Reminded me of this: (which I don’t know is true or not)
I know my Grandfather, who was very well off, bought a new Caddy every 2 years, while he was employed. He always showed up in suit, and paid cash. Just after he retired he went in to buy a new one-no trade, he’d decided to give the old one to my mother. In his casual clothing, and older, they ignored him at the dealership. For quite a while.
First time the old man ever bought a Lincoln.
Honestly, if I thought someone was fucking with me just because of my appearance and preconceptions of what I can and cannot afford, I’d probably go along with it just to see what happens and make them feel like an idiot when they found out they missed a large sale because of their preconceptions.
Sorry, can’t exactly get behind the Oprah hate on this one.
It’s prejudice because the clerk assumed Oprah couldn’t afford it. (Are customers supposed to wear their tiaras while they shop?) If it was influenced because Oprah’s black, that’s racist.
I barely remember that Oprah was over there for a celebrity wedding, and don’t recall her coming back to the States trumpeting she’d been wronged. She later offered this incident as an example when asked about racism. IIRC
I think Oprah’s classiness comes from a lifetime of striving for understanding and forgiveness. But she don’t take no shit. Good combo for a human.
Anybody remember this story? I remember reading about it at the time and it has always sort of stuck in my head :).
That was pretty damn funny 
The book Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone explains the pricing model of high-end stores. They will often have an outrageously-priced item that they don’t intend to sell. The purpose of the item is to increase sales of lower-priced items. In other words, they have the $35,000 handbag to make the $15,000 handbag look cheap.
It seems likely to me that the salesperson was instructed that when a customer was looking at the $35,000 handbag, to try to sell the customer a cheaper handbag. They probably didn’t expect anyone to ever spend such an outrageous amount of money on a handbag. Even most extremely wealthy people wouldn’t spend their money that way. Then Oprah showed up and actually wanted to buy the thing. Or maybe she didn’t want to buy it, but was offended at being steered away from it.
In any case, I doubt this was racism. Oprah probably got the same treatment that anyone does when looking at this absurdly overpriced item.
Certainly seemed dismissive to me, unless they meant they thought the encounter never happened, or that it wasn’t due to race.
It’s funny, a more overt racist incident like this brings all the more subtle, more covert racism to the fore front. A thousand reasons why this incident wasn’t racism. Oh no no no, she wasn’t dressed right, the shop never sells the handbag, just a cultural linguistic misunderstanding.
It’s obvious. Switzerland is incredibly racist and Oprah is black. Discounting and denying her experiences, something you will never understand being white, and making up elaborate scenarios for why, is racist in itself.
This was my first reaction upon first reading the story. Of course, my interpretation may be skewed since I can’t stand Oprah in the first place… The clerk may well have been a racist, and I know this is probably very petty of me, but when someone plays the “Don’t you know who I am?” card, my gut reaction is “Why? Have you forgotten who you are?”
I would love to know what makes a bag worth $38K. I got a perfectly serviceable purse at WalMart for $12 that I’ve been using for years!! 
This is one thing I was thinking. A lot of people aren’t aware of how different other cultures can be. American culture is quite “entitled” (I say this neutrally) with the expectation that salespeople will act in a certain way. In Switzerland it may be normal for them to be a bit more direct, even rude by our standard. Or it may not.
Also, in my personal experience, foreigners can sometimes sound rude just because they’re not used to how we might dress things up that we want to say.
I also considered this, but just like I don’t know much about Swiss culture, I don’t know much about expensive handbag stores.
Coming to any conclusion, or even considering other possibilities, than racism is racist? Even if we think, on balance, it probably was racism, it’s only fair to at least consider other possibilities.
Are you sure that if she were a white non-German speaker it would have been different? Are you sure the salesperson doesn’t get asked twenty times a day to show “rich” bankers or their wives the handbag, only to discover they’re never going to buy it?
I often suspect attitudes like yours may harm the anti-racism cause more than it helps, especially when you say “It’s obvious. Switzerland is incredibly racist”.
Fair enough. I think this case is one of those classic “race, class, gender” cases that lefties love so much :). Oprah gets snubbed because of race, absolutely, inexcusable. I suspect some of the dismissive commentary has some gender issues going on as well: women shopping for expensive luxuries is a sexist trope in our society, and when Oprah talks about buying a $35K item that’s used specifically by women, I think that might be leading to some of the contempt for her.
But then there’s class. She’s talking here about The Problems of Billionaires. Given the intersection between race and class in the US–the hugely disproportionate number of folks living in poverty who are nonwhite–her complaints about the racism suffered by the ultra-rich are something of a niche complaint.
I’m a white dude who’s not in a position to tell Oprah what to talk about, but I can’t help wondering whether she’d be more productive talking about the countless daily occurrences in which racism causes real, actual problems.
Yes, I think any ol’ white person could go in there and ask for a closer look at the $35k purse.
And leaffan, I am sorry to be an American since we are so awful. Or maybe we are only awful when we are abroad? Or rich? I don’t know. Anyway, sorry for being American.
Did you really just call everyone who had differing opinions on why this might have happened… racist? Really??
For the record (And so I can be classified as a “racist” top!), I also see this as classist. The clerk *might * be racist too, but the incident doesn’t give us enough information to determine that as a fact.
Just saying – Switzerland is racist. Somebody earlier said he got the feeling that it was “The Alabama of Europe” – Well, if Alabama were an obscenely rich place, it would.
Been there, hated the place. I am Spanish, white, and I have never felt less welcome anywhere in the world. The Swiss are insular, tight-knit, and look at all “outsiders” with a mixture of disdain and suspicion.
Very “old-fashioned” in their attitudes and outlook on life, as well – very much anchored in the past (with everything that that implies when it comes to dealing with “the other”). Heck, this is the county where women were granted the right to vote in Federal Elections only in 1971 (!!!) and where one of the cantons (Appenzell Innerrhoden) granted women the right to vote in local matters in 19 fucking 91, and only because the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland ordered them to!
Want to live and work there? Forget about ever truly “integrating” in society. You will never be as good as a “real” Swiss. And you can be sure that the neighbours will be nosy and will be looking for a reason to royally fuck you up due to some “transgression” that may exist only in their minds. Hell, I lived for 4 years in Japan and I found it easier to integrate there and make friends!
To top it all, the place is mind-numbingly boring.
So, in my opinion? Yeah, the clerk at the shop was being 100% Swiss. How dare a non-Swiss, non-white Untermensch even dare to entertain the thought that they might try to buy something for that price? Cleaning ladies have no access to that sort of money!
Sorry if I sound harsh, but my observations regarding the average Swiss and my experiences in the place have convinced me that Switzerland is populated by generally horrid people. There are exceptions, but unfortunately they are few.
“Madame, you cannot return stolen goods.”
This store is closed for business! I got Oprah money, bitch!
No, though I see how you might read it that way, I was unclear. Rather, the collective doubting of a person’s experiences are part of the less noticeable racism that continues to pervade our culture.
People doubting her experience aren’t necessarily raving racists, but the amount of doubting (incl. outside these boards) is a part of the insidiousness of racism.
The exact same thing happens when a woman relates a time she experienced sexism. There are always people who claim it wasn’t really sexism, she misunderstood, or she’s overreacting, cultural misunderstanding, she made it up, all sorts of things.
If Oprah had said the people in the shop had a dog I doubt there’s be so much interest in proving how it was actually a cat, or it was a dog but it was small, or it was non-allergenic, or she never went to that shop at all, or she’s just saying it for attention.
Seriously, have any of you been to Switzerland? People there are racist, and they’re not shy about it.
You can’t know of her experiences as a black woman in Switzerland (unless you are a black woman who’s been to Switzerland), and the presumption that you would know, the denial and downplaying of her experience, that’s a part of racism.
According to the report on NPR I just finished reading, Oprah asked THREE times to see the handbag, and was refused all 3 times by the saleslady.
If it was just a one-off time, and Oprah got her panties in a bunch over it, then fine, maybe Oprah is a little bit of a drama queen with a sense of entitlement. But I’d be pissed the hell off too if I was told 3 times by a store clerk that I couldn’t see an item, no matter how much money I make.
I mean, if the store person had actually said, “That hand bag is very expensive, are you sure you wouldn’t like to consider a few other more reasonable bags,” then maybe we could blame Oprah for being a fuckwit. But that’s not what the report says. The report says that the store person just flat out refused 3 times, with no good reason, other than to try and encourage Oprah to look at the other bags. If she had mentioned the price of the bag specifically or generally, that could have given O a chance to say, “yes, I understand the bag is expensive and I’d like to see it please,” or something.
I’m gonna go with racist on this one, after all.
Fuck that store.
Well, Tina Turner wants to live there. Didn’t she recently renounce her US citizenship and move to Switzerland?
Yep. Oprah was likely going incognito, and that means leaving the expensive garb back at the hotel.
They look for things like Rolex watches, designer clothers, etc.
I was asking about reservations at a rather snooty restaurant, dressed casually. They were cool, until they noticed I was wearing a rather expensive watch (it was a gift). Whereupon the previous cool maître de started talking Chef’s table, etc. he even said “Nice watch!”.