It’s interesting how much the press (and a few bitter members of the public) is salivating over the recent scandal surrounding alleged abused at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

My suspicions are that most of the press and critics that are gloating now have absolutely no sincere concern for the welfare of the pupils at the school. This is more about a bit of a ‘gotcha’ factor.

First of all, there were many criticisms made in the press when Oprah first launched the school back in January. People had the nerve to ask why Oprah made the school so lavish – the underlying, sinister thought being why do underprivileged, mostly black girls in South Africa deserve this type of significant investment. Another side of the criticism was questions raised as to why Oprah set up the school in South Africa, instead of inside the United States. Much of Oprah’s philanthropy (educational and otherwise) has been done right here in the U.S. Further, the United States is the wealthiest country in the world, and therefore has the resources to fix the problems it has with its underserved schools; it just lacks the political will to do so. South Africa, on the other hand, does not have the economic resources that the U.S. has. So Oprah decided to extend her contribution there, to help some poverty-stricken children get a quality education. What the hell is wrong with that? As the saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished”; this is a sad part of our existence.

Secondly, Oprah has achieved unprecedented success, fame, and power, especially as a woman and black person born in 1954, in the United States. And she continues to expand her empire and influence, beyond what most, if not all other celebrities have achieved. With that comes a lot of envy and professional jealousy from some in our society. So whenever the slightest opportunities present themselves, the vultures in our media and general society pounce on it. There has been an ongoing campaign to discredit her, since many know that Oprah’s greatest asset is her credibility. From the James Frey debacle to the more recent issues surrounding the scandal at her school and questions raised about books mentioned on her show or Web-site, the misleading angle of most reports is to suggest that Oprah [knowingly] supports or endorses something that turns out to have some flaws.

When Oprah supports someone or builds a school, there is absolutely no way she can predict who involved might betray her trust. It’s a risk. You put your faith in people, and given that people are people, some of them will unfortunately disappoint you. I don’t see how you can be blamed for the actions of other people. After having learned about the alleged abuse at her school, if Oprah had done nothing to address it, then I would blame her, but she acted immediately to take corrective action. But, no, this was yet another opportunity for some in the media to try to pull her down, yet again. Some of us just can’t be happy for other people’s success, because we feel insecure in our own self-worth when we see others excelling. We are told that this is part of human nature. However, not everyone behaves this way, and hopefully we can evolve past this dark side of our supposed ‘nature’.

There are those who hate Oprah for her philosophy on life; her remarkable success; her politics; her race; her posing on O magazine cover each month (it’s her magazine, so she can do whatever she wants, and her fans don’t seem to mind since the magazine is still so successful); and her apparent omnipresence in American culture.

Whatever the case is, I think Oprah has recognized that you can’t be liked by everyone. In fact, no one is. She is spiritual and has also developed a keen sense of differentiating between constructive criticism and destructive criticism; after all, the intentions behind each of those are clearly different.

The school abuse is obviously tragic but not her fault. How could she know?

I do blame Oprah for not doing her homework about Jessica Seinfeld, before inviting that gold-digger, plagiarist and prostitute to her show.