By now you’ve heard of the Oprah Winfrey flap in
Zurich, Switzerland. Oprah alleges she
dropped into a chic boutique to have a look around. When she asked to see a $42,000 handbag
behind the counter, according to Oprah, the clerk told her she couldn’t afford
it. The clerk has gone public with her
side of the story saying she actually offered to show Oprah the bag but she
didn’t want to see it.
The insinuation is that Oprah was discriminated
against not only because she’s black but because she’s a plus-size woman. The incident has brought to the fore once
more the issue of discrimination. Oprah
has a history of sort of playing the victim.
It’s rather hard to swallow from a woman who’s worth over $3 billion.
It does raise another issue, however. Regardless of what really happened in Zurich,
people do still judge other people by appearances. It’s a fact of life that’s not likely to
change anytime soon. The question is
really not how you change it but how you respond to it.
I’ve actually been in a black bar where I found it
hard to get service. I suppose I could
play the victim but I find such a role unbecoming. As we stood at the bar watching the bartender
take orders from other patrons acting as if we were invisible, my brother
asked, “Can a white man get a drink in here?”
I felt as though I was in the nightclub scene from “Animal House” but
that simple statement broke the ice and the bartender, who moments before acted
as if he’d rather we not be there, was in stitches. The other black patrons around us broke up
laughing and from then on everything was fine.
My point is a lot of people will face discrimination
in their lives. The real test is in how
you react to it. I find it odd that
Oprah sat on her alleged discrimination story for almost a month until the week
of the premiere of her new movie, “Lee Daniels: The Butler.” Coincidence?
There’s no doubt that black folks in this country
have been subjected to ungodly discrimination and worse throughout the history
of this nation. There’s also little
doubt that this is no longer 1955. I
would suspect if I dropped into that little boutique in Zurich wearing my usual
garb of Diamond Gusset Jeans and Polo shirt the lady behind the counter would
probably assume I couldn’t afford a $42,000 handbag either. In my case she’d be right.
In an interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Oprah
said the Zurich sales clerk didn’t “obviously know that I carry the black card,”
referring to the American Express Centurion Card. AmEx is mum on the exact number of people who
have one but rumor is you have to charge at least $250,000 a year to get
one. Needless to say, that leaves most
of us out of the club.
It’s really hard to feel sorry for a woman who’s
listed by Forbes as the richest celebrity in the world. Not to take anything away from Oprah. She is 100 percent self made and that’s something
to be celebrated. Regardless of inferior
service in Zurich, she’s certainly not to be pitied.
Oprah has lived the American dream like few others
ever have. Whatever discrimination she’s
had to endure in her life has obviously not held her back. That’s the teachable moment in all of
this. Oprah had a chance to make the
point that you can’t let other people, no matter how bigoted, stand in your
way. She blew it.
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