Oprah Winfrey was raised in an environment where her parents were so poverty-stricken that she had to wear potato sacks because clothing was too expensive. However, from rags-to-riches, Oprah now has a three billion dollar fortune.
Her success has led her to be the only black woman on Forbes’ list of the 400 wealthiest people in America. With her fortune, she has given to the poor and aided the homeless. For example, in 2016 she donated one million dollars to help DC homeless women at the North Street Village.
In 2014, Oprah Winfrey packed up her studio and moved to a West Hollywood studio. The studio is comprised of a five-story office building near Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue.
Regardless of such, a crisis is portrayed right across the street from her studio. According to James Woods on Twitter, Oprah has done ‘extensive renovations’ to ‘The Lot’ which is across the street from her ‘OWN’ studio.
Sarcastically, James states that; “She has done extensive, and truly beautiful renovations to The Lot. Brand new apartments were built across the street. The new resident families cannot walk their children on the sidewalk to the local school.”
However, all jokes aside, the graphic nature of what is taking place in California can be seen in the short video that James posted to Twitter. In the video are several tents for homeless people. There are so many that they take up the entire sidewalk.
Strikingly, the video portrays the extreme reality that is going on in California, the reality that is caused by the detrimental effects of both Democratic leadership and elitism.
The two class society that has become California is on full display in the aforementioned clip. However, Oprah’s studio is one location, but there are dozens of streets that are similar in Los Angeles. In fact, it is such a crisis that even the liberal New York Times has called ‘the city of Angels,’ a Third World City.
Furthermore, another example was posted by The Daily Mail in December 2017. A three-minute clip from LiveLeak displayed the reality that is Christmas Day in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.
The video takes place on fifth, sixth street, and San Pedro in the Skid Row district.
According to researchers and reporters, the reality is that the rising cost of living in California is forcing the Middle Class to reside in their vehicles while the Lower Class are forced to reside in tents or worse.
Incredibly, California has become a hotbed for outbound domestic departure; people are leaving in droves. However, the outbound migration is not necessarily new, in fact, for several decades now, California has been one of the leading states to see high outbound-migration by Middle Class and Lower Class folk.
Regardless of such, California is still becoming wealthier. The elitist nature that is growing increasingly apparent in the ‘Golden State’ is causing an affordability crisis that is so bad that if a balance is not restored soon, the companies that thrive in the state will begin taking drastic hits.
Balance must be restored if California is going to make it back from this crisis. For example, the median income required for Los Angeles County and the Bay Area is a salary of roughly $150,000 per year.
According to Curbed; “Companies are starting to understand that if they don’t help with these problems, they eventually won’t be able to hire anybody to work here anymore,” Allison Arieff, New York Times columnist and editorial director at the nonprofit San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), told Curbed.
The environment that has become California is resembling that of a two class society, one in which the one percent thrive and the ninety-nine percent are left to the streets.