Posted on 08/13/2013 5:45:40 AM PDT by Lakeshark
Jesse Jackson hasn't yet declared Zurich the new Selma, but from some of the news coverage you'd think Oprah Winfrey was the next Rosa Parks. The former TV-talk superstar experienced what New York's Daily News calls "a disturbing racial incident" last month at "the posh Trois Pommes boutique" in Switzerland's largest city.
In Winfrey's account, she wanted to examine a Tom Ford handbag and asked the clerk to retrieve it from its glass display case. "She says, 'No, it's too expensive,' " Winfrey told "Entertainment Tonight." "She said, 'No, no, no you want to see this one because that one will cost too much. You won't be able to afford that one.' . . . She said, 'I don't want to hurt your feelings,' and I said, 'OK, thank you so much, you're probably right I can't afford it.' Now why does she do that?" **snip**
It seems there was a language barrier: The clerk's English isn't great, and Winfrey probably doesn't speak Swiss. "This is an absolute classic misunderstanding," the store's owner, Trude Goetz, told Reuters, which paraphrases her explanation: "The sales assistant had wanted to show Winfrey that the bag was also available in other materials, which may have given the TV host the impression the shop did not want to sell it to her, Goetz said." The News reports that Goetz apologized to Winfrey via a Swiss newspaper, but in her Reuters interview she implied that the celeb's account didn't make sense: "Who wouldn't want to sell a purse for 35,000 francs?" **snip**
Oh, well, never mind then.
We quite like this story as a parable of race relations in 21st-century America.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What a country!
Pass it on.
> Winfrey probably doesn’t speak Swiss.
Just a nit. There is no language called “Swiss”
Switzerland has three official languages: German, French, and Italian.
> Oprah is billionaire who publicly bullies lowly retails sales clerks.
Indeed.
To quote John Lurch Kerry, “Do you know who I am!” Not posed as a query, mind you, but rather as a threat.
Good nit, sort of like Austrian......
Nice ambassador for America.
We’re used to this grievance-mongering BS.
But the Swiss must be thinking, “What the ...?”.
Nice job Okra! I’m still not going to see your grievance-mongering BS movie.
I was about to say that!
I figured Oprah had made the whole thing up and had never even been in the store. After all, Trayvon’s parents have been getting more attention than she recently. I’m surprised there was actually an event in which (the sales clerk being believable) there was a misunderstanding.
Winfrey probably doesn’t speak Swiss.
__________________________________________
German
Italian
French
Was Romansch dumped?
Nailed it.
Well that’s it! Next time I’m in Zurich drinking bubbly with Lovey (Mrs. Thurston Howell III) I will not spend any of my billions of dollars at the Trois Pommes boutique.
"Such a racist sales clerk! Doesn't she know who I am?"
:-)
Oh, for crying out loud ...THIS probably would have happened to ME also, a lily white middle aged American woman ...they would have taken one look at me, the way I normally dress, and said and done the same thing.
These people are out LOOKING for racism, whether it exists or not. Ridiculous!!!
Possibly the author was making a joke.
Or possibly he is just ignorant.
So who’s the one thinking about race all the time?
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the rest of us are normally turned away from stores when they are closed. And somehow manage to avoid seeing it as a racist slight.
Isn’t it high time for people of all races tell these constant whiners to STOP crying racism every time they experience what THEY perceive as bad service, rudeness, or misunderstanding?
I still remember a bunch of blacks getting pissed at Ross Perot, when he addressed the NAALCP because he DARED to use the phrase “you people” when speaking about their concerns.
Romansh is and isn’t an official language. <1% speak it, so it gets short shrift compared to the others.
I guess we’ll all have to see her new movie as white penance!
Don’t be too upset lady, if any of us common folks were allowed in that store I’m sure we would be followed around by security.
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