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oprah winfrey

"Who me?" A woman asks if she is selfish.

In 1997, Oprah Winfrey spoke with Maya Angelou for an “Oprah’s Lifeclass” episode, and she revealed one of the most important lessons the “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” author had taught her: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

“When a person says to you, ‘I’m selfish,’ or ‘I’m mean,’ or ‘I am unkind,’ believe them,” Oprah says in the clip. “They know themselves much better than you do.”

Oprah recounted the life advice while discussing a relationship with a man she felt had let her down. “[Dr. Angelou] was saying to me, ‘Why are you blaming the other person? He showed you who he was,'" Oprah recalled.

Angelou’s simple advice is a great way to detect potential red flags, whether someone has a new romantic partner, coworker or friend. It’s especially helpful when we’re unsure of how to judge someone or in denial about their questionable behavior.


A Reddit user with the username Potatoe_stealer asked the online forum, “What is a telltale sign that someone is a selfish person?” and the question received over 7,000 responses. Many of them explained how selfish people often disregard others in conversations or downplay the seriousness of their problems.

This is a great way to determine if someone will be selfish when a conversation turns into action. According to this group of Reddit users, if someone is cutting you off when you speak, they may not be there for you when things get rough.

Here are 19 of the best responses to the question: "What is a telltale sign that someone is a selfish person?"

1.

"They feel no remorse for how they’ve hurt others." — avidhiker96150

2.

"Doesn’t think they’re wrong in the slightest bit. They can’t shoulder any bit of responsibility." — No_Key_6276

3.

"They don't remember the times people helped them, but remember clearly all the times they have helped others." — GoodMerlinpeen

4.

"They respond how worse their situation is when you’re sharing your problems with them. No try for help or listening, just trying to draw attention on their side." — seyfgs

5.

"They gladly take any favours you do for them, but when asked if they could reciprocate once, they get defensive and or aggressive and act like you're the selfish one for daring to expect something in return. It doesn’t make you a bad person to expect reciprocation in a relationship with someone else, romantic or platonic. Relationships are give and take and that makes them healthy. It's not entitlement to expect kindness if you give kindness. If you're the only one giving, you're being taken advantage of." — random-sh**-writing

6.

"Every bad thing you do to them is drama-worthy. Every bad thing they do to you are details and should be moved on from, and why can't you just do that? You're so dramatic!" — Pasdusername

7.

"If you are in a group and there is one person that is constantly interrupting the middle of what you or anyone else is saying generally to brag about themselves with a 'one-upper' story, is generally a precursor to stop associating with them. I've met too many of them in my days and they are more often than not happy to throw you under the bus whenever the opportunity arises." —Philay_shio

8.

"If they always talk about themselves." —Effective-Craft-1173

9.

"They have that superpower to lead everything back to themselves. Even when you're actually talking about your own life or a specific problem of yours, they somehow make it that you start talking about them instead without even changing the topic." — Anskin12

10.

"They have that superpower to lead everything back to themselves. Even when you're actually talking about your own life or a specific problem of yours, they somehow make it that you start talking about them instead without even changing the topic." — AnnaVonKleve

11.

"Cliche answer but I have found the 'return the shopping cart' test to be pretty accurate. It is such a small thing, but it does tell you if a person thinks small things like that matter." — LeeroyTC

12.

"They're rude to waitstaff or just staff and employees in general. Or if their situational awareness is severely lacking and they don't seem to have a problem with it." — SpeedBlitzX

13.

"Trauma dumping and then not reciprocating if someone else had a bad day/felt comfortable enough to open up to them." — PessimistThePillager

14.

"People who have kids on purpose, and then act like their kids owe them (well above and beyond basic kindness and human respect) for the rest of their lives." — femmetastic

15.

"Poor listener." — Pristine-Practice-51

16.

"When they monologue at you. Every conversation is just them performing and everyone else is just part of the audience." — blocky_jabberwocky

17.

"People who always talk about money or the grind. Usually, they will sell you out in a heartbeat or take advantage of others for money which is pretty selfish." — stonebutts

There’s a new memorial and museum in Montgomery, Alabama, that Oprah Winfrey wants the world to see.

The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice open on April 26.  

In a segment on “60 Minutes” that aired April 8, Oprah was given advance access to the museum and memorial, and in her report, she identified the “reckoning taking place in America over how we remember our history.”  


Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images.

It’s one of the first museums in the history of the United States to memorialize black lynching victims in our country.

The museum and memorial are a product of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organization that works to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S., challenge racial and economic injustice, and protect the basic human rights of our country’s most vulnerable individuals.  

EJI is led by Bryan Stevenson, a historian, public speaker, and lawyer who has dedicated his career to advocating for the poor, incarcerated, and otherwise condemned in America.

Bryan Stevenson. Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

For years, our history books have ignored or downplayed the epidemic of lynching in the United States.

A multi-year investigation from the EJI helped change the false narrative. Researchers documented:

4,075 racial terror lynchings of African-Americans in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950 — at least 800 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported.”

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is showcasing the names of victims on the markers that hang from the ceiling.

The reality is harsh. But it’s important that we recognize our history so it doesn’t become our future.  

The memorial has 805 steel markers, one marker for each county where lynchings took place. The magnitude of it is staggering — during Winfrey’s tour with Stevenson, she was shocked to see just how many names there were.

“Every name has its own story,” Winfrey said.

“If they couldn’t find the man they were looking for, they would lynch that man’s wife or daughter or child,” Stevenson said, of the horrific lynchings.

Each marker lists the names of lynching victims. Image from “60 Minutes.”

As Stevenson has noted in a number of interviews, owning up to America’s history of racial injustice is a huge challenge, but one that is worth it. If we can actually accept our nation’s failures, we can move toward a place where we won’t let our worst moments define us.    

The United States can move beyond the horrors of our past — it’s happened elsewhere before.  

Despite hosting one of the most lethal genocides in the world’s history, Germany has largely managed to admit to and move forward from the Holocaust.

The nation hasn’t done this by hiding out from reality, though. Instead, German schools teach children about the Holocaust early on, and multiple museums there allow citizens and visitors to reflect on the horrific acts.  

Germany owns up to its inequity and has policies in place that criminalize anti-Semitic and white supremacist behavior.

Photo by Jerry Lampen/AFP/Getty Images.

America is a great nation, but for far too long, privileges have been granted to far too few.

We believe in freedom, democracy, and the rights to individual liberty and prosperity. But historically, those privileges existed only on the backs of people whose humanity was stripped from their lives. It’s tragic and horrific, but it does not have to be our story.

“There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy,” Stevenson once wrote. “When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can’t otherwise see; you hear things you can’t otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us.”  

By amplifying the voices that were buried; recognizing their existence, their lives, and their pain; and ending similar behavior in our prisons, neighborhoods, and school systems, we can move toward a place where America’s promise becomes our central reality.

We can do better — and The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice are great ways to start.  

The museum and memorial open on April 26, 2018.

If you had President Donald Trump's ear, what would you say? Love him or hate him, it's likely a question some Americans have pondered. For Oprah Winfrey, however, the answer's a simple one: She wouldn't say a thing.

On CNN's "The Van Jones Show," Jones asked Winfrey what she'd say to Trump — "billionaire to billionaire, megastar to megastar, human being to human being" — if she had 10 minutes with him.

"I wouldn't," she answered quickly and calmly. "I would only speak if I felt that I could be heard."

Watch Winfrey and Jones' interaction (story continues below):


Her interview with Jones came amid yet another attack from Trump. At a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, March 10, Trump said he'd "love to beat Oprah" in a hypothetical 2020 presidential match-up, claiming he knows how to capitalize on her political "weakness."

She's not taking the bait though.

Winfrey is sticking to an admirable strategy: Trump attacks her, and she brushes him off, unfazed.

In February — after Winfrey gave a rousing speech about the #MeToo movement at the 2018 Golden Globes, raising speculation she may be eyeing a 2020 presidential run — Trump went on the offensive using his favorite social media platform. He slammed a "60 Minutes" panel she oversaw with voters in Michigan on Twitter, calling Winfrey "very insecure."

When Winfrey went on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" a few days later, she shrugged off the divisive tweet. "I don’t like giving negativity power," she noted to DeGeneres. "So I just thought ... what?"

Winfrey's latest comment to Jones, however, points to a larger criticism of Trump: He doesn't seem to listen.

Whether it be out of apathy or inability, Trump has lacked the eagerness to listen to (and learn from) others in helping his administration run smoothly and successfully.

"My primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff," Trump said in 2016 when asked who he turns to for foreign policy advice, raising eyebrows.

Trump's jarringly short attention span means officials need to shrink the amount of reading he sifts through and keep his meetings — even the most critical — as brief as possible. And daily intelligence briefings? He doesn't need them, he once claimed.  

Winfrey's comments, however, hint at a more alarming truth: Trump's dated attitudes — steeped in white resentment and old-school bigotry — appear to be stuck in the Dark Ages, where he's unwilling to budge. And no one, especially a woman of color, should feel obligated to spend the time or energy hopelessly trying to show him the light.

Tiffany Haddish, breakout star of the hit film "Girls Trip," is honest, bold, and absolutely hilarious — especially when she's just being herself.

Her recent come-up is especially notable given her difficult childhood. Haddish and her siblings entered foster care after their mother was diagnosed with a debilitating mental illness as a result of a traumatic brain injury.

Haddish had behavior issues and a tough time in school but never lost her quick wit and drive. She never stopped grinding in pursuit of a career in comedy. Decades later, she’s finally getting her due.


Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images.

This week, Haddish appeared on "The Ellen Show," and the topic quickly turned to Haddish's fondness for Oprah Winfrey.

She told host Ellen DeGeneres about her plan to go into business selling vegetables with the notoriously garden-loving legend, calling her imaginary venture "Tiff & O’s" —  "'Cuz I’m probably going to be doing most of the work," Haddish explained.

Haddish also told the story of working as an extra in the made-for-TV film “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which Oprah produced.  Haddish was on set, telling jokes to the other background actors between takes when Oprah walked by and told her, "You’re a very funny lady!"

At the time, Haddish responded like most of us would when coming face to face with a compliment from Oprah:

All GIFs via The Ellen Show/YouTube.

Oprah asked her name and told Haddish to write to her and keep her posted on her stand-up career. Haddish assured Oprah she would.

She kept up her end of the bargain, writing to Oprah over the years, but the Queen of Entertainment didn't respond to her letters.

So Ellen went full Ellen and surprised Haddish by surprising her with her idol.

When Haddish realized Oprah was there, in the flesh, she absolutely lost it. There was dancing, laughter, and a flood of tears. It's a pure-joy, full-circle moment.

To go from a childhood in foster care with an uncertain future to meeting your idol on national TV while doing press for your own exploding career? That’s nothing short of amazing. And this exchange was just the best:

"I love you," Haddish said through happy tears.

"You are so, so, so, good," Winfrey responded.

"You told me that in a dream. … I ask questions, and I answer them in your voice," Haddish admitted.

As to why Oprah never responded to the letters? She says she didn't receive them.

She's a busy mogul, so it's no wonder a few things slip through the cracks. Oprah assured Haddish she’d respond in the future and that she’d even give Haddish the best ways to reach her.

The two continued their reunion by cooking "joyful collard greens" with Ellen. It was a moment a long time coming, but some surprises are worth the wait — or as Haddish said, "I looked at myself in the mirror, and I said, 'Girl, today is going to be a magical day.'"

Watch Ellen's ridiculously truly lovely surprise and prepare to be delighted.