'Racist moments' against Oprah Winfrey should bring outrage

[lunasun]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oprah-winfey-20130809,0,1778726.story

“I say to the woman, ‘I would like to see that bag on the shelf, and she says, ‘No, that one’s too expensive, I’ll show you this one.’ And she proceeded to tell me how the bag was created for Jennifer Aniston, and I said, ‘No I really want to see the black one--it was lizard or alligator. I’m sure it was expensive.”

In fairness, it was King who first raised the issue of race. He asked her whether at her rarefied place in the culture, she still experienced racism.

Indeed she has: “The higher up you go in the chain of capitalism,” she said, “people don’t expect you to be sitting at certain board tables. I sense it, and you know it.”

... Robin Givhan noted that actress Vanessa Williams was once mistaken for a waitress at a party even though she was wearing a gown. And that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once reprimanded a saleswoman for showing her costume jewelry instead of the nicer pieces she had asked to see.

Years ago, Winfrey told King, she and her hairdresser, Andre Walker, were walking on Madison Avenue in New York high spirits after taking in a Broadway show, (“Sarafina!”). She spotted a sweater in a store window.
“They wouldn’t open the door, and they wouldn’t open the door,” Winfrey said. “I am not the person who pulls the race card, so I am like, ‘Wow, gee, do they see us out here?’”
She and Walker went across the street to find a phone and called the boutique. “They said, ‘Yes, we’re open.’ OK, coming over!”
No one recognized Winfrey. The doors stayed locked.

“We had seen these two white women go in the store,” Winfrey said. “Suddenly it dawns on both of us: Oh my God, I think we’re having a racist moment! And it was.”
How does she know? Because, she said, she called the store later to complain and was told that two black people had robbed the store a week earlier, and “they were afraid to open the door.”
When the store offered to send her the garment for free, she declined. “I said, ‘Keep the sweater.’”

[no_hypocrisy]

1. 2005 Incident at Hermes in Paris

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062302086.html


Depending upon which view you adopt, either Oprah Winfrey was the victim of racism or the store was denying access to all patrons arriving after 6:30 as it was preparing for a private event.

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Or ...

the store found a convenient face saving excuse (after they found out it was Oprah - they would not have bothered to respond to me, unless it was to answer a law suit,) that some are all too willing to accept.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Hermes is in my experience a multi purpose prejudice market. Nice stuff, not nice policy.

I'd not be surprised to hear another tale of prejudice from them, I have seen it myself.

[ZombieHorde]

4. If the store was robbed by two white people,

would they have been afraid to open the door to other white people?

[lunasun]

7. Thank You !!!! Exactly

[Ash_F]

8. +1 /nt

[msongs]

5. "and she's buying a stairway to heaven" even stairways have bumps nt

[packman]

6. Not always about race

A few years back my wife and I were walking thru the kitchen cabinet section of Sears when we spotted a set of cabinets and inquired about them (we were in the midst of remodeling). I asked about the price to which the white salesclerk replied, "Oh, they're terribly expensive" and turned around to continue to talk to her fellow sales friends. Now we are white and were dressed in causal jeans and sweatshirts, but I can never forget that sneer and look-down-your-nose attitude of hers. It turned us off on Sears and we got the cabinets custom built somewhere else.
Like the scene in Pretty Woman when Julie got rebuked in that up-scale clothing store.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. No but when all else is eliminated it's pretty much about race.

A sales clerk in a high end store knows how to recognize expensive hair styles and clothing (even casual clothing.)