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BLACK WOMAN ENSLAVED
Oprah Winfrey was recently subject to racism while shopping in Paris. According to Age columnist Helen Razer, the main issue here is Winfrey’s choice of merchandise:
The dynamics of consumption are based on a strategy of segregation. We don’t crave absurdly expensive items because they’re good quality. Often, such items are mass produced in the conglomerates’ attempt to democratise luxury. We buy a Vuitton wallet, for example, because we want to impart: I have distinction; I’m better than you. Oprah is seduced, like so many, by the promise of high-fashion porn.
Our good taste and our consumer desire is the byproduct of something that looks a lot like class warfare. Oprah has worked her entire professional life to dismantle one set of barriers to happily overlook, in this instance, another.
Oprah plans to talk about Oprahgate when her show starts again in the northern autumn. She will talk about racism; not about her enslavement to luxury brands.
The right to shop for luxury goods is not an act of freedom, girlfriends.
Headline on the column: “Oprah, a slave to luxurious merchandise.”
RebeccaH,
No, the French merchants will treat Americans well enough. They will sneer behind our backs but they will take our dollars.
My comment was vs the silly columnist. Its part of that socialist “I know whats best for you” mindset, that hates the idea of, for instance, selling chocolate or cosmetics in the third world.
Luis,
It’s actually worse than that. That columnist actually believes that Oprah, having been born poor, should continue to spend her money on only those items the poor would buy. Further, the columnist believes that Oprah—a woman that has advanced herself financially probably more than any other woman in history has—does not have the common sense to spend her money wisely. Yeah, right, a woman with a billion dollar net worth does not know how to spend her own money.
Posted by David Crawford on 2005 07 01 at 06:27 PM • permalinkMaybe she shouldn’t talk about either racism or enslavement to brand names but about plain manners: trying to get into a shop fifteen minutes after they close is just rude, no matter who you are. (And if some shops make a policy of opening up for celebrities - well, OK, but that doesn’t mean they all have to do it). I remember working the lowest form of retail (college grill cash register) and there was ALWAYS someone who tried to barge in five minutes after we shut down and on the rare occasions when someone let them in, would spend twenty or thirty minutes trying to figure out what particular glutinous combination they wanted. The fact that we were mopping around their feet and turning lights off meant nothing. They wanted a special pizza (twenty minutes to make) and they wanted it NOW, dammit. The Hermes staff are probably snobs and a half, but it doesn’t mean they deserve to work surprise overtime while the Queen of Chat swans around with her entourage, looking for the perfect $8K watch or whatever.
Gotta admit, I’m with the columnist on this one. When I see someone wearing Tommy Hilfiger, I just think “mind-enslaved retard.”
I’m sort of in agreement with you, but I don’t think you’re even close to the columnist. After all, your (and my) opinion of people who define themselves solely via the brands they wear would be “what a delusional idiot”, hers is “what a society-destroying self-enslaver”.
At any rate, I’m glad we have our lefty betters to tell us what is and what isn’t freedom. They’ve got such a good track record at the thing, after all.
If the obnoxiously rich Oprah wants to buy obnoxiously priced stuff, that’s up to her, more she spends the merrier.
Money does few good sitting in a bank account, get that shit circulating.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 02 at 12:17 AM • permalinkOprah has experienced this before in the US (in New York city I believe) this time it’s outside the US. What this lady is doing is diverting our attention away from the “racist” French shopkeeper. Rememeber, racism is an uniquley American trait not European trait or so all the little leftist sh!ts in the media tell us as if we aren’t descendant from people who were former Europeans. Although I agree with her take on it her motivation for having that viewpoint is insincere imo if this had occured in the US the writer’s focus would have been on the “racist shopkeeper.
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There have been sumptuary codes in many civilizations, intended mainly to keep the lower or middle classes distinct from the upper. In Europe these could be found as late as the 18th century.
Yep, dumb as it sounds, historically speaking shopping for Vuitton is a liberating act.