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Showing Original Post only (View all)I'm still trying to wrap my head around Oprah's purse. [View all]
The story was that a sales clerk in a shop in Switzerland refused to show Oprah a $38,000 purse because she felt Oprah couldn't afford it probably because she was black.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/oprah-winfrey-and-the-handbag-she-couldnt-have/?_r=0
I admire Oprah and that, unlike trust fund babies, she made all her money from scratch, so sure she deserves the best of anything she can buy. However, a little voice in the back of my head keeps saying, she could have a lovely designer purse for between $1,000 and $2,000 and still be able to have something most women can't afford. The rest of that $36,000 could have supported a homeless family for a year.
Here is my problem, it's not Oprah. Some other rich woman will buy that purse and probably wear it once or twice for an elegant affair and then it will sit on a closet shelf for the rest of its life. The problem is that there are women so rich that they can afford to throw away money on accessories like that. It's not like a purse is diamond jewelry that in itself is pricey. You can buy a perfectly attractive and serviceable purse at any price and a designer purse for about $1,000.
So while families go homeless, children get denied school lunches, and seniors go without meals on wheels, the 1% can shop extravagantly for items that could support a family for a year, because our tax code is hell bent on giving tax cuts to multi-millionaires and billionaires so they can buy shit like that to decorate themselves with. Time to bring back the tax codes we had before Reagan.
No, I'm not upset with Oprah and it's awful she had to suffer that humiliation, but I am upset with the system and the fact that there are so many poor, underpaid and unemployed people because we have a pampered elite class that aren't paying their fair share of taxes.