Oprah refused entry at hermes store

[Aurel]

Only in Paris... although I am an Oprah lover I find this very amusing since these kind of things can only happen in Paris. The French are very self-absorbed and don't know much about Oprah, they really don't. Those who saw the Chanel documentary 'Signé Chanel' may have seen that the couturieres didn't know who Oprah was when she bough a whole bunch of haute couture (she didn't know it would be THAT expensive either haha).

Sadfully, I think Europeans in general have more prejudices to afro-americans and aren't shy to show it either... but anyone who has often been to Paris KNOWs what kind of problems they have with some of the ethnic groups. Oh well... the French can be snubby and Oprah felt what it was like to be normal again, poor girl...

So this is going to be my first post. I come here everyday, to read about fashion and, obviously, gossips. Just to have some fun. But I have to react there : I'm french, and I've followed this thread since the beginning and I'm quite disgusted by many things I read, things just like those. "European are prejudiced about black people blah blah" Yeah that's right, over here, we're all white and we never saw any black people! We don't even know what they're like and are very very scared of them, that's why the seller did not let Oprah in! My God, you are prejudiced about European people but obviously it's not a big deal.
When I heard about that story first (in the french media) I was sure it would end up like that : Oprah using the power she has over her HUGE audience to make this sound like a racist problem. The truth is, she's a goddess in the States, can afford everything, can have whoever she wants at her feet but over here in Europe, nobody knows her. The seller probably did not let her in because the store was about to close and all she saw looking at Oprah was a wealthy woman thinking she could make the staff make extra work just for the sake of her, so she said no.
Please, people, don't make such dumb statement about Europe whithout knowing anything about it. You know here, it's like everywhere else in the world, people are prejudiced about the POOR but as long as you have the money, you can be any colour...(and that's quite sad)

Ahh that felt good

 

[LeonieAlexandria]

^ I agree 100% myself. Good post. To generalize europeans (french) like that disturbs me personally.

Welcome to the board btw.

 

[CelineChic]

So this is going to be my first post. I come here everyday, to read about fashion and, obviously, gossips. Just to have some fun. But I have to react there : I'm french, and I've followed this thread since the beginning and I'm quite disgusted by many things I read, things just like those. "European are prejudiced about black people blah blah" Yeah that's right, over here, we're all white and we never saw any black people! We don't even know what they're like and are very very scared of them, that's why the seller did not let Oprah in! My God, you are prejudiced about European people but obviously it's not a big deal.
When I heard about that story first (in the french media) I was sure it would end up like that : Oprah using the power she has over her HUGE audience to make this sound like a racist problem. The truth is, she's a goddess in the States, can afford everything, can have whoever she wants at her feet but over here in Europe, nobody knows her. The seller probably did not let her in because the store was about to close and all she saw looking at Oprah was a wealthy woman thinking she could make the staff make extra work just for the sake of her, so she said no.
Please, people, don't make such dumb statement about Europe whithout knowing anything about it. You know here, it's like everywhere else in the world, people are prejudiced about the POOR but as long as you have the money, you can be any colour...(and that's quite sad)

Ahh that felt good

I have to agree that Alura is way off by saying that Europeans are racist against black people. That is very un-fair to state. Her comments were basically generalizations.

However, from a sociological aspect it is true that European and Asian countries are more xenophobic compared to North American countries. I was recently reading an article about this and they had done research in over 150 countries about xenophobia. It turned out that people in countries such as Thailand, Greece, France, Italy, Turkey, Austria, Denmark and Spain were the most xenophobic. General consensus among the people in those countries was that they were against people emigrating to their country. Main reason was that they feared having jobs taken away from them by immigrants and for fear that the countries main religious standards would be altered. For example, most Frenchmen felt that the influx of Arab immigrants would reduce the amount of jobs available. In Greece, where Orthodoxy is the prominent religion, most people sited that the large amount of Albanian immigrants would affect religious morals and increase crime. Now Of course not every single Frenchmen and Greek feels that way but this research just got a general consensus. These countries were not based on immigration like the US and Canada. These countries more or less have had the same, religion, blood, skin colors, and language for hundreds of years. It’s not easy to change an entire country over night. Everyone is weary of the unfamiliar.

The country with the biggest open arms to immigrants was the Philippines followed second by Canada and third by Australia. United States used to be up on that list until September 11th.


I don't understand why everyone thinks the french are a bunch of @ssholes. Me and all my relatives live or lived in France in our lives and we never had problems. It's true that the french aren't as warm as north americans but I find that they're still good people.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

I have to agree that Alura is way off by saying that Europeans are racist against black people. That is very un-fair to state. Her comments were basically generalizations.

However, from a sociological aspect it is true that European and Asian countries are more xenophobic compared to North American countries. I was recently reading an article about this and they had done research in over 150 countries about xenophobia. It turned out that people in countries such as Thailand, Greece, France, Italy, Turkey, Austria, Denmark and Spain were the most xenophobic. General consensus among the people in those countries was that they were against people emigrating to their country. Main reason was that they feared having jobs taken away from them by immigrants and for fear that the countries main religious standards would be altered. For example, most Frenchmen felt that the influx of Arab immigrants would reduce the amount of jobs available. In Greece, where Orthodoxy is the prominent religion, most people sited that the large amount of Albanian immigrants would affect religious morals and increase crime. Now Of course not every single Frenchmen and Greek feels that way but this research just got a general consensus. These countries were not based on immigration like the US and Canada. These countries more or less have had the same, religion, blood, skin colors, and language for hundreds of years. It’s not easy to change an entire country over night. Everyone is weary of the unfamiliar.

The country with the biggest open arms to immigrants was the Philippines followed second by Canada and third by Australia. United States used to be up on that list until September 11th.

I think that research is deeply flawed. The only genuine example given of xenophobia is in Greece.

The assumption of what xenophobia is seems flawed to me. Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners, many Europeans may have quite genuine fears of economic costs of immigration. It is incorrect to directly correlate all fears over immigration with racism. It must be remembered that many European countries pay incomparably higher welfare benefits to immigrants than North America pays. And it is wrong to assume that there are not genuine cultural incompatibilities. Holland, which is extremely liberal, has had a backlash against the high level of homophobic assualts committed by North African immigrants.

Many of the countries given as being against immigration are countries which have high levels of immigrants. The USA have very few immigrants compared to their size and wealth, arguably due to their xenophobic foreign policy. If you do not feel the effects of migrant labour first hand, as they do in France with its high unemployment rate, then you do not begin to harbour xenophobic feelings. This is reverse NIMBY-ism, ie people are tolerant of immigrants as long as its in someone else's back yard.

Furthemore, the countries cited do not correspond to anything like Europe's entire population, which makes comments based on the evidence deeply biased. It would be like calling the USA racist on the basis of a handful of states.

 

[Aurel]

Well, living in this country, I can say that there are people who are scared of immigrants. Because of unemployement, insecurity etc... Certain people, who feel concerned by those issues, are frightened and tend to blame "immigrants", "strangers" for those problem.
But firstly, this is unfortunately recurrent in developed countries :you pointed out the Greeks and the Albanian immigrants but the same thing can be said about the North Americans and the Mexicans/South Americans. You pointed out that the US is based on immigration, and it is completely true. But I think there's a slight nuance : it is based on useful immigration, people who would be helpful for the country. This means that there are other immigrants who are not wanted because they seem to be useless. So, I don't see why Europe should be said to be really MORE xenophobiac. Xenophobia exists infortunately in all countries, as you said, "everyone is weary of the unfamiliar".
And secondly, I genuinely think that people here are afraid of "immigrants", a faceless, nameless crowd, no real people, and that most of them would not be prejudiced while facing a real person who would be black or whatever...So I think we should not take those kind of surveys where people are just answering questions without realizing what they're really talking about.

I think the mods are going to told us "no political talk on here please" or something like that but still, I think it's nice to debate on that and especially with intelligent people

Edit : Prince of cats, you posted quicker than me and basically said what I wanted to say. Except you're way more briliant than me, hehe

 

[CelineChic]

I think that research is deeply flawed. The only genuine example given of xenophobia is in Greece.

The assumption of what xenophobia is seems flawed to me. Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners, many Europeans may have quite genuine fears of economic costs of immigration. It is incorrect to directly correlate all fears over immigration with racism. It must be remembered that many European countries pay incomparably higher welfare benefits to immigrants than North America pays. And it is wrong to assume that there are not genuine cultural incompatibilities. Holland, which is extremely liberal, has had a backlash against the high level of homophobic assualts committed by North African immigrants.

Many of the countries given as being against immigration are countries which have high levels of immigrants. The USA have very few immigrants compared to their size and wealth, arguably due to their xenophobic foreign policy. If you do not feel the effects of migrant labour first hand, as they do in France with its high unemployment rate, then you do not begin to harbour xenophobic feelings. This is reverse NIMBY-ism, ie people are tolerant of immigrants as long as its in someone else's back yard.

Furthemore, the countries cited do not correspond to anything like Europe's entire population, which makes comments based on the evidence deeply biased. It would be like calling the USA racist on the basis of a handful of states.

Flawed? I basically summarized a 24 page research article into one paragraph with points that were with regards to the topic in this thread. I could see your point if that was the only points made in the article but it wasn't. In went into much more detail than what I wrote. Also, xenophobia is not racism, no one said it was. Although the literal meaning of xenophobia in Greek is "irrational fear of foreigners" the word itself has evolved to have more than one definition.

Next time I go back to the library I will make the effort to get you the authors and title so you can look at it yourself.

It must be remembered that many European countries pay incomparably higher welfare benefits to immigrants than North America pays.

I assure you, none of them as high as the Canadian government .

 

[Alura]

Celine: I am Dutch, I live in Europe... I generalize because I know what I am talking about... and even though my answer could have been a lot more subtle it's just the way it is. These things can only happen in Parisian luxury store and Oprah is very well known in many European countries. Her magazine is a hit in the Netherlands, but the French don't like American tv as much as we do. My reply was meant to be light-hearted not too serious. I can just imagine a typical French manager being snobby to Oprah and her friends. You know how she can be whoreshipped in her show, I mean the adoration in the USA is almost hysteric, I think that in this perspective this Hermes thing was funny.

Now I did not, and I repeat did not say Europeans are more racist, they have more prejudices. That doesn't mean they are racist it means they more often have a biased view, I dare to say racism is a bigger issue in the USA than in Europe. You can't compare the American situation on this with the European one, it's far too complicated to discuss all these differences in a simple thread. It's nothing like the American melting pot. And I think that the recent car burns and riots in Paris' suburbs can only reinforce some of the prejudices of the chic Parisians (sadfully).

 

[CelineChic]

Celine: I am Dutch, I live in Europe... I generalize because I know what I am talking about...

I was born in Paris, have a home in Paris, went to school in Paris and lived there most of my life and I'm not able to make a sweeping generalization about Parisians like you did. You don't know what you're talking about because you haven't met every single Parisian (no one has). You can’t make a sweeping generalization about a city with 2.1 million people in it without others thinking that your observations are inaccurate, and silly.

I can speak from experience about Paris boutiques. I'm a fairly dark skinned arab and every time I've stepped into Hermes, Chanel, Gucci, Prada and Dior the sales people have been nothing but polite and friendly.

 

[Madhuri]

It's funny. I see negative generalizations all over the board about Americans from European posters but when the tables are turned suddenly people realize how unfair generalizations are. Hopefully this sentiment will be carried over to other threads.

 

[Aurel]

It's funny. I see negative generalizations all over the board about Americans from European posters but when the tables are turned suddenly people realize how unfair generalizations are. Hopefully this sentiment will be carried over to other threads.

Let me just give you something I read on The Leg thread or a thread about hairs and shaving, I don't remember well. The conversation went like this:
-I'm so bored of shaving my legs blah blah.. I heard that in Europe, it's more accepted to not shave your legs
-Yeah I know; I even heard that men in Europe find hairy legs attractive! You know, it's different there...
-Wow, we should move there!

So people in Europe do have prejudiced about americans (I know, on a fashion level for example, some think that all the girls are Pamela Anderson's wannabes etc...) but I feel that it has nothing to do with the incomprehension and ignorance some americans may have toward Europe. I don't make generalizations, I said "some americans" because I know that it's a huge country, full of different way of thinking, different people.

Stop bringing up the idea of the "chic parisian" : all the people in paris are not wealthy (erm, me for example), snobby, dressed in Hermes and very arrogant. That is just the biggest cliché!
Paris, and France, is multicultural and multiethnic. Yes, we do have problems and tensions, nothing's perfect.
Enough clichés...

 

[oolie coco]

Now I did not, and I repeat did not say Europeans are more racist, they have more prejudices. That doesn't mean they are racist it means they more often have a biased view, I dare to say racism is a bigger issue in the USA than in Europe. You can't compare the American situation on this with the European one, it's far too complicated to discuss all these differences in a simple thread. It's nothing like the American melting pot. And I think that the recent car burns and riots in Paris' suburbs can only reinforce some of the prejudices of the chic Parisians (sadfully).

You do understand that you just said the following:

European situation = too complicated, you can't generalize.
American situation = very simple, of course we can generalize.

You're very clearly discriminating against a situation you don't understand yourself.

This is how a lot of typical discrimination works. People make up a stereotype about a group because they really do believe everyone (i.e. Americans) in that GROUP is all the same.
But when you look at your own group (i.e. EUROPEANS) you somehow understand that each person is different and the situation is too complicated to generalize about.

^ Yet this is true of every single group.

 

[Cinthia]

I was born in Paris, have a home in Paris, went to school in Paris and lived there most of my life and I'm not able to make a sweeping generalization about Parisians like you did. You don't know what you're talking about because you haven't met every single Parisian (no one has). You can’t make a sweeping generalization about a city with 2.1 million people in it without others thinking that your observations are inaccurate, and silly.

I can speak from experience about Paris boutiques. I'm a fairly dark skinned arab and every time I've stepped into Hermes, Chanel, Gucci, Prada and Dior the sales people have been nothing but polite and friendly.

I'm black and was born and bred in France and I've never experienced rascism so far. I think encounters of openly rascist persons are rare but prejudices exist. Minorities aren't represented enough on t.v. and people from these minorities have the feeling that they can't access to higher jobs ect... but being rejected from a store because of your colour? Hmm I have a hard time believing this. I'm ten thousands time poorer than Oprah and can go wherever I want but Oprah can't ?

 

[oanadobre]

This thread is not about racism, guys. Let's keep it on topic, please

 

[CelineChic]

Can someone just lock this darn thread? I'm sick of reading generalizations about the French and Parisians that aren’t true. If the generalizations were to be made about another race this thread would have been deleted a long time ago.

 

[Aurel]

Can someone just lock this darn thread? I'm sick of reading generalizations about the French and Parisians that aren’t true. If the generalizations were to be made about another race this thread would have been deleted a long time ago.

Ahh thank you, I'm not the only one who feels this way!
Now I agree we should just end things there..

 

[Alura]

Yeah close it haha.

Celine: it's a shame you interpret my comments so differently than how I meant them, but I am sure we would agree on things if we could talk about this over coffee somewhere in paris, I never spole about Parisians in general or said they are all chic. I spoke about a small group within it that is also very active in the fashion industry. Sorry to offend you but stick to some of my generalizations. I have lived, shopped and worked in Paris too, maybe I observed things differently. I personally never felt any discrimination at all but I saw enough to know what I am talking about. And I am not stupid to think the melting pot is anything easy, I just meant that both situations European and American are totally different from each other.