So we've heard very recently that Black People need to be more respectable. That they need to stop saying certain words. That they need to dress certain ways. That they need to put a ring on it before they have kids. That they need to pick up their trash, and for all this, they'd be better for all the effort.
But what good is doing all that, when this still happens to a woman, a Black woman, who certainly doesn't say those words, doesn't dress with her underwear showing, and certainly doesn't leave her trash laying around? What good is it, when a $Billionaire like Oprah still gets treated like a Hood Rat?
http://www.rawstory.com/...
A Swiss luxury boutique denied any wrongdoing Friday after US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey claimed she had been the subject of racism when a shop assistant allegedly refused to show her an expensive handbag.
Winfrey, one of the richest women in the world, said she had been in Zurich for US singer Tina Turner’s wedding in July and had spotted a swanky crocodile handbag while out shopping.
“I’m in a store, a name-brand store. I’m by myself, absolutely nobody else with me. And I say to the woman, ‘I would like to see that bag on the shelf’,” Winfrey told fellow US talk show host Larry King on Internet channel ora.tv.
“And she says, ‘No, that one’s too expensive. I’ll show you this one’,” said Winfrey.
More on this with Ezrah Klein and Melissa Harris-Perry.
Now to a certain extent we can just chuckle about the minor little problems of a 1% percenter who had to live live like the little people for day. But here's the thing, this isn't the only such incident that Oprah can recall.
She did not directly describe the incident as racist, but recounted it after telling King of a “racist moment” in New York years ago when she and her hairdresser were refused entry to a luxury store which had been robbed by two black people.
She also mentioned on the program that there were times when she'd be in boardrooms, voting and making decisions with other board members where she's the only woman, and she's the only black person and she can
feel the tension that they think she doesn't "belong". It's not spoken, it's not said out loud, but it's there.
So this begs the question, How Respectable Do you Have to GET before you get treated with the Respect you Deserve?
Oprah Winfrey is quite literally a $Billionaire. She's worth several times Mitt Romney. Her net worth puts her in the same club as Donald Trump on the Forbes Billionaire's list. On that list is Michael Bloomberg, Steve Wynn and Bill Gates. She's considered one of the most powerful entertainers in the world. Does anyone think for a second that those others would have to put up with crap like this?
Seriously?
And what does Don Lemon think of it all? Not that I really care what he thinks about anything anymore, but just what did Mr. Respectability have to say about Oprah being treated this way?
"Welcome to Life" is what he said about it just before whining about Russell Simmons dissing him.
Fucking Really?
Ok, sure Oprah could simply leave that store and go to the next - or in her case she could have come back and bought the entire store which is something she almost did.
Winfrey joked that she had been tempted to buy up the entire store, recalling a scene in the movie “Pretty Woman” where Julia Roberts’ prostitute character has the last laugh in a snobbish shop.
“I wanted to create a Pretty Woman moment and come back and buy everything and say, ‘Big mistake!’. But then I thought she’d get a commission, so let’s not do that,” she told King.
Yeah, why reward the person who just treated you like dirt when you can talk about them on international television and
embarrass the crap out of them to the point their boss has to apologize on camera?
And then there are those that have argued that this wasn't "Racism". Uh oh, then what was it then? I've gotten twitter responses to my original posting of this that said "What makes you think this was about Race?
"
To which I responded "What Makes you think it Isn't? What else makes any sense? Rush Limbaugh has tried to proclaim it wasn't Race, it was because Oprah is Fat.
On his program, The Rush hypothesized that because “we don’t know that the sales person based her judgment on The Oprah’s skin color,” the store clerk could have denied Winfrey on other grounds: “Maybe it’s because The Oprah’s fat? Well that’s another — how was The Oprah dressed? I mean she didn’t look like The Oprah obviously. Was she wearing jump suit with tennis shoes? Maybe Air Jordans that weren’t laced up?”
My question is, even assuming this ridiculous "Air Jordans" scenario is the case,
How is that any better than Racial Profiling? How exactly is falsely and incorrectly pre-jugding someone,
assuming you know something about them that you don't, any better because you use a different bogus excuse for it besides race?
This is the thing that some people, seemingly conservatives, overwhelmingly don't get. Conservatives like Ran Paul who more than once said that he opposed the Civil Rights Act because he feels that Business Owners have a "Right" to act as this one in Zurich behaved.
Paul and other deluded Ayn Randian's like John Stossel seem to think that all people need to do to oppose this kind of treatment is simply refuse to do business with that store and that ultimately that would put them out of business. They say Government should stay out of it and let the "Market Decide". They seem to be ignorant of the fact that what business a boutique like this might lose if they were so bold as to put up a "No $Billionaire Negresses Allowed" sign would be offset by all the business they'd gain just from Donald Trump and Ted Nugent Alone.
There were 96 years between the ratification of the 14th Amendment supposedly guaranteeing all persons the "Equal Protection of the Laws" and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. So I ask which businesses, during all that time, went out of business for being bigoted?
Can anyone name a single business that suffered for their bigotry prior to the Civil Rights Act?
Anyone remember when Denny's discriminated against Black Customers? Apparently They Still Did even in 1994.
Denny's, a national restaurant chain, agreed today to pay more than $54 million to settle lawsuits filed by thousands of black customers who had been refused service or had been forced to wait longer or pay more than white customers.
In one instance, a black Federal judge from Houston and his wife who had been traveling for 18 hours said they were forced to wait at a Denny's in Yreka, Calif., for almost an hour as white teen-agers taunted them and referred to them as "niggers."
In another case, six black Secret Service agents assigned to President Clinton's detail were refused a table at a Denny's in Annapolis. Md., while their white Secret Service colleagues were seated and served.
For more than three years Denny's, a subsidiary of Flagstar Companies of Spartanburg, S.C., has been the target of growing complaints that its restaurants segregated blacks or required them to pre-pay or make various payments not required of white patrons.
How exactly is that different from having a "Whites Only" sign on the front door other than the fact that without such a sign, Denny's can
deny what they were doing was Racial. Which they did.
And yet, how many people do you know that decided they weren't going to eat at Denny's because of this practice? Anyone?
How is what they did here, different from what happened to Oprah? Or for that matter different from when Rosa Parks refused to be moved to the back of the Bus?
Let's give another example. Remember when Harvard Professor Henry Lewis "Skip" Gates was arrested for supposedly breaking into his own house?
He went on a trip, came back, the door was jammed - he had to force it open. Someone saw, called the cops, they showed up - confirmed that he DID own the house - then arrested him anyway. Does it really Matter what the Bullshit excuse was - this was WRONG, and there is no making it "Right" just because you choose to pretend it wasn't Racial.
And let's not forget that the 9-11 Call showed that the arresting Officer, Sgt Crowley, lied on his police report.
This is what Crowley claimed on his Police Report.
When I arrived at 17 Ware street I radioed ECC and asked that they have the caller meet me at the front door to this residence. SNIP . As I reached the door, a female voice called out to me. I turned and looked in the direction of the voice and observed a white female, later identified as Lucia Whalen. Whalen, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless telephone in her hand and told me that it was she who called. She went on to tell me that the observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of 17 Ware street.
The problem with this is the Sgt Crowley
Never Talked to Lucia Whalen as documented by her attorney.
"Let me be clear: She never had a conversation with Sgt. Crowley at the scene," Murphy told CNN by phone. "And she never said to any police officer or to anybody 'two black men.' She never used the word 'black.' Period."
She added, "I'm not sure what the police explanation will be. Frankly, I don't care. Her only goal is to make it clear she never described them as black. She never saw their race. ... All she reported was behavior, not skin color."
She never said they were black, and she never talked to Sgt Crowley. Also you
can't hear Henry Gates supposedly "Yelling" in the background of the additional tape. You
can hear the Crowley tell the dispatcher that the gentlemen says "
He says he resides here, but still send the cars". And then you here the dispatch respond that the resident of that address is "
Henry Lewis Gates. Jr.."
So, um, why did he still get arrested exactly?
If it wasn't Race, what the fuck was it? Was it because he was acting uppity? Because he dared to ask "Is the reason you're hear because I'm a Black Man in America?" Did Sgt. Crowley arrest him simply inretaliation for that accusation? Even after dispatch confirmed he owned the House, did Crowley manufacture a reason to arrest and detain him out of spite?
Is that supposed to be an improvement over Bigotry?
After the President criticized Cambridge Police for "acting stupidly" did people jump up to agree with him? Well, kinda no.
However, Obama continued, "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."
Did the Police admit these basic truisms? Nope. They berated the President.
"What we don't need is public safety officials across the country second-guessing themselves," said David Holway, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents 15,000 public safety officials around the country. "The president's alienated public safety officers across the country with his comments."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/...
The President
Alienated Public Safety Officers? Let's get this straight, these guys claimed that the President
hurt their fee fees when he stated the obvious? How much do you think Black people who don't have the resources of Oprah and Skip Gates feel when they get treated
in exactly the same way?
Just how Alienated do they think we feel about it?
And then put that in context of the Trayvon Martin case. How much do they think we feel that we're being "Protected and Served?" by how that case was handled and the ultimate verdict? Then put that in the context recent Federal Stop-and-Frisk decision as Mayor Bloomberg rails that stopping 106% of the black and Latino population and not finding any contraband, guns or a reason to even give them a ticket 88% of the time was somehow, somewhere, a "Mark of Success"?
"There is just no question that stop-question-frisk has saved countless lives. And we know that most of the lives saved, based on the statistics, have been black and Hispanic young men," a combative Bloomberg told reporters at City Hall, where he denounced the finding by Judge Shira Scheindlin that cops had been making "unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks" based on race.
The mayor said, "It's worth remembering that as recently as 1990, New York City averaged more than six murders a day. Today, we've driven that down to less than one murder a day.
"Think about what that change really means: if murder rates over the last 11 years had been the same as the previous 11 years, more than 7,300 people who today are alive would be dead" - and many of those lives were saved by stop and frisk.
"I worry for my kids and I worry for your kids," Bloomberg said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Ah, yes, the
Fear Card - played so well, so fresh, always ready to go. In the end that's what this is truly all about. Maintaining
the Fear. Because
the Fear Justified Law Enforcement Budgets.
The Fear helps keep funding for those Paramilitary Weapons flowing, and they Surveillance Tactics in place like when NYPD
spied on Muslims in neighboring states and Found Nothing. It justified spending $Billion on Prisons for Non-Violent Drug Offenders while gutting and dismantling Schools.
At least some of that is now Changing thanks to Eric Holder. But is it enough?
The Fear justifies repeatedly terrorizing the minority youth of New York City like this...
It's justifies a Store not letting Oprah and her hairdresser in to shop because "Two Black People" had robbed it, as if Oprah and her hairdresser must have been in COHOOTS with them or something. It justifies not showing her a $38,000 handbag because she couldn't possibly have been able to afford it, and just might want to try and steal it, it justified arresting Skip Gates even though he didn't commit a crime and dared to be angry he was accused of a crime, when it was clear and obvious he had done no such thing. It justifies following Trayvon Martin when he hadn't done anything wrong or illegal, then getting into a fight with him killing him and getting away with it - because - Fear. And apparently it justifies letting this little boy die of Heart Failure.
“Based on this meeting and discussion by our team, the decision was made that Anthony is currently not a transplant candidate due to having a history of noncompliance, which is one of our center’s contraindications to listing for heart transplant,” the hospital said in a letter to Stokes’ family.
Due to a lack of donors, hospitals have strict guidelines for who can receive an organ. Noncompliance generally refers to patients who refuse to take medications or fail to show up to clinic visits. But Stokes’ family says the teen is considered noncompliant in part because of his low grades and trouble with the law.
A Black Teenager has problems with the Law? Or could it be the Law
has problems with Him?
It's not always a matter of life and death. It's sometimes just a matter of having your pride and dignity chipped away bit by bit. But is that something that people should just be willing to accept? Is that something that is worth giving away without a fight or a response?
"Welcome to Life?"
Is that how Rosa Parks should have responded? Should she have simply shrugged and changed her seat when a white person came on the bus, or was she right to Stand her Ground even if it meant jail?
Is that how those who staged sit-ins at Segregated Lunch Counters should have behaved, should they have simply walked away and found somewhere else to eat?
Maybe Oprah shouldn't have simply walked out, or come back and bought everything in the store, maybe she should buy the STORE, own the entire thing and then Run It Properly.
But of course, that's not really a viable option for the rest of us - is it? The rest of us can now fully expect that after we pull our pants up, not use the N-word, put a ring on it, stay in school, start an successful business or become a Harvard Professor or a Secret Service Agent and can still get treated like shit in Zurich or be Hauled Off to Jail Like a Common Thief in Cambridge, refused service at Denny's or be Shot Down Dead on suspicion of being an Errant Trespasser/Thug in Sanford Fl.
And that when all this happens, everyone will DENY it had anything to do with Race! Each. And. Every. Time. But if it's not Race what the FUCK is it about then? Oprah, Skip Gates, a Black Federal Judge and Black Members of the U.S. Secret Service all just looked too "Thuggish"? Maybe shouldn't have been wearing hoodies is that the excuse now?
Yes, certainly, the rest of us who don't have Oprah's or Skip Gates resources see nothing but a rosy future ahead. We know that the next time someone pulls some of this shit on us and then denies it was Racial - no ones going to put a microphone in front of our face and listen to us. We really do just have to "shug it off".
"Welcome to Life"?
No, welcome to bullshit, but then again - we may have to ignore it because we don't have the resources to fight it, but we don't have to forget, now do we?
Vyan
While you're pondering that Join Color of Change Campaign to Repeal Stand Your Ground Laws and get your asses Registered to Vote [Share the QR below], check out the Dreamdefenders.org and BlackYouthProject.com because at a certain point we have to start seriously thinking and acting on what happens #AfterTrayvon