A top store in Switzerland has apologised to Oprah Winfrey -
one of the richest women in the world - for refusing to sell her a bag because
the shop assistant thought she probably couldn't afford them. Oprah Winfrey was
in Zurich to attend Tina Turner's wedding when the incident happened.
And it occurred in the chic 'Trois Pommes' store whose
owner, Trudie Götz, was also a guest
at the Turner nuptials.
Winfrey was able to embarrass the store which refused her
service on U.S. TV.
She told Entertainment Tonight:
'I was in Zurich the other day, in 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 my little sandals. But obviously
'The Oprah Winfrey Show' is not shown in Zurich.
'I go into a store and I say to the woman, 'Excuse me, could
I see the bag right above your head?' and she says to me, 'No. It's too
expensive.''
The bag was on sale for £24,460 and was locked in a cabinet to prevent shoplifting.
The saleswoman went on to suggest Oprah looks at cheaper
bags.
'I left the store but it proves that racism is still an
issue,' Oprah added.
The incident comes as the Alpine state is engulfed in a
wider row over racism.
The owner of the store apologized for her assistant’s
behaviour, saying there had been 'a misunderstanding caused by the assistant’s
failure to recognise Oprah, who is worth about two billion pounds.
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ReplyDeleteIt's funny how we are so fast to pull out the race card when these things happen between a white person and a black person...things that happen everywhere, everyday, irrespective of race. This once happened to my mum in Ibadan. She wanted to buy a pair of shoes and bag to match at a supposedly high-brow store but my mum (God bless her soul) never wore makeup, jewelry or any form of accessory...not even earrings. She had her own shop just a couple of blocks away but the lady at this store didn't know her and told her she couldn't afford the shoes. She wouldn't even tell my mum how much the shoes cost...this was a Yoruba woman to another Yoruba woman. My mum had to go to another store to buy the same pair of shoes and on her way back, the lady at the first store started apologizing blaming window shoppers for what she did. I was at a restaurant with some friends to celebrate someone's birthday...some white guys came there and were not "appropriately dressed", they were sent away because of that. Stereotyping is different from racism because we all do it (consciously or unconsciously). How many of us will be comfortable sitting with a guy that looks like a "Taliban" on a plane? Especially, if he keeps going to the bathroom every hour. In Lagos Nigeria, Landlords avoid Ibo people because it is believed that, they will end up bringing their "brothers" into the apartment...making it overcrowded and dirty.
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