Racism in Switzerland? Ophrah thinks so after shopping in Zurich

[Tropicana]

This really surprises me. I have never had any problems in Europe....well Paris clerks can be a little cold and snobbish but they are like that to everybody.

Should tourist to Switzerland that don't look white or rich be aware of new apartheid type policies in this conservative European country?It may be better for visitors from certain countries and of certain colors should be aware of it instead of being humiliated.
Famous US TV star Ophrah Winfrey, one of the world's richest women, was apparently told the bags on display in an upmarket handbag shop in Zurich were "too expensive" for her.

Well this African American women is one of the world's richest women. The star made an estimated $77m last year, enough to afford the bag, most likely enough to buy the store and fire the assistant.

Business in upscale stores in Zurich must be excellent. Ophrah Winfrey said the store assistant refused to serve her.

Her claims, made to a US television program, come amid a political row over plans by some Swiss towns to ban asylum-seekers from some public places.
People in Switzerland that don't look Swiss may no longer be allowed to use swimming pools, playing fields or public libraries. Perhaps this could mean soon non white passengers on Swiss may have to get only center seats or sit in the back on the train? Of course this rule is currently restricted to asylum-seekers only, but it may be a fine line endangering the Swiss tourism industry.
Mario Gattiker, the head of Switzerland’s Federal Office of Immigration which endorsed the apartheid-style restrictions, justified the move to journalists saying: “We need rules to ensure a peaceful and orderly coexistence of residents and asylum-seekers.
Daniela Baer, spokesperson for the Swiss Tourism office told eTurboNews. " Switzerland is a welcoming country." She claimed this was an isolated incident. Her office conducted a recent survey of 10,000 tourists. All respondents thought positive of this destination.
She further stated when a person is humiliated this person deserves an apology. Oprah deserves such an apology according to Baer and the Swiss Tourism Board.
When asked about the new restrictions on non white looking asylum seekers Ms. Baer did not want to respond on how this could spill over to tourism. She said this was a political issue and the Swiss Government should respond to such a question. her office is only responsible for marketing and public relations.
A spokesman for Switzerland’s non-governmental Refugee Council described the restraining orders as “intolerable and inhuman” and demanded that the authorities suspend the measures.
Swiss TV is obviously to blame, since it does not show was the Ophrah Winfrey TV show.
Winfrey, who stars in Lee Daniels' new film The Butler, visited Zurich last month to attend singer Tina Turner's wedding.
Winfrey said she left the shop calmly without arguing, but that the experience was proof that racism continues to be a problem.
"There's two different ways to handle it," Ophrah said. "I could've had the whole blow-up thing... but racism in Switzerland still exists, of course it does."
Her claims are a public relations disaster for Switzerland
About 48,000 people are currently seeking asylum in Switzerland. It has twice as many asylum seekers as the European average.

http://www.eturbonews.com/36912/racism-switzerland-ophrah-winfrey-thinks-so-after-shopping-zuric

[Suesumba]

damm, just posted something about that in an unrelated thread... carry on.

[Tropicana]

I didn't see it...where is it? I'll ask for a merge.

[Suesumba]

I didn't see it...where is it? I'll ask for a merge.

it's not the same Tropicana, it was from a story of a woman getting proper scolded for shoplifting in the UK DM and I scrolled over to the Oprah story.

[Tropicana]

Did you see the new thread with videos of people without a lick of sense that I posted in the Sports section. Funny that so many of them are from Norway.

[Suesumba]

yeh i love those. must be the northern exposure.

[Pepper]

This really surprises me. I have never had any problems in Europe....

Why are you surprised??????

[Tropicana]

I have never had any issues in Europe. I see a much higher rate of interracial marriage in Europe and the women are always Black women with dark skin (and usually natural hair) so my perception is that Europeans are more tolerant. Switzerland is multi-cultural with 4 official languages (French, Swiss German, Italian, and Romansch) so it is not as if they are not used to diversity. In fact, at pageants for men and women, Switzerland has had Black contestants and representatives. There have been a number of Black Miss Switzerlands. Here is one:




and here is another one.

France has also had Black women who have been Miss France.



Check out the Afro-Europe website for a number of other Black women who have reprsented their countries at international beauty pageants (Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and more).

http://afroeurope.blogspot.ca/2012/01/miss-belgium-2012-is-black.html

With respect to Switzerland, I have been invited to many events hosted by Swiss organizations and the people have always been friendly. They are not the skin and grin type so I wouldn't say (other than the Italians) warm but definitely pleasant, friendly and polite.

I just wouldn't expect something as blatant as refusing to serve someone in a store anywhere in this day and age, particularly not in Europe that on the surface appears to be more tolerant. The Black women in Europe website seems to give the impression that Europeans are more tolerant:

http://blog.blackwomenineurope.com/

Yes I know Emperah has posted about name calling and racial incidents at sporting. This is somewhat confusing. There seems to be a disconnect between how Black men and Black women are treated.

[Tropicana]

It's hard to imagine someone not recognizing Oprah Winfrey -- but that's exactly what happened when the talk show host attempted to purchase a $35,000 Tom Ford bag at Trois Pommes in Switzerland last month.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on Monday, Aug. 5, the 59-year-old star of Lee Daniels' The Butler said she was denied service because the sales clerk didn't believe she could afford such a pricey purse. "I was in Zurich the other day at a store, whose name I will not mention, and I didn't have my eyelashes on, but I was in full Oprah Winfrey gear," she recalled. "I had my little Donna Karan skirt and my little sandals and all that on, but obviously The Oprah Winfrey Show is not shown in Zurich. This doesn't happen to me unless somebody obviously doesn't know it was me."
During her solo shopping trip, Winfrey asked the clerk to show her a luxury crocodile bag. "She says to me, 'No. It's too expensive.'" Winfrey asked to see it again, but the clerk once again denied her request, saying, "'No, no, no. You don't want to see that one. You want to see this one because that one will cost too much and you will not be able to afford that.'" Winfrey then said, "'No, I really did want to see that one.' And she refused to get it!"
The clerk proceeded to show Winfrey "these other little bags," but the star was unimpressed with the other options. "One more time, I tried. I said, 'But I really do just want to see that one.' And she said, 'Oh, I don't want to hurt your feelings.' I said, 'Okay, thank you so much. You're probably right. I can't afford it.' And I walked out of the store."
After Winfrey told her BFF Gayle King about the experience, King said she would have returned to the store and caused a scene a la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. The TV mogul, however, she didn't want to give the clerk commission.
"I could have had the big blowup thing and thrown down the black card and all that stuff," Winfrey said, "but why do that?"
Trudie Goetz, head of the Swiss luxury chain Trois Pommes, denies that Winfrey was discriminated against because of her race. "This is an absolute misunderstanding," she tells Us Weekly in a statement. "Any sales person would love to sell a crocodile bag. She simply explained [to Oprah] that the bag she wanted to look at was beautiful but in a very high price range and suggested lower priced models in leather, ostrich and so forth."
Goetz adds, "It was a misunderstanding. The staff member who welcomed Oprah is one of the hardest working and regularly deals with VIP clients. There was no discrimination."
In a separate statement to the BBC, Goetz said the employee in question is of Italian descent. "Of course, she speaks English, but not as well as her mother tongue," she explained. "It was a real misunderstanding." (Ironically, both Winfrey and Goetz were guests at Tina Turner's wedding celebration that same weekend.)
The Swiss Tourism Association also issued a statement saying it regrets the pain and embarrassment the experience caused Winfrey. "We are very sorry for what happened to her, of course, because we think all of our guests and clients should be treated respectfully, in a professional way," spokeswoman Daniela Baer told the Associated Press.
This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Oprah Winfrey Accuses Trois Pommes Clerk of Discrimination, Brand Rep Denies It

http://ca.omg.yahoo.com/news/oprah-w...us-weekly.html

[blugiant]

oprah cyaan buy wan $38,000 dollar packet book so shi bawlinn racism. wandar iff shi lookinn publicitee fe ar new movie da butler

[Tropicana]

oprah cyaan buy wan $38,000 dollar packet book so shi bawlinn racism. wandar iff shi lookinn publicitee fe ar new movie da butler

Man you cynical bad. May be she just wanted to buy a $38,000 purse and faced racism.

[blugiant]

Oprah Winfrey says she just didn't want to 'embarrass' herself as she prepared to film 'Lee Daniels' The Butler'
In an exclusive interview, the media giant talks about acting, telling the story of the civil rights era, saying goodbye to her talk show, starting her OWN network, and much more

Oprah Winfrey was scared.

Unthinkable, right? Surely the woman who rose from impossible odds to become a media titan and industry unto herself even before she started the OWN network — and who last week was named a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient for, among other reasons, her philanthropic enterprises — is above fear.

Nope. Not when it came to returning to film acting in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” opening Friday.

“It did scare me very much,” Winfrey tells the Daily News in an exclusive sit-down. “I said to [director Daniels], ‘I just don’t want to embarrass myself.’ Lee said, ‘You won’t, trust me!’

"I said it was me I have to trust.”

It’s been 15 years since Winfrey’s last starring film role, in the 1998 adaptation of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” a project Winfrey nurtured for 10 years. When it finally opened — a long way from her Oscar-nominated turn in Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple,” yet right in the middle of her syndicated talk show’s 25-year run — it flopped. Famously. And Winfrey took the blow as she does everything: full-on, full-force and leading with her heart.

“ ‘Beloved’ was such a great, great teaching tool for me. I didn’t know how the ‘movie world’ works. I thought: You make the movie, people go see it,” says Winfrey, who has a savvy and endearing habit of making air quotes, in this case around “movie world.”

“I remember sitting at home the Saturday after it opened, and being told, ‘We’ve lost.’ ” The movie had debuted to $8 million, on its way to a paltry $22 million.

“I said, ‘Is it over?’ ‘Yeah, it’s basically over.’

“I mourned that for a looong time. I went into — I wouldn’t say severe depression, but I could tell that this sadness I was feeling had sort of taken me over. I felt like I was behind a veil. I had literally said to myself, ‘If I am depressed, who am I going to talk to?’

"I had never been to a therapist. I’d had therapists on the show — this was before Dr. Phil — but I thought, If this doesn’t get better, I’m gonna pray my way through it. I’m going to consciously try to feel as bad as I can, and let it pass through me.”

It eventually did.

“It took about 30 or 40 days,” Winfrey shares. “And one day I was doing a voice track for the ‘Oprah’ show — for a month I felt like I was just going through the motions — when I heard myself laugh. I thought: I’m laughing, I’m gonna be okay. I’m not gonna be sad forever.

“When you have a big, biiiig so-called ‘failure’ such as that, you have to look at it for what it can teach you. How can it grow you up so that you don’t have to go through that kind of suffering again? It doesn’t mean you won’t have it again, but that — that impact — cannot happen again.”

In “The Butler,” Winfrey plays Gloria, the wife of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker). She and her husband witness the great civil rights battles while Cecil works in the White House as a butler for eight Presidents, from 1957 to 1986, and while their son (David Oyelowe) becomes an activist. The film ends with Barack Obama’s election in 2008.

Daniels’ film, with its social context and full conscience, and the way it makes history's pain personal, meshes with Winfrey’s philosophy, though she’s not a producer on it (she had exec-produced Daniels’ Oscar-winning 2009 film “Precious”). She says she felt a connection to Danny Strong’s screenplay for “The Butler,” which is based on the life of the late Eugene Allen.

“Oprah was so committed to the film, I sometimes didn’t know how to deal with it in character,” says Whitaker. “When she was playing Gloria drunk or in pain, as two examples, I didn’t know how to react to her. That doesn’t happen often with actors.”

“I said to Lee, ‘This is the worst possible time you could ask me to do anything,’ because I was in the middle of all of That , w ith a capital ’T.’ ” Winfrey emphasizes the word “that” by making an explosion gesture with her hands, symbolizing the end of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011, after 25 years, and the start of OWN.

“I said yes, though, because of the possibility of taking that parade of pain and giving it a context that allows you to see the spirit of the country through the soul of one person.”

“The Butler,” Winfrey says, could do something rare in American movies: Address the mid- and late-20th-century challenges of the civil rights movement while entertaining at the same time.

“Just look at the arc of this film — it begins with a lynching and ends with Obama,” says Winfrey. “That happened in one man’s lifetime. In that amount of time, to go from, essentially, terrorism in your own country — which is what it was to be a black man walking the street in Mississippi in 1954, the year I was born — to Obama.

“I marvel at this country and how far we’ve come, and not just because I am an extraordinary beneficiary of it. Yeah, there are still obviously a lot of things that need to go forward for us — and during a scene in which the young Cecil Gaines walks in fear at night in the early 1930s, you can’t help but think about Trayvon Martin. It’s the same thing.

“But we will get there. We will. The young generation today is light-years ahead of two generations before. And I think everything — rap music, entertainment, Beyoncé, all of that — has contributed to that.”

(Winfrey herself ran up against an apparent issue of race last month: A clerk at a high-end store in Switzerland didn’t recognize the woman who just topped Forbes’ list of most powerful celebrities and refused her request to see a nearly $40,000 handbag, saying it was “too expensive for her,” Winfrey recently told “Entertainment Tonight.” Switzerland’s tourism board apologized to her.)

OWN recently announced that after a few bumps, the network is now profitable — sooner than media-watchers expected. Asked if it feels like sweet relief or the embodiment of a “We just had to clear the hurdles” attitude, Winfrey says it’s both.

“It is sweet relief to actually do what you said you were going to do — and do it ahead of schedule! But also, I always believed in myself, and the vision for the network, and my ability to surround myself with people who could help me execute it. I just lost my balance for a moment because I let others take control. But you can do whatever you put your mind to, if that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”

Less than six months shy of 60, Winfrey says she feels no need to rush to schedule more projects. “No, no, I feel no urgency,” she says. “Though I do feel a sense of, What do I want to do next? Because for so long, for so many years, the ‘Oprah Show’ was the great love of my life — I mean, is there a better platform, ever?!”

Asked if she misses the show, she shakes her head vigorously and definitively.

“No, I don’t miss it, because I was fully ready to let it go. If I had [bowed out] in the show's 20th year, when I actually was starting to think about it, it would’ve been too soon, and maybe then I would have [regrets]. What I do miss is when there are moments of [cultural impact]. Like Sandusky. Trayvon. During Newtown, we would have been there. The opportunity to gather the community, to talk to people — I miss that . But the day-to-day of it, no.

“Also, OWN is a great playground! Every day it’s, ‘What do we do today?’ And the thing that really fills my spirit up is Super Soul Sundays, when I get to talk to the greatest thought leaders of our time, and have discussions I could never have had on broadcast TV without worrying about ratings and numbers and whatever. So that, and the response from the audience, fills me up.

“That’s why I started a network: To be able to change the way people think about what’s possible in their own lives.”

As for other projects, Winfrey says she has spoken with producer-director George C. Wolfe about a possible miniseries about the Harlem Renaissance, but other things will likely come first.

And she seems intent to not let a decade and a half go by again before she acts in another film.

“Now that I know I can pull that instrument out and tune it up a bit, I would like to do some other acting. I really am in a free space now — ‘free’ meaning I can reorganize my schedule a different way. But it would have to be something really compelling.”

We may even someday see Oprah perform on the New York stage.

“Yeah, Broadway is definitely in my future,” Winfrey says with a smile that could light up Times Square.

“Nothing is set as of yet, but it’s there. I see it. Broadway is in my future.”

[blugiant]

Man you cynical bad. May be she just wanted to buy a $38,000 purse and faced racism.

so yuh doan tink diss wass ar way fe appeal fe blakk support fe ar movie da butler?

[Tropicana]

so yuh doan tink diss wass ar way fe appeal fe blakk support fe ar movie da butler?

That's just silly blugiant.

[Pepper]

I have never had any issues in Europe. I see a much higher rate of interracial marriage in Europe and the women are always Black women with dark skin (and usually natural hair) so my perception is that Europeans are more tolerant. .

Interesting POV, considering that slavery and racism are in the Americas because of Europeans and their false sense of superiority to the black man.