Tonight Oprah Winfrey will be giving away $200,000 pairs of diamond earrings to each person honored at her Legends Ball for famous African-American women; on Wednesday and Thursday, Oprah will honor Elie Wiesel and 50 high school students who wrote about the relevance of his account of the Holocaust in “Night.”

The juxtaposition of diamond earrings and the Holocaust says something about the paradox that is Oprah. Those contradictions seem to meet in her shows. Oprah gives equal honor to media celebrities and those who commemorate historic atrocities.