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when I would take my Father-in-Law to a Dr appt with a new Dr, I would dress up a little business-like. The Dr would then see me not just as a family member but also as someone who had to be worked with.

TAM, there is a revelatory scene in Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. She relates a story about being in a store in Africa and being treated quite rudely by the black African clerk. It caused Maya to wonder if perhaps some of the "racism" she had experienced was simply rude people.

It isn't always about race, despite Obama's best efforts to make is so.

bcschae wrote:Just to show the difference in the class of some people:

Oprah makes a huge ordeal about a woman not showing her a purse because the sales persons thought she couldn't afford it.

Jase laughs off the hotel employee and completely understands how the mistake could be made.

But to believe that, first you have to believe Oprah. I call bull hockey.

chasfm11 wrote: Oprah admitted that she didn't have any of the normal expensive trappings that would have given the clerk clues that she was into really expensive apparel.

But, but, wait.....shouldn't a good liberal dogooder like Oprah take that $38,000 and give it to someone who needs it more than her instead of buying another purse? I don't understand why you guys are giving this woman any credit beyond being able to hustle the public out of their money. She's just a more sophisticated race baiter than ole Al.

VMI77 wrote:

chasfm11 wrote: Oprah admitted that she didn't have any of the normal expensive trappings that would have given the clerk clues that she was into really expensive apparel.

But, but, wait.....shouldn't a good liberal dogooder like Oprah take that $38,000 and give it to someone who needs it more than her instead of buying another purse? I don't understand why you guys are giving this woman any credit beyond being able to hustle the public out of their money. She's just a more sophisticated race baiter than ole Al.

But unfortunately, too many people have given her more credibility than she deserves. Her success, like Sharpton's, is driven by the do-good mentality and those who will fawn over just about anything that makes the news.

The Annoyed Man wrote:It may be easy for me to say, being a white guy and all, but if I were a person of color, I think I would rather face open hostility than thinly veiled condescension from a bigoted person—because with the former at least you know where you stand, and the latter is in the long run both far more debilitating and dangerous.

That's just my 2¢. YMMV.

One of the many reasons that you're so well respected here. Life doesn't always fit in neat little cubes. You wrote another great post.

philip964 wrote:When you think a little about it. Switzerland is a very expensive place to live or visit.

It's also not a place known for racism but people generally find what they look for.
http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/neigh ... -live.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

philip964 wrote:BTW Oprah stars in a movie coming out this weekend.

Now it's starting to make more sense.

I have no reason to believe a single word that comes out of Oprah's mouth. As far as I'm concerned she is just another race card playing Al Sharpton in love with the spotlight.

Double post.

chasfm11 wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:
(snip)
There is one subtle difference between Jase and Oprah though, and that is that Jase can shave off his beard and get a haircut anytime he wants to, and he'll be like his brother Al, whom nobody ever bothers because he looks "normal." But Oprah can't take off her blackness, and her politics, wealth, fame, social stature all have nothing to do with how she will be treated by people who don't know who she is. Some, because they are not racists, will treat her fairly and without any preconceived notions of her financial state; and others, because they are subconscious bigots, will do like the woman who inadvertently insulted her by trying to steer her to a less expensive item. Jase can walk in that hotel the next day, all cleaned up, and have a good laugh with the doorman who tossed him, and say "can you believe that I'm the same guy you threw out of here yesterday because of my beard, and today you're opening doors for me?" Oprah walks into that store the next day, and she's still the same black woman of whom some people are going to assume based on her color that she can't afford to buy whatever she wants to buy......and she'll be treated accordingly. There is no avenue of escape for her from that.

That's just my 2¢. YMMV.

OTOH, I've known a lot of white people who have been treated the same way in establishments that sell expensive merchandise. Good friends of ours went into look at a Steinway piano and the salesman ignored them because, based on the way that they were dressed, he didn't think that they could afford it. They could have easily paid cash. Try going into a fancy car showroom dressed down and I suspect that you will receive the same cold shoulder treatment.

I believe that some (many?) high end sales people, from houses to cars to jewelery financially profile potential customers. Oprah admitted that she didn't have any of the normal expensive trappings that would have given the clerk clues that she was into really expensive apparel. I suspect that had more to do with the rejection than the color of Oprah's skin. I can see the point of view of the salesperson. Why waste your time showing something to a casual person off the street who is just there to drool over the item? Just like politics, there is an Elitist snobbery that exists that crosses political parties and countries. The sales people simply work within that scheme.

Chas, I can see that point and do understand. Back in the 1950s, a friend of the family got ignored in the Rolls Royce showroom in San Francisco because he walked in wearing a t-shirt and paint stained chinos. Before walking out after waiting around for a half hour for someone to even adress him, he shoved the $35,000 he had wadded up in his pocket under the sales manager's nose and told him he was going across the street to buy a VW bug......which he did. Again though, the way he was treated in the Rolls dealership was due both to the prejudices of the salespeople, and his choice in manner of dress (he was an artist who married into a vaaaaaaast fortune).

But my point about Oprah remains valid in that there are some people who are going to make assumptions about her ability to pay, no matter how fancy she is dressed up, because of her blackness. There will be other people who will treat her that way because they don't think black people deserve or should have nice things. By no means are all salespeople like this, and we do live in a largely post-racial world (at least on the part of white people....I can't presume to speak for black people or brown people or blue people).....no matter what the race-baiters say. Even so, there also still remain some bigoted people among us. There have always been bigoted people among us, and there will always be bigoted people among us, because bigotry is the product of either social ignorance, congenital stupidity, or mental illness—and social ignorance, congenital stupidity, and mental illness will always be with us. Like the saying goes, you can't fix stupid. Sometimes, stupidity fixes itself. We can only hope that when it does, it ends with the stupid person being convicted enough to say, "I was wrong; I'll never do that again."

Yes, Oprah might have been reading something into a situation that wasn't there; but she's 59 years old. I'm 60 years old, and I can remember a time when A) a person of her color being a $2.7 billionaire was unthinkable, and B) LEO klansman treated peaceful black civil rights workers to firehoses, attack dogs, and truncheons. If I can remember it, surely she can too. Even though I was too young to personally remember it (1955, I was 3 yrs old), Rosa Parks was arrested for her act of defiance during my lifetime. Even though the hard bigotry of Jim Crow is no longer with us (except in the form of gun-control), soft-bigotry still rears its ugly head occasionally in people of inferior minds and inferior morality.

And that cuts both ways, by the way. I am certainly not the first and only white man who is sick to death of having my classification of "white male" constantly assailed as the source of all evil in this world. If that isn't bigotry against while males, then nothing is. And by the way, I can't escape the disrespect of others for their bigotry against my whiteness and maleness any more than Oprah can escape the disrespect of others because of their bigotry against her blackness. So I'm not singling out blacks as the only "victims" of bigotry. I'm just acknowledging that they might be rightfully tired of it when it happens; and because of their tiredness about it, they are angry; and because they are angry, they are less likely to be forgiving about it and more likely to hold onto the sense of righteous self-justification that comes with it. BTW, I put "victims" in quotes because being a victim of racism is largely a product of acceptance. One can choose not to be a victim of it by simply not bowing to its inevitability. Oprah is the holder of 2.7 billion reasons to not think of herself as a victim of race. If she still thinks of herself as a victim, it's either because she cynically uses her blackness to gain advantage in social/financial interactions, or it's simply a lifetime of habit. I would rather assume that any feelings of victimhood she holds are the product of habit, because to assume the other would be to assume that she is a fundamentally evil person.

For my own part, I accept that we live in a fallen world. I accept it completely, and both soft and hardcore racism, from all parties, is a product of that. It exists because the devil is real, and he is at work in this world. Furthermore, I don't have any hope whatsoever that mere mankind can or will do anything about that. In fact, at this point all that can be done legislatively and constitutionally to improve race relations has been done already, and no law will change the human heart. I've read the Owner's Manual. We win in the end, but there is a long rough road ahead, and like MLK said, I may not get there with the rest of you at the end. Although the end times often seem right around the corner, maybe they're not. Either way, I have zero expectation that our puny efforts will make the world a better place because that's in God's hands, not ours. I don't believe that race relations will ever improve to the point of there being a truly post-racial world........not until Jesus comes back.

Since there is no hope, the only thing we can do is individually to accept and laugh off, like Jace Robertson did, other people's assumptions about us; to not take everything so personally; and to have the discernment to be individually forgiving of the trespasses of other people against us when they are pretty small potatoes.

Appearance matters in how people treat you. Ask anyone who has spent a significant time waiting tables and such. They learn to tell what to expect in tips from customers as soon as they walk in the door. Same for other salespeople.

Aside from just rude people, we all get judged by our appearance. I think this sort of judgement is far far more prevalent than judgement based n skin color. I have heard people speak who were obsessed with racism, and I think 99% of what they see as racism is not. Just my worthless opinion though.

As said above, Oprah is a liar who was just trying to stir up controversy to help promote her movie.

TAM,

I wasn't suggesting that there is not bigotry. As as you pointed out, it exists in many areas, not just against African Americans. I've personally witnessed Asians being treated disrespectfully and know that our Federal government did that in masse in World War II.

A good work friend of mine who came from India was living in near Durham, NC. My friend is very well spoken in English and holds a Doctorate in Computer Science. He, however, made the mistake of trying to buy gas at a station in rural NC where some of the residents make no differentiation among those with darker skin that they have. They did everything that they could to him short of physical abuse. He had pumped his gas but they refused to take his payment. Knowing that if he left, he would immediately be hunted down as a thief, he was obliged to wait until his payment could be accepted and put up with the vitriol. Law enforcement in areas like that is not solution for outsiders.

So yes, I know, that racism and bigotry exist and that they will always exist. But they do not exist to the extent or at least in the ways that many of the race baiters try to maintain. And I believe that other means of discrimination including financial are as plausible an explanation for the conduct of some as skin color discrimination. To be accurate, the Jewish people may have been discriminated against as much as any group and there is no skin color issue with them. I cannot think of a country with a reasonably sized Jewish population where bigotry and hatred toward them hasn't ranged somewhere between significant and rampant and it has been going on for thousands of years. There is the Anti-Defamation League but for all that the Jewish people have gone through, they don't constantly taut the prejudice against them as a reason for their current situation.

This puts the incident with Jase Roberston into perspective. I suspect that he would face much more of the same if he lived in the NE for any period of time. There were 11M viewers for the season premier of Duck Dynasty. A significant portion of the remaining 270M people in the US, many of whom have never heard of the show, live in the NE and would show bigotry toward him as soon as him opened his mouth. He could even shave off his beard and it won't help.

There is not a nation, or region, on this planet in which significant portions of the majority population are not racist or otherwise bigoted in some way. It is the human condition to accept your own, and to look down upon the different or unfamiliar. It's one of the reasons humans have been at war with each other since man first walked the planet. It is certainly not unique to the U.S. MHO.

Oprie wasn't the first, nor will she be the last. She probably stole it from Julia;

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=IfxLyH80Cic[/youtube]

actually this scene is what I thought of when I read about the incident....and most women have lived through it when shopping and conducting other business, if you dress up, do your hair, put on even just a bit of make up, people treat you better, maybe they shouldn't, but they do.