She can certainly spend her money any way she wants, but when she recounts a story of wanting to buy a $35,000 purse, she’s indulging in a little bit of stealth bragging. Not that that’s pertinent to the story.
If I may, step 1.5 would be to wait about 5 weeks. Then enjoy step 3 from afar…
Step 3: Commission’s taken back from employee’s paycheck after they already spent it, leaving them penniless or owing the store for years to come.
I don’t look at it so much from the stealth bragging angle as I do as an example of “do as I say not as I do.” It’s jarring considering her message is more about the heart than it is material possessions.
She certainly is aware of what a little splurge buying on her part could do for a small village anywhere in the world.
The news got a disappointed snort from me. Here’s a learning experience, Oprah: This is what poor Black, White, Hispanic and Asian people feel like all the time.
The clerk was Italian.
I’m under the impression that people who can afford the ludicrously priced items used to make the ridiculously priced items seem reasonable schedule private shopping audiences. The same goes for exotic cars. People don’t just walk in off the street kick the tires and ask to take one for a test drive. From what I understand, they make an appointment.
If this is the extent of your evidence - and it seems as it is - you’ll have to forgive me for my lack of outrage.
Just because racism exists doesn’t mean it we should presume it in a given situation until its absence is proven.
mmm
The only thing obscene in this little story is that Winfrey was considering spending $38K on a fucking purse.
Happened to me a while back. A buddy of mine and I stopped in our local RR dealer to see a new car. We were told we could not even speak to anyone without an appointment and a credit check.
We come back 3 weeks later in my Corniche (1970 hardtop) and are welcomed like old college buddies. They had a new (to me) 1993 Corniche IV with the glass rear window for under 40k, and let us drive it around with no salesman bothering us.
Two days later, my wife told me she was with child, and my new toy would have to wait.
I’m still waiting.
We can’t know the true details, but I suspect if I had asked to see the purse in my broken German, I wouldn’t have gotten to see it either. I suspect more class-ism than racism. No racism in Pretty Woman or Rolls-Royce Atlanta. Just good old-fashioned snobbery. NOKD.
Couldn’t an incredibly rich person in such a situation simply pull out the Black/Gold/Coated with fairy dust credit card, that i’m told the seriously rich get access to?
Yes, that’s my guess too. Could be racism, could be snobbery vs Americans, but most likely is class snobbery.
I want to know: do other customers get to fondle the purse?
If so, how was Oprah dressed?
I am not ruling out racism, but…
I don’t see anything in the linked story or video (it wouldn’t work for me from the BBC site, but here’s the interview on YouTube) to indicate that Oprah even knew how much the purse cost. She says it was up on a shelf, and while I don’t frequent fancy handbag shops I imagine they don’t have huge price tags on their goods. In Oprah’s account the saleswoman doesn’t say the actual price of the purse either, she just kept saying that it was too expensive for Oprah.
From CNN: “She told Entertainment Tonight: ‘I was in Zurich the other day at a store whose name I will not mention. I didn’t have my eyelashes on, but I was in full Oprah Winfrey gear. I had my little Donna Karan skirt and sandals, but obviously The Oprah Winfrey Show is not shown in Zurich.’” I have no idea how fancy a “little Donna Karan skirt and sandals” looks.
That’s the only purse befitting a woman who started a magazine, named it after herself, and put herself on (almost) every cover.
BTW, the reports are that the handbag was from Tom Ford. If I were him, I’d be figuring out which one she was trying to look at and sending it to her as a gift. Even if she doesn’t want it any more, perhaps together they can auction it off, for the United Negro College Fund or another worthwhile charity.
On how she was dressed; “I didn’t have my eyelashes on, but I was in full Oprah Winfrey gear. I had my little Donna Karan skirt and my little sandals.”
Edit; Ninja’d!
She tweeted the other day that when she learned how much it cost she realized she wouldn’t have bought it. Easy to say in hindsight of course, but still.
pay for a couple semesters on English lessons for the clerk.
In other words, the clerk was right, and it really was too expensive for her?
If it’s too expensive for the three-billion-dollar woman, who isn’t too expensive for? Perhaps the trophy wife of a Eurotrash billionaire?
I believe Oprah when she says she wouldn’t have bought it because of the price. Maybe she limits herself to $6,000 handbags or something. We all set our own limits for things in our minds. For example, I set my PC spending limit pretty high because I am a hardcore PC gamer and like having the best setup. Even though you might be able to afford a $2000 PC, you might set a limit of only $1000 because that’s your preference. So even though she could easily afford a $38k handbag, she might just not have a preference to spend that much on that bag. I believe her when she says she ultimately wouldn’t have bought it. But she should have been allowed to make that choice for herself, not by the salesperson.
The fact is, Oprah was dressed well (not that this should even matter), and she asked 3 times to see the bag, and was refused THREE times and tried to be shown other purses. That’s just rude, jerkish behavior.
And for those of you who think it was classism and not racism, what do you think that store person was basing their judgment of her class on? It wasn’t what she was wearing. It probably wasn’t the fact she sounded American, but maybe. I’m betting it was probably racism.
Though I agree there is no smoking gun, its the easiest explanation. No one here is arguing that it was flat out racism in the sense that this person didn’t want to sell a purse to a black person. It was racism in the sense that the store person probably thought a black woman could not afford it, because all black people are poor, you know?
I understood it as not being worth that much to her. You don’t stay rich by wasting your money.