General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm still trying to wrap my head around Oprah's purse. [View all]Marr
(20,317 posts)other countries. These things tend to be very region specific.
Sweden doesn't exactly have a large black population. If you were running a shop in a high-priced area and a black woman walked in, you could pretty safely assume she's a foreigner, likely with a lot of money. Oprah just assumed the clerk's attitude was due to the color of her skin, but it very easily could have had more to do with the simple fact that items like $38,000 crocodile bags appeal to a tiny clientele that the shop is familiar with, and this clerk didn't know who Oprah Winfrey was.
To assume it was about racism is a very big assumption-- unlike the obscene (and uncontested) fact that this woman was going to casually drop most peoples' annual salary on a bag made out of a dead animal.