Oprah handles herself with class after encountering “racism”, discrimination, receives apology
Did Oprah experience true racism or a form of discrimination (Photo credit: vmallya)
Oprah handles herself with class
She’s one of the richest women in the world and in any situation, even in the face of “alleged” racism, Oprah handles herself with class.
Oprah was in Switzerland for Tina Tuner’s wedding, when she sauntered into luxury Trois Pommes and spotted a crocodile handbag. As she tells Entertainment Tonight, she was in “full Oprah gear” other than her eye lashes when a clerk at the swanky store refused to show her a handbag she spied telling her it was too expensive.
Oprah asked again and was met with the same response.
So what did Oprah do. She left without making a fuss which, by the way, is the classy thing to do.
Can you imagine if Chris Brown wanted to purchase the very same handbag for his mother and was told it was too expensive?
I’ll tell you, 10-1 odds, he would have launched into a profanity-laced tirade throwing his money around screaming ‘Don’t you know who the &*** I am”, while the people thugs that accompanied him would have likely trashed the store.
He’s not the only one who likely would have behaved like that.
I can think of a few celebrities, of all races, that would have behaved badly, although he is the first one that came to mind.
Not Oprah. She didn’t become one of the richest and most power women in the world by acting like a thug.
In fact, she did not even name the name of the store during her interview. Classy!
Oprah later tweeted that she would not pay $38,000 for a purse and I believe her. She strives to maintain a sense of normalcy, in spite of her wealth. Nor did she want to provide the clerk with a hefty commission after the way she was treated so left without buying anything.
The only thing that I do not agree with was that it was necessarily racism. The handbag, reportedly a Tom Ford Jennifer bag named after Jennifer Aniston, was reportedly kept behind a screen and the snooty, discriminatory clerk appears to have thought that Oprah could not afford it.
Oprah was reportedly shown other purses in the shop which is why I say it may have more discriminatory. She admits to being shown “small” purses. Even the small ones, at that shop, are quite expensive.
Although discrimination can be a form of racism, in this case the discrimination may have been because of perceived wealth and not because of one’s race.
If it was out and out racism, wouldn’t the clerk have refused to help her at all, and deny service, since, as Oprah is implicating, she is black?
Trudie Goetz, the shop’s owner, released some “jumbled’ statements which really did seem to point to discrimination, rather than racism.
If I were shopping on Rodeo drive, which unfortunately this poor blogger cannot do…yet, in “Chellie gear”, meaning dressed nicely with makeup and hair done, I believe that I would not have any issue.
I also 100% believe know that if I were to go out in “regular” clothes without hair and make-up and dressed ultra casually, what some may even consider sloppily, that I would be looked down upon and probably would not receive any service. This has actually happened to me here in Las Vegas!
Oprah handled herself with class, as she always does, however she might have sent a more powerful message to all people if she recognized that the slur might have been discriminatory for reasons other than race.
By saying, “I could have had the big blowup thing and thrown down the black card and all that stuff, but why do that?“, she, in essence, did all that.
She has a lot of influence and sometimes comments like that can actually incite others to shout cries of racism when there are none, as the NAACP did recently.
The Swiss Tourism Board has apologized to Oprah.
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