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    Dear Oprah: Confessions of A Middle-Class White Girl
    Dear Oprah: Confessions of A Middle-Class White Girl
    Dear Oprah: Confessions of A Middle-Class White Girl
    Ebook155 pages3 hours

    Dear Oprah: Confessions of A Middle-Class White Girl

    By Suzan Vaughn

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    About this ebook

    They say confession is good for the soul and what better person, what safer person than Oprah Winfrey to lay open the heart and reveal those places in the psyche that are secret and shut away. With Oprah’s candidness about her own personal journey inspiring all of us to be more authentically who we are, this book is about revealing the innermost and usually unshared perspective of one white woman toward other races, predominantly African Americans. Dear Oprah: Confessions of a Middle Class White Girl risks the telling of other confessions too, including the admission of personal prejudices, and unorthodox modes of healing the soul, the psyche and the physical body, along with a difficult father-daughter relationship. The parade of programs and experts offered by the OWN Network and the Oprah Winfrey Show are mentioned with gratitude for the expert and free guidance along the path of a difficult journey to wholeness. And it is a salute to the Queen of All Media for her willingness to forge a path toward positive television programming that changes lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSuzan Vaughn
    Release dateJun 3, 2014
    ISBN9780981477220
    Dear Oprah: Confessions of A Middle-Class White Girl
    Author

    Suzan Vaughn

    Suzan Vaughn memorized her first book at the age of 3 and put pen to paper soon afterward. Communication is her area of expertise: written, spoken and telepathic. An explorer and student of the world and its many cultures, Vaughn considers what she might say about African Americans to the Queen of Media Oprah Winfrey should she find herself on the queen's talk show couch in her second book: Dear Oprah:Confessions of a Middle-Class White Girl. After eighteen years as a radio and television news producer, director, writer, and talk show host, Suzan Vaughn became disillusioned by the journalistic profession and called out to heaven for more inspiring work. As a result, the world of telepathy opened up to her. Vaughn has been a student and a teacher of metaphysical phenomenon for more than 30 years. She is the author of "Dispatches from the Ark: Pages from a Pet Psychic's Notebook." She holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Communication from California State University, Fullerton.

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      Book preview

      Dear Oprah - Suzan Vaughn

      Dear Oprah:

      Confessions of a Middle-Class White Girl

      by Suzan Vaughn

      Copyright 2014 Suzan Vaughn

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      To my beautiful mother, Janice Audrey

      Not a saint but an angel, and my own personal cheering section.

      I love you more than words can say.

      (Photo by Linn Felthaus)

      CONTENTS

      Prologue: An Open Letter To Oprah

      One: The Oprah Factor

      Two: Parting the Veil on Another World

      Three: Seeing Beneath the Surface

      Four: Communication ~ I’m Workin’ It

      Five: I Talk With Animals

      Six: Less-Traveled Paths to Healing

      Seven: I Cried a River Over You

      Eight: Finding My Joy Again

      Epilogue: Letter to a Young Suzan

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      * * * *

      Prologue: An Open Letter to Oprah

      Dear Oprah,

      Millions of us love you – at least we think we do. We don’t even really know you, although we do know a lot about you. We know that you are conscientious about your work, open about your life’s challenges, and generous of heart.

      You play big and are joyful as a result of monetary giving. We know you are a fearless interviewer, but also a flawed human being just like the rest of us, which gives us some comfort and a lot of hope. Our love is based on a good measure of fantasy too. How fun.

      We see ourselves in you, and dream that we could be just as successful, even with our own flaws – that we are lovable even in our imperfection. We pretend you are our best listener, our closest friend, a woman with a good ear and a wise tongue.

      I’ve undertaken this book on the premise that you, best fantasy friend to millions, will hear my confessions. Just as many have felt compelled to confess on the sets of your television shows, I am in the confessional here.

      Shopping around the title to this book taught me that not everyone loves you, Oprah, and in some ways that gave me great comfort. You learned to stand tall against any judgments hurled at you, continuing to move forward brilliantly.

      You have changed television for the better with positive and innovative programming.

      I confess: I like the medium. You really do have the best producers in the business and I admire that. And now I love not only your shows but also the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). I even upgraded to a premium cable TV package to be in your company again, making a financial investment in OWN.

      I am paying for insights, inspiration, and personal growth, and I have not been disappointed. OWN offers programming that motivates, uplifts, and helps viewers (now participants) to live our best lives. We are taught to own our talents, own ourselves as spiritual beings, and own our magnificence.

      My psychological health has been served, so the investment is a good one even though my insurance company doesn’t have a category for claims related to a higher cable bill due to TV mental health tune-ups. But wait! There’s more!

      As a bonus and as a result of OWN and The Oprah Winfrey Show, I am able to commune with regular, interesting, accomplished, stimulating black individuals missing from my daily world. I appreciate that about all black producers, OWN being the biggest and best.

      The network offers new life to the American vocabulary, unavailable before this decade, adding black dialects and ways of being in the world to our common dialogue. Although I, along with other white folks, still struggle to figure out what is politically correct in our world today, our arms are open.

      I saw a Tyler Perry interview on OWN yesterday. OMGoddess! What a wonderful glimpse into this great man/woman (Madea!). He’s just one of the gifted black people at OWN giving me a window into another world view and I’m grateful to be educated as a result.

      The more I look, the more I’m allowed in, the more I know more deeply that we are all the same at the core, regardless of race. We are the race of humanity. I always knew that intellectually, but your interviews have clarified my vision.

      I was in Heaven getting to know the likes of actors Michael B. Jordan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Idris Elba. To see into the hearts and minds of young, strong, capable, thoughtful black men is a gift some of us can’t find any other way.

      In his interview, Jordan says that movies like Fruitvale Station show producers that a wider audience is interested in the black experience.

      I overheard two white women talking about 12 Years A Slave just before it came out at the theater.

      I heard it’s very violent, the first woman said.

      Well, I won’t be seeing it then, said her friend.

      But I could hardly wait to see the film.

      While I understand shrinking from violence, it’s more important for me to see and face our history and confront our cruelty. Otherwise, I would find it hard to believe what people are capable of doing to their fellow humans.

      Seeing these realistic historical movies makes me a more educated person. I’ve been deepened and become more compassionate as a result of stories of the human spirit that I’ve viewed on the silver screen.

      I’m also the first one in line to put my money down for movies like Lee Daniel’s The Butler, 42, Jungle Fever, The Help, The Secret Life of Bees, The Color Purple, any Tyler Perry movie, and other films that highlight black life then and now.

      The confessions in this book are real. They’re secrets about life choices, mistakes, victories, triumphs, rejections, healing, and private encounters with race, love, surrender, and redemption.

      These are secrets millions of us might share with you if we had an opportunity to sit on your couch.

      May you be blessed in all you do, sister-friend,

      Suzan Vaughn

      San Luis Obispo, California

      June 2014

      * * * *

      ONE: THE OPRAH FACTOR

      The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.

      ~ Oprah Winfrey

      The World’s Confidante

      An Academy Award nomination is a pretty big event in the life of an actor, but Jonah Hill, nominated for his supporting role in Moneyball, said the greatest thing that had ever happened to him was sitting down with Oprah. Wow.

      Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s character on the TV show 30 Rock, worships at the church of Oprah and confesses her deepest, darkest secret to Oprah: Liz kissed a girl who then drowned, and she’s afraid she’s somehow responsible for the girl’s death. The skit is part of the show, but it illustrates what you mean to millions of people.

      Oprah is our fantasy priestess where we can come to vent, and where it will be okay, because she has confessed her own sins to us. Is that it? Is that what creates a craving for her ear? Is it that she has laid herself bare to us, so we feel safe telling her what we judge ourselves about most harshly? Is it that we know she’ll understand because even though she is all that, she is also only human?

      When Miss Robbie, star of Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, and former back-up songstress for Ike and Tina Turner, hosted Oprah at her St. Louis soul food restaurant, she confessed, When I grow up, I wanna be like Oprah. The woman is in her 70s.

      I admire Oprah because she’s a black woman who has struggled and made it, Miss Robbie said. It was really exciting to meet Oprah. I mean, when she was in the restaurant, I felt like I was on top of the world. Now that’s a legacy I admire. Oh yeah. I want people to feel on top of the world in my presence. Wonder if it requires fame.

      Julianne Hing of ColorLines magazine wonders in the magazine’s blog how much of Oprah’s appeal comes from the fact that she embodies women’s worst insecurities about themselves. She admits that she’s not a fan, but gives Oprah her proper due for cultivating an intimacy with her audience, revolutionizing 20th century media, and being a brave, charismatic, and powerful woman of color.

      She and I are both inspired by some of the same things Oprah has done.

      I love seeing the elaborate surprises Oprah plans for everyday people, the way she orchestrates tearful reunions and 24-hour makeovers and swoops in like an actual angel to make people’s dreams come true. It is crazy-making entertainment, Hing writes.

      "I believe, even on my meanest days, that Oprah’s quest for global dominance is fueled at least in part by a desire to do some good. And I do believe that she is committed to empowering women and girls, that she wants to give people hope and encourage folks to wake up to the power we all have to make change in the world. So I consume the media she creates even when I’m uncertain if I can stomach more of her self-absorption and moralizing. I am electrified and enraged by Oprah.

      I could not turn away from her even if I bothered to try, Hing states.

      Well, while I don’t presume that Oprah is questing for global dominance, I did think Hing had a few interesting points.

      Margie Barron, a writer for the Tolucan Times in Toluca Lake, Calif., calls you a sincere and gracious lady. Maybe that’s why everybody loves Oprah, she writes.

      But for me, her seeming inability to be anything other than what she really is, and the sincerity and genuine openness of her interviews, is where I believe the magic lies.

      Oprah’s candid personal style creates an intimate ambiance for her guests, both on the stage and in the audience. It is as if we are all close friends, getting to know the people we’ve wondered about, wanted to get to know.

      Some of the biggest celebrities in the world have opened up about their painful pasts, admitted their flaws, laughed about their pleasures, and offered up their demons. And it’s partly because Oprah has confided in us, sharing her own life story of sexual abuse, weight struggles, philanthropic joys, and beliefs about how things are in our world. She reveals her own secrets and enables her guests to reveal theirs.

      For most of us, it’s hard to imagine a long line of journalists, day after day, waiting for an interview, some asking truly stupid questions. But Margie Barron did understand:

      "Seeing her at the interview session, Oprah was everything

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