Dear Oprah

I don’t suppose that you will ever read this letter. Chances of it reaching your eyes are probably slim-to-none, just like our emails, phone calls and letters which never reached you. You are the reigning Queen of the United States, and, like true royalty, you are surrounded by an impenetrable fortress.

What a difference you might have made had you known…had just one email piqued the interest of a brick in your fortress!

You see, everyone talks about equality; pretty much everyone assumes that equality exists these days. “Nappy-headed ho’s” will bring justice seekers out of the woodwork; a careless remark by a newscaster will invoke the wrath of the Rainbow Coalition; but in Southeastern Arizona, racial equality did not exist in the winter of 2002 –2003.

A beautiful, articulate young African-American woman was figuratively lynched, and not one person of African-American descent came to her aid. Not you, not Al Sharpton, not Jesse Jackson, not the NAACP – no one came to her aid. I like to think that if Dr. King were still alive, he would have restored Carolyn’s dream before it turned to dust in the desert wind.

She was what every woman of any color should be; she was much like you, Oprah. Except for the fact that she was not famous and possessed no power in government.

Carolyn Harris had achieved. A divorced African-American mother, she had achieved success and a better life for her children by her own efforts, without a mother, father or husband directing, or applauding, her. Her life was a role model for young African-American women. You should know about that, Oprah, because you, yourself, are a role model; alas, society will never have more than one Oprah, but they could have had many more Carolyn Harrises – she was an achievable role model.

Even Affirmative Action did not exist here that winter of 2002 –2003.

When the county of Cochise and the state of Arizona “lynched” Carolyn, they destroyed the only visible African-American person who worked through Cochise Health Systems.
A year before they took our contract, Carolyn visited their offices on Melody Lane. She was seated, by the receptionist, in the trash room – a trash room overflowing over with full wastebaskets and a paper shredder.

Carolyn has two sons, and she had great plans for them. They would both attend the finest universities and have all the opportunities that she had never had. They would have a real start in life as intelligent, educated, handsome, well-spoken African-American men. Carolyn’s plans for her sons were aborted with her lynching. Today, the oldest is in Iraq, and the youngest is on the streets.

Beautiful Carolyn, herself, is languishing in a twilight world between life and death, with the sure knowledge that all that was taken from her by the bloodied, greedy hands of the government can never be returned. The death of her dream is dragging the rest of her into her grave.

What a difference would have now existed if you had simply stepped off a plane in Tucson and said, “I’m here to tend to Carolyn Harris.”

Look what you have accomplished with Barack Obama! Oh, how I wish that Carolyn could have had just a tiny shred of your magic essence!

Still one of your adoring subjects, I remain,
Mary A. Wilson