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Last updated on July 23rd, 2017 at 07:57 am
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.”
