathe now.'”
After tweeting to her nearly 35 million followers , “Everybody take a deep breath! #HopeLives!” – it immediately prompted a backlash of brutal reactions from Trump haters who didn’t appreciate being told how to feel. Oprah said she had learned a lesson.
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“My mistake, and this is what I know to be true, is that you can never talk about everybody. You can only speak for yourself. What I should have said was ‘I just took a breath’ instead of, ‘Everybody take a breath! #HopeLives!’ I thought to say, Civility Lives – because this was more civil than I expected it to be.”
Ava, who is currently directing Oprah in upcoming Disney fantasy epic “A Wrinkle in Time,” said she believed that under policies advocated by Trump, things would get worse for the country under him, “unless we demand something different.”
Things are pretty bad already judging by the director’s new Netflix documentary “13th,” a searing indictment of America’s criminal justice system which shows African Americans are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate of white people. Oprah described the film as “a wake up call” and said “great work often comes out of something you have experienced.”
“I grew up in Compton under a very heavy police presence. When I saw a police officer I wouldn’t think of safety, I’d think of fear,” explained DuVernay of how her own experiences informed the film.
She added that she has found the kind of satisfaction in her work that others find in motherhood. “I don’t have children but I have 9 films. That’s what I leave behind. These are very personal to me. I’m living my dream.”
