Dear Editor,
I wish to laud you for your editorial dated Tuesday February 6, 2007, and captioned “Constantine’s Tale”. It is a pity, nay a tragedy that it has become necessary to set aside a specific month to recognize the contributions of Africans to this world and positive aspects of their history. Still, that should not depreciate the value of this, though brief, inspiring account of the triumph of grit, determination and perseverance over life’s vicissitudes, whether they are a function of human imposition, or just a natural accrual of misfortune or human weakness.
Yes, Oprah by her own account was the victim of social inequality in the land of her birth, but also of a degree of human weakness on the part of some of the adults that formed part of her family tree. But the main factor in her triumph over the travails of her youth was unfortunately omitted in your brief summary of her life. As Oprah tells it her mother had tried to place her in a detention home but there was no available space there at the time to accommodate her. So she left Milwaukee to go live with her father in Nashville. Vernon Winfrey, a strict disciplinarian, applied the time tested methodology of “tough love” to cope with his daughter’s continued delinquency which had led to her premature pregnancy at 14 and subsequent losing of the boy child. The rules that he set for Oprah, and the advice he dispensed to this daughter of his, kept her on the straight and narrow and contributed to where she is in this world today. For a people about whom much is said about the absence of responsibility of fatherhood, this crucial facet of intervention in a child’s life must not be obscured or glossed over. Oprah makes sure it is highlighted whenever she tells the story of her life. And she does this with full awareness of its significance in the telling of the tale of her life.
Tales like those of Constantine Winfrey and his descendants which depict levels of powerlessness, levels of seemingly insurmountable obstacles stretching into infinity, and then success beyond one’s wildest imagina-tions, should inspire us to continue to aim for the holygrail, regardless of how elusive it might appear from time to time. The task he set for himself was not merely one designed to better his present. The task he set out upon impacted two hundred plus years into the future, manifesting itself in the metamorphosis of a little black girl starting off with little or nothing ending up as one of the richest and most influential persons in the world of today. And the two most prominent features that begs for recognition in this tale, are two strong black men who refused to bow to the pressures of circumstances and throw up their hands in exasperation.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
