The Cronut of The Summer of The August. Of Racism

The ‘ausschlachten’ thing might be a bit unfair, actually (and I stress ‘might’ genuinely). Reading through, it was the one word I didn’t recognize, so I looked it up in my Duden. And you’re totally right that the first, literal meaning is to cannibalize. But it seems, according to Herr Doktor Duden anyway, that something like “make political hay out of” is a pretty standard figurative way to use it.

None of this in any way to minimize the shit/trolling, and shit trolling too, on the last few threads. Thanks for these posts—they’re awesome!

Could it be possible that both Oprah and the sales assistant are right? I can’t claim a personal history of oppression or discrimination, but I have spent extended time where I was often treated in terms of a stereotype. One becomes very aware of a certain set of behaviours, but these behaviours were not always the whole – or even a significant part – of the other person’s attitude, or signified something else as well. So I sometimes felt that I had myself stereotyped people as stereotyping me. Then there were the smooth operators who played with my discomfort at stereotyping people to gull me into behaving as they wanted (in accordance with my stereotype of their stereotype). Guess I’m saying that I was confused often enough to grant others may be too.

“A store attendant in Zurich didn’t recognize her (fine), so she treated Oprah like crap because she was racist.”

The store attendant treated her like she treats every day dozens of those who can’t afford the thing. Those she correctly identifies as not being able to afford.

That’s, in essence, the common theme in many of these stories: there is a group of people who are routinely perceived to be of a lower social status than the really are.

I lived in Australia during the ‘blackface on TV’ incident, and was repeatedly told that, while the act might be racist in America, it wasn’t racist in Australia, because Australians weren’t racist.

In a similar vein of logic, I suppose the immigration official who joked that he was as a formality required to ask me about terrorist activities, but obviously I wasn’t a terrorist, unless maybe I’d “left my turban at home” (wink wink), and then pointed at the waiting room mostly full of non-white people behind me and said, “God, why don’t they all go back home,” and complained that working cut into his Friday afternoon drinking time also wasn’t racist.

The saleswoman’s story in the Daily Mail contradicts itself:

Far above there was the 35,000 Swiss franc crocodile leather bag. I simply told her that it was like the one I held in my hand, only much more expensive, and that I could show her similar bags.

This is precisely what Oprah claimed she said. Later:

If someone asks me whether he or she can see an article, I always present these. Because that person is a potential buyer. And my job is to sell it.

This is precisely what she did not do for Oprah. I wonder why?

1. As has been mentioned several times before “Canabalize” has very different connotations from the commonly used “Ausschlachten”.

2. It is even possible that this is not the word the woman used as it is likely that the interview was done in Swiss-German dialect and then “translated” in to what the Swiss call “Written German”.

3. First a disclaimer: I think that there is a lot of racism and Xenophobia in Switzerland and even worse that it is socially accepted. I criticise this regularly and I find it embarrassing and disturbing (and the “but I am Italian” defence fits well into that as many Swiss think they are incapable of racism). However, I cannot help to have doubts about this particular story. To consider a black person poor as a prejudice appears to be so much more a typical US racism narrative. I think it is unlikely that in an up-scale shop a Swiss shop assistant would make this connection (e.g. if someone would have suspected her of drug dealing in the vicinity of a train station, I would immediately believe it. That would be a Swiss racist cliché). Also in my experience in this kind of shop typically money trumps any kind of prejudice. They might actually be the only places in Switzerland where you will get a decent service independently of your appearance.

Of course we will never know for sure what happened. Knowing Switzerland very well, this just does not seem to be a Swiss racism story and the “misunderstanding” appears to be a more plausible explanation.

There is a lot of everyday racism going on in Switzerland that is much more outrageous than incidents about 30’000$ handbags. The Oprah story is once more a celebrity distraction from a very serious problem that without doubt, exists.

Why is every white man on the internet the Mycroft Fucking Holmes of Race Studies

Because the real experts are White Not Racists North Americans. Desegregation was, after all, a coming of age story for them, making them better, and better able to discern the very real racism hidden in sweatpants or cannibalism.

I’m mostly liberal, and we can famously see both sides of the case for our own execution. If once is happenstance, and three times is enemy action, then sure, it’s enemy action to Oprah, ’cause this shit has happened to her every day since she was born. But maybe it’s happenstance to the salesperson? If this stuff was easy all the time, then maybe we would have solved it a while back? Often, as with clowns at rodeos, and with the anecdotes Belle has shared, it is easy. And sometimes, as with me finding out that this time it was not yet another Indian scam artist or that you don’t choose your own fruit in a British shop (or you didn’t back then) in the 80s), it’s not easy at all.

Belle, please don’t go away. I’m a woman commenting here right now. The blog isn’t FUBAR. Lots of people like your posts, but maybe, like me, don’t have time to comment, especially during the week.

Some points in no particular order:

– I strongly agree with Peter T interpretation at 4.

– I think the “I’m italian so I can’t be racist ” thing should be read as “I’m a migrant too, why should I discriminate against foreigners” since in Europe racism is strongly linked to anti-immigration stance. This is a preposterous defence, but at least has a logic (for those who do not know, Switzerland is not part of the EU so european citiziens need a permit to live and work there, and the Swiss are getting stingier with those permits because of the recession).

– I can’t read german, I see that the clerk’s story is described as contradictory, what are the contradictions?

– Some commenters here seem to think that those of us who believe to a certain degree to the clerk’s story try to negate the existence of racism. I’m quite sure that racism exists, I had a conversation with a family friend were she held rather racist views just three days ago. But, this is not a good reason to just assume racism in other people, because this undermines the case against racism in general.

Do you really think you’re going to be able to disprove the existence of systematic racism, by nibbling away at cases?

Do you really think that’s what we’re trying? Or I was trying? It’s just that there are more possible explanations, you know. I’m all for identifying and eliminating racism, but not hanging out a (probably not very wealthy) Swiss shop assistant based only on the perception of a very wealthy African American woman. To her credit, it does not look like that was Oprah’s intention at all, but rather some sleazy celebrity mag.

I forget who said it, but it’s a good one: “I always think I’m right, but I don’t think I’m always right”. Show me twenty cases where you think you’re the victim of systemic discrimination, and I might well doubt you on each individually. But even if I do, I’m open to the possibility that I might be wrong on some of them. It just won’t do to use that argument against any case in particular – individually, I must still judge based on what I see. What I see in this case is a lot of uncritical jumping to conclusions – and not changing those conclusions when what they were based on (OMG did she call Oprah a cannibal?) was wildly wrong.

I dislike Bay Rum, Michael Bay, Bay Buchanan, the Bey of Algiers, and Raffi’s biggest hit for kids. All of them. Make me want to howl at the moon, and no, I won’t accept any synonyms.

Do people think that the point here is to convict one individual Italian woman of racism? Who cares about her? It’s a system, it’s an ideology.

If OW had cited this interaction in order to say something about the capitalist system, would it really be on point to say, “But that Italian woman–she’s no capitalist! She doesn’t even own the means of production, and she’s probably never read a syllable of Hayek! Why, she probably harbours hidden Marxist sympathies!”

All entirely beside the point. It’s not about the clerk, it’s about the system. If I thought the game here was “let’s persecute some random shop-clerk” then I would find it repellent. And if I had thought OW was trying to do that, I would find her attempt repellent.

The point is: see the racism inherent in the system. Is that so hard?

I second Random Lurker @#21 regarding his/her reading of the “I am an Italian” remark.

From the Blick interview:

“Sie sind also keine Rassistin?”

“Sicher nicht! Ich bin Italienerin. Warum sollte gerade ich jemanden wegen seiner Herkunft diskriminieren? Das macht doch keinen Sinn!”

My understanding is along the lines of “Why would someone like me discriminate anyone on account of their origin?”, implying that she herself belongs to a minority in Switzerland who are frowned upon. (Which I wouldn’t know whether is true or not).

But it is true that the debate in Europe tends to conflate immigration and race issues.

@Pedant

But to see the racism inherent to the system, I have to assume that the clerk did actually discriminate because of race.

Now, as I said n times but it’s worth repeating, I see a lot of racism around me, but I think there is a very big chance that racism is not involved in this specific event.
So, why using this specific event as an example of systemic racism?

25, pedant “The point is: see the racism inherent in the system.”

Indeed. So, what’s the point to keep complaining about profiling? As long as some are walking around carrying purses worth a couple of Toyotas and others beg on the streets, this is inevitable. And profiling is hardly the most insufferable symptom of it.

Just quickly because I have to go to work: Those of you who reflexively and repeatedly take the side of “How do we know it was racism?” in these discussions please consider two things:

1. If what you like is Arguing on the Internet (no shame in that, I do too), try arguing the other side for a change. Just for the intellectual experience of it. Like debate team, you know?

2. If you see this as Arguing on the Internet because it seems like an abstract issue please think long and hard about the fact for millions of people it actually has immediate and daily repercussions, some of which can be severe.

And speaking just for myself — when you repeatedly and reflexively take the side of of the status quo, it’s noticeable. And it leads me to conclude that this is a lousy space to talk about some of the most significant factors at work in our society today.

Maybe that’s your goal. Maybe this is just about bullying, and getting to set the terms of what is acceptable to discuss.

But if it’s not, then you may want to think long and hard about the messages that your Arguing on the Internet is actually sending.

I assumed the Daily Mail was just completely making things up, and my shock at seeing them (apparently) be right overrode my lexical caution.

1. The Daily Mail always makes things up.
2. If you suspect you are reading something in the Daily Mail that isn’t made up, see 1.

It’s just a bitterly unpleasant and dishonest newspaper. The only way to treat it is zero-weighting; reading a report of X in the Mail should have no effect on your prior estimation of p(X).
Or just not to read it.

She doesn’t really contradict herself and boiling her Italian phrase down to “How can I be a racist, I’m Italian” is cheap style (see Random Lurker for her real meaning).

AND: “This one’s the same and much cheaper” is quite a normal answer in Swiss stores. I get it all the time. Even a second time after I insisted on seeing another article. I don’t know about shopping cultures in other countries as I haven’t traveled a lot but believe me, this is THE standard sentence in Switzerland as we are all so thrifty. I think the shop assistant didn’t realize she was offensive, OW really thought the shop assistant was racist, that most people commenting on this affair don’t know batcrap about Switzerland and Zurich and that this whole debate is flipping stupid edging on the pathetic because we cannot know for sure what happened in that shop (see, I didn’t write “who told the truth” because I truly think both believe they do).

BTW: the same answer happening to me wasn’t a racist thing, because, although I have an Italian name, both my parents are Swiss and were born here. It’s just kinda Swiss mentality to show how well-meaning you are by not beggaring your client (and yessss you could construct that as contradicting her statement about being happy to sell such an expansive bag, but come on, serious?).

And now please: I’m steaming for some days now about that really racist story and hoped for a CT post about it, especially because of the many racism posts during the last weeks. And then you bring that tabloid crap. Eek. Shame on you!

Belle, I really love your posts. Even that one. So please keep it!

I’ve followed all of Belle’s posts and the comments on them so far, mostly with a growing horror at the tangles we get ourselves into, and warning myself not to stick my two cents in where they couldn’t possibly do anyone any good, most especially not me. Since I’m obviously the kind of person who can’t help commenting on blogs, though, there was never much of a chance that in the end I’d heed my own warning.

So, my credentials first of all…. I’m white, grew up mostly in the South during the last decade of Jim Crow. My father was from rural Tennessee, my mother from urban New Jersey. Add all that together, and I have a few stories of my own to tell, most of which have been told better already by everyone from Frederick Douglass to William Faulkner, so there’s no point re-telling them here except to say that Belle is right about how those stories add up. Absolutely right.

Also…. Oprah, having played white American society’s ugly game and won it — to the extent that any black person can win it — she’s entitled to her view of who is and isn’t a racist. And frankly, if I had to lay money on it, I’d go with her view. Of course modern, up-to-date racism is structural, but in my opinion, that doesn’t exonerate even its most unconscious practitioners. We’re supposed to consult the better angels of our nature from time to time. Even Southern Baptists. Even Italians in Switzerland. That’s how the structure gets restructured.

And yes, 30,000 Franc handbags are an obscenity, but winking at obscenities is how we divide the powerful from the powerless, which most of us, when we aren’t on our soapboxes, have, like it or not, been forced to accept as at least a quasi-necessary distinction. That’s how we score the ugly game, after all.

We need a better world. Arguing about what went down in the Swiss boutique was an example of racism on the salesperson’s part or class pretension on Oprah’s isn’t going to get us one, fascinating as the argument has been.

@Random Lurker #34, right on spot!

In Switzerland racism is usually targeted at the most recent immigrants. 1960s/70s even 80s it was Italians, 90s people from ex-Yugoslavia (still some of that left now), now it’s the supposed drug dealers from Nigeria. And the Germans. Racism is really more a form of xenophobia, that’s why she made the not-so-smart “I’m Italian”-comment.

My last post should have ended “So please keep it UP!” The missing “up” makes it look like I was afraid you would delete this post.

“I simply told her that it was like the one I held in my hand, only much more expensive, and that I could show her similar bags. She looked around the store again but didn’t say anything else. Then she went with her companion to the lower floor”

If that summary of the shop girl-OW exchange is accurate, then I’m not convinced that was racism at all — as opposed to standard Swiss/German shop-assistant behaviour. I’m a white, middle-class, usually well-dressed, German male, and I get “treated” like that by shop assistants all the time in Germany, and Italy and Switzerland (though I spend less time in the latter place). I’m not complaining — it is just the way things are done round here. German (and in my experience Italian and I’m pretty sure Swiss, too, though I have less experience of them) shop assistants tend to be much less helpful and sometimes polite (though another word that springs to mind is, less servile. Think about that.) than shop assistants in America. An exchange along the following lines is totally normal, in my German and Italian shopping experience:

Me (handling one article and pointing to another): Could I see that other article?

Assistant: Oh, that one is far more expensive than the one you’re currently looking at, but in fact just the same, except for the price (Makes no move at all to give me the other article)

Me: I’d like to see it nonetheless. Please bring it me.

Assistant: Sure. (Goes to get the article from shelf.)

For a shop assistant not to give me something that I’ve asked for (while providing me a reason for not doing so) is quite normal. Still not getting the thing on second asking would be very unusual (and indeed possibly suggestive of some form of discrimination), but note that OW apparently did not ask a second time.

me and Belle . . . and Bérubé, obviously

“I don’t see what the ‘everyone’s perspective is different’ is really doing for us here.”

It was intended to illustrate how Oprah wasn’t “making an argument about systematic racism” (as in ronan’s#28) but was instead encountering it, as people who are black do. And how people can agree that it was a racist interaction in that Oprah understood for good reason that it was without necessarily agreeing on what happened.

If you make the agreement contingent on agreeing on what happened, then of course people won’t agree. It wasn’t an incident as obvious as the rodeo clown one, and there’s a clash of privileges there, which is what the classism-not-racism people were largely saying in the first place. Here’s an example:

Your UU friends should have smiled at the guy if he crossed their line of sight on his way to get coffee, and otherwise not looked at him, because anyone with any sense knows it might make him feel unwelcome. Then they could offer to get him a cup while they get their next one. Then maybe at a second meeting they could ask him to grab a cup for them while he’s up please if he wouldn’t mind (in that order, obviously). I don’t see what the “everyone’s perspective is different’ is really doing for us here.

Some people in the church, as I mentioned, were really poor. This doesn’t work for them. They end up spending too many 50 cent cups of coffee on interactions that are never reciprocated, because most visitors visit once. Attempts to tell some people they don’t have to pay founder on the same issues of pride / condescension that the first person in the story objected to when he thought people were telling him he didn’t have to pay. And it’s pretty much impossible to get everyone to not watch what’s going on with the donation jar when it’s actually important to some people.

The solution (I think) was to socialize the coffee pot — to say that it clearly was a central feature of the social life of the church, and to pay for everyone’s coffee out of general church funds which the well-off people in the church wouldn’t really notice. Even though in effect you still have richer people paying for poorer people, it’s being done on average and no one is being singled out. Once the donation jar is taken away entirely, the focus of conflict is gone, and people can go back to just being hospitable on behalf of the church without having to worry about their personal situation.

Ronan(rf): I quoted the Daily Mail article, ostensibly a translation of what the saleswoman said:

Far above there was the 35,000 Swiss franc crocodile leather bag. I simply told her that it was like the one I held in my hand, only much more expensive, and that I could show her similar bags.

Now if I ask a saleswoman to see Bag A, and she says it’s like this one only much more expensive and I can show you other similar bags, I’m going to conclude, like Oprah, that she isn’t showing it to me because she thinks I won’t buy it.

In my case, as a white guy, the reason I get that would be because I’m in jeans and a tee shirt and haven’t shaved, but Oprah notes that she was in “full Oprah”, dressed like a billionaire. So what could it have been?

Belle

Okay, fair enough, I take your point. I think Ill take Witts advice above and sit this out from now on as, tbh, I don’t know what’s driving my hostility to the OW story
(Anyway, to echo some others above, fwiw, Ive really enjoyed your last few posts, losing my s**t over OW notwithstanding)

Niall McAuley;
” ‘Far above there was the 35,000 Swiss franc crocodile leather bag. I simply told her that it was like the one I held in my hand, only much more expensive, and that I could show her similar bags.’

Now if I ask a saleswoman to see Bag A, and she says it’s like this one only much more expensive and I can show you other similar bags, I’m going to conclude, like Oprah, that she isn’t showing it to me because she thinks I won’t buy it.

In my case, as a white guy, the reason I get that would be because I’m in jeans and a tee shirt and haven’t shaved, but Oprah notes that she was in “full Oprah”, dressed like a billionaire. So what could it have been?”

And I, as a white, German, middle-class male, would simply conclude (from much experience) that that is standard German and Italian shop assistant behaviour, and that if I really want to see that bag I will have to repeat my request. (See my post above.) No discrimination involved. (IF after a second request I still don’t get to see the bag, then I would suspect there might be some discrimination.)

Random Lurker @34:

This is IMHO different from racism in the USA, where blacks are not supposed to be foreigners.

Indeed. Nobody in this country would ever accuse, say, a black President of the U.S. of actually being a foreign national.

(I don’t mean to deny that racism manifests itself differently in different social contexts, but it’s hardly a rational form of thought and the trope that African Americans, unlike European Americans, are somehow foreign to America is an old and deep one among US racists.)

reminds me, a couple months ago, The Italian Yob:
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/9338962/when-beautiful-game-turns-ugly

Belle #46

No, the saleswoman does not “absolutely back this up”, read it again. According to her, she was already showing OW another, cheaper bag, which was, according to the saleswoman, a similar bag except for the price (not smaller as OW claims). She doesn’t say anywhere in that interview that she offered her a cheaper and smaller bag only after OW asked for the expensive one. Please stick to the facts, this debate’s emotional enough as it is.

I just watched the video of Oprah a second time. Really, this is too embellished, she even uses a strange accent when imitating the shop assistant.

Also NM at #43 is right, I think OW just doesn’t shop that much in Switzerland/Germany etc. and interpreted normal saleswoman behaviour as racist. And didn’t

Is it possible that if you have been exposed to racist attitudes all your life you may sometimes assume racism even if it isn’t there? Might navigating different continents with different cultures and customs and through a blur of imperfect language be conducive to such an instance? I think so.

I don’t care if she was treated as a “black person” rather than a human being,

Then you’re part of the problem!

The question really isn’t: what did Oprah do, and what did the clerk do? The question really is: “What is racism, and who gets to decide?” Frankly, I’ve heard this argument over and over again for decades: “That was racism towards me!” “No, it wasn’t; I’m not a racist!” “Are too!” “Am not!”

Perhaps we could begin by taking seriously the stories of those who are negatively impacted by racist attitudes. What a concept!

Being Italian a defense against a charge of racism? Bullshit.

She was “helping Oprah” not spend too much money.

If I’m the store owner, this is just as good a reason to fire the clerk as if she’s racist. Possibly even better.

Do we know whether the clerk did in fact work on commission? If I’m a clerk selling absurd luxury items to the absurdly rich, on commission, it’s deeply implausible that I’m looking out for their bank balance.

For those commenters who resent Oprah for her wealth – and yes, there are commenters in previous posts here on Crooked Timber who definitely resent her wealth – do you resent Warren Buffet for his wealth? Steve Jobs for his wealth? Bill Gates for his wealth? Lloyd Blankfein for his wealth?

Oh, hell yes. Although it isn’t at all personal, I simply resent oppose wealth in itself. My line is probably somewhere around a quarter million. 65% or Americans have net wealth under 100k. I care about them, not OW of Jobs.

Belle, you again state falsely that the saleswoman’s story is the same os OW’s.

But you already mentioned that your German isn’t that good. Please believe me, the stories differ in this important part.

“I’m an Italian in Switzerland, so how can I be racist?”

Well, Italians immigrants in Switzerland probably have some potential claim to be a discriminated minority, esp. low-income ones. (They definitely do in Germany.) Indeed, southern Italians in Northern Italy, certainly have a claim to be discriminated against, esp. if they are low-income and have a strong regional accent.

Stating “I’m [non-white] so I can’t be racist” doesn’t make much logical sense ultimately, but it is something one does hear every so often. Given that it is something people come out with quite often, maybe this unfortunate shop assistant should receive a little less mockery? Her main training, apparently, lies in selling hand bags, not formulating logically-sound arguments.

We could; if we didn’t end up going ’round in circles about whether or not the clerk was a racist, and whether or not some people hate Oprah because she’s rich; or whether or not the whole incident is even an example of racism.

Your causal chain is backwards. The first thing you do is take Oprah’s story seriously, and then the “problems” you’re so concerned about resolve themselves.

Your causal chain is backwards. The first thing you do is take Oprah’s story seriously, and then the “problems” you’re so concerned about resolve themselves.

Causal chain? You mean once I agree with your set of facts, I’m right? And if I don’t, then I’ve got the causal chain running in reverse? So now the issue is who caused the racism in the first place? Or is it who caused it to be analyzed as racism? Or is it who cause whom to discern racism?

Causal chain?

How about if I just set Oprah’s story aside as a distraction, and try to find the issue worth discussing? Since nobody wants to discuss that, and everybody seems to want to decide what really happened to Oprah?

I’m sorry, you couldn’t possibly afford that sackcloth; I’ll show you something cheaper. And please don’t abase yourself at all, if that involves some kind of prolonged immersion in bay-leaves. I can’t stand bay-leaves. A bas, lauriers!

The fact that you don’t realize that this is the fucking problem if actually part of the fucking problem. Go read what Belle wrote, carefully; twice if you have to.

The first problem seems to be discerning what the problem is, and if it really happened.

And really, if you have to resort to adjectives like “fucking” to express your frustration that I don’t agree with you, you need to examine your analysis; not mine.

And really, if you have to resort to adjectives like “fucking” to express your frustration that I don’t agree with you, you need to examine your analysis; not mine.

I didn’t realize you were the fucking CT civility police.

Privilege and White Dudes …Adam Kotsko, not long

The goal is not, however, to make white dudes feel less prickly and defensive, because as I said, prickly defensiveness is one of the core pillars of white dude identity. The way to deal with white dudes is to figure out a way to make them a different type of person than a white dude, and that can’t happen through strong arguments or carefully calibrated rhetoric — it’s a matter of figuring out how to jar them out of their subject-position, not “convincing” them to accept some kind of opinion in an extrinsic way. Provoking prickly defensiveness in certain white dudes may actually be helpful here, in that it might shock white dudes with the potential to become something better into realizing how obnoxious white dudes really are. This is a tough thing for liberal activists to come to terms with, I know, because one wants to believe that open, honest dialogue can change everything, but the sad truth is that it can’t.

81–in some dialects of American, the term “to part out” means what ausschlachten means, with reference to machines (esp. cars). You give up on fixing the truck, but you pull the engine to put in another truck, and you take off the bed to make into a trailer, and the tires and wheels can be put on something else, etc.

I bring it up only because the “out” in “to part out” corresponds nicely to the “aus-“.

Vivek Chibber

So for the universalizing drive of capital to be real, Guha says, it must be experienced as the emergence of a capitalist class that constructs a consensual, liberal order. This order replaces the ancien régime, and is universalizing in that it expresses the interests of capitalists as universal interests. Capital, as Guha says, achieves the ability to speak for all of society: it is not only dominant as a class, but also hegemonic in that it doesn’t need to use coercion to maintain its power.

The universalizing drive, Treyvon Martin, Emmitt Till = same thing; OW dissed while buying 38k handbag, Rosa Parks sent to back of bus = same damn thing…this is how liberal capitalism maintains it structures of oppression. It is.

I am not running to the barricades to help some woman make partner in a white shoe DC law firm.

All instances of sexism or racism are not the same or follow the same rules, are not of equal importance or deserving of equivalent outrage.

OW may have encountered racism. I really don’t care.

Hey, can we all just talk about Jack Vance again?

Belle Waring: “you do realize that that was an interview on an entertainment show, which was taped one week after the incident? And was the first time Oprah ever related to story in public?”

Memory can be contaminated quite easily. Public retelling has no known effect different from retelling in private.

Belle Waring: “That she chose to leave the shop unnamed rather than expose them to the world?”

Doing so also gives a certain license to embellish, both because it diminishes the possibility of harming someone else in doing so, and because it diminishes the possibility of being disputed.

Belle Waring: “And that, as to being “too good,” it does chance to be so good that the saleswoman agrees in almost every particular with what occurred? Namely that Oprah entered the store leaving a friend or bodyguard outside. Then she asked to see that dang expensive handbag. The woman instead–per her own account!–did not do so but rather showed her some other, smaller, cheaper handbags.”

So far, so good. :)

Belle Waring: {snip}

“Oprah claims to have asked three times, while the saleswoman admits to only once. Minor divergence!”

Hardly. The embellishment of details that makes a good story. Ignoring a request once might just be snottiness, but saying “Nonono!” and having a confrontation with the obviously rich customer goes beyond mere snottiness, and invites the listener to infer another explanation. Besides, three is a magic number in storytelling. ;)

Belle Waring: “The saleswoman adduces as further proof that she was not motivated by racism, the fact that she is Italian.”

Please note that I said that I “figured that the woman did not realize the racism behind not showing her customer the bag that she wanted to see.” That is according to the woman’s own account, not Oprah’s.

Belle Waring: {snip}

“If I were on the defense in a murder trial, I’d use one of my preëmptive strikes against you, Billikin, because you leap to wild conclusions and believe you can tell when a woman is lying when she narrates an event from her life all too well. And has spent the last 25 years on a daily talk show.”

Well, Southerners like us do not always let the truth get in the way of a good story. I did not jump to the conclusion that Oprah was lying, because, as we know, memory is reconstructed. I simply did not jump to the conclusion that she was telling the truth, and I noted problems with her retelling, based in part on having grown up among good storytellers.

As for a preemptive strike in a murder trial, the prosecutor would probably have beaten you to it. After all, it is his story that I would have to believe.

bob mcmanus @ 86

Yes, but…. The sublimities of Marxist analysis, filtered through Gramsci, or Marcuse, have their merits, ain’t no doubt about that. On the other hand, meditating exclusively on the wheel of Karma, while dissing the motives of individuals caught up in it, devalues us — not just as individuals, but collectively, as a motive force.

If we abandon the idea that the collective can be influenced by individual action, that a feedback loop is not only possible, but worthy of respect, then we’re stuck. I don’t think that Marx himself ever intended to abandon that idea. Turning Hegel on his head was only step one of a many step process. So…not to care about Oprah is a historically valid sentiment, or perhaps better, ressentiment, but it also begs the question….

“For those commenters who resent Oprah for her wealth – and yes, there are commenters in previous posts here on Crooked Timber who definitely resent her wealth – do you resent Warren Buffet for his wealth? Steve Jobs for his wealth? Bill Gates for his wealth? Lloyd Blankfein for his wealth?”

For the record, yes to all above. If anything Oprah gets a bit of a pass because she had to bust through some big ceilings to get there. But you do her a great disservice for painting her with the same brush as a snake like Blankfein. I mean, all CEOs are part sociopath – its part of the job description – but the CEO of the vampire squid is a whole other level of evil.

There should not be billionaires, period. That does not justify being racist and sexist towards a billionaire.

Failing which, you (and Anderson, et al.) could start up a blog that’s all VRA all the time?

As my participation in both threads should indicate, I was half teasing.

I have been wondering why the Oprah story does bring so much heat, and why there does seem to be so much bile directed at Oprah. Yes, she is a Black woman in a position of power that particularly upsets peoples notions of what a proper race and sex hierarchy should be. But I also get the feeling that she gets more heat than had it been, say, Ursula Burns (CEO of Xerox).

Cause Oprah started in an “appropriate” role for Black women as an entertainer (it was OK for Black folks to get on stage and entertain white folks even back in the Jim Crow era), and particularly an entertainer that talked about personal stuff – feelings and relationships and cheating and all of that talk-show stuff. But she had the audacity to actually own the show, rather than just be part of the staff – which is really disturbing to some people.

I can’t help but feel that some of the antipathy is that she got to be a billionaire with “chick stuff”.

@ fgw

I strongly disagree. There is no way to use “ausschlachten” with regard to a person without it being used in its original meaning. “Ausschlachten” in the figurative sense used in the interview is possible only with regard to topics. That’s why the clerk says:”Ich verstehe auch nicht, weshalb sie das so gross im TV ausschlachten muss.” She is talking about “das”, i.e. about the incident, not about herself. If one used “ausschlachten” with regard to a person, one would butcher and disembowel her/him. So when you write “literally she is accusing Oprah of publicly disemboweling her”, “her” is exactly (and quotably) not what she is referring to, nor would it be possible if you use “ausschlachten” figuratively.

Cannot believe there’s a discussion on the internet about racism in luxury stores without Kanye West being mentioned. What kind of internet is this?
E.g.
‘You see it’s broke nigga racism
That’s that “Don’t touch anything in the store”
And this rich nigga racism
That’s that “Come in, please buy more”
“What you want, a Bentley? Fur coat? A diamond chain?
All you blacks want all the same things”
Used to only be niggas, now everybody playing
Spending everything on Alexander Wang’

Though it sounds like the racist store clerk hasn’t been listening either to what kind of racism she should be sporting.

The German “ausschlachten” is a compound: aus meaning out or from, and schlachten, which is a cognate of the English “slaughter.” (English gh corresponds to German ch -you can see the pairing in Scots English loch, which retains the Germanic original, and Irish English lough, which has been Anglicized.)

So auschlachten means something like to butcher out – to gut or dress, in the hunting sense, and in a metaphorical sense, to use the parts of something while killing, destroying or dismembering it to do so.

You can salvage one machine for usable parts for another, and that sense has no pejorative connotation, or you can metaphorically dismember a person or event or enterprise for some sort of exploitative publicity use, and that does have a pejorative connotation.

But whatever the meaning, it’s got nothing to do with eating people.

I’m reminded of a well-known anecdote about Condoleezza Rice, as recounted by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker and elsewhere:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/condi-nuclear-article-1.235364

‘In another story, Rice is shopping for jewelry at the Stanford Shopping Center with an academic colleague and close friend named Coit (Chip) Blacker. The clerk pulls out the costume jewelry. She and Rice trade hostile remarks. Then, as Blacker told the story to Dale Russakoff, of the Washington Post, Condi said, “Let’s one thing straight. You’re behind the counter because you have to work for six dollars an hour. I’m on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more.”‘
As I remember, Lemann described this as Rice “confronting racism.” While I understood Rice’s annoyance, it seemed more like an example of taking it out on the help.

Very possibly a degree of racism was involved in both cases. I am still unable to work up much indignation on behalf of rich and powerful people who have a sad when the lower orders don’t treat them with sufficient deference. I expect Winfrey, like Rice, will somehow manage to rise above this consumer trauma and carry on with life, and shopping.

@ Bloix

Again, I dispute that one can use “ausschlachten” with regard to a person while maintaining the figurative meaning we are talking about here. If you say “Sie haben mich/ihn/sie/diese Person/etc. ausgeschlachtet”, this would be absurd, save that’s literally what they did: slaughter and disembowel someone.

It’s a bit odd that this comes up so often here. Already the wording in the interview does not allow such an interpretation: the clerk is explicitely referring to the incident that is “cannibalized” (i.e. ausgeschlachtet). There is zero room to relate that word in the interview to any person, e.g. the clerk herself – even IF “ausschlachten” in the figurative sense could relate to a person.

I am really sure that I have this one right, and I’d ask everybody who sorta-kinda thinks that – apart from the fact that the object to be cannibalized in the interview is clearly not a person, it’s “das”, i.e. the incident – “ausschlachten” can refer to a person without it meaning that one literally butcher her, to cite one single example where the word has been used in this way. Duden does not provide one (it refers to a “case” (Fall) and to a “Skandal” (scandal) in the examples, and I found no other German or German-English dictionary where the word refers to a person). One can “ausschlachten” an incident, a story, a mistake, whatever, one cannot “ausschlachten” a human being, except one actually kills her. But even if one could, the object in the interview was the incident, the Daily Mail has translated that wrongly with “cannibalized me” where “cannibalize it” would have been appropriate. If on purpose, I cannot say, but this reading is simply not possible in the original.

Martin, I think was trying to agree with you. I would say that the problem with the Mail translation is not primarily me vs. it but “cannibalize.” Your translation “cannibalize it” is not merely non-idiomatic, it’s not correct, because English doesn’t have the metaphorical meaning the shop clerk is using. An adequate translation would be “exploit it.” But “cannibalize” is a wrong translation.

“I hope a waiter spits in her soup.”

There is a touching belief that being subject to racism makes one a better person. A corollary is the belief that a subject of racism who is not a good person is for that reason deserving of being subject to racism.

I view the claim that all it takes to be a feminist is to support “equal rights” as about as persuasive as the claim that all it takes to be anti-racist is to be “post-racial”. When Colbert says he “doesn’t see race,” it’s a joke. It would remain a joke if he were to say, “I don’t see gender.” Formal equality tends to be a decent way to perpetuate substantive inequality, though not ideal for racists and sexists.

So the Condoleezaa Rice story proves that the way to fight racism is by being unpleasantly snobbish?

I think the problem a lot of people have with Oprah Winfrey is that she is an entertainer who runs a pretty cheesy entertainment empire, and who has a tendency to say stupid things on a range of fairly unimportant topics (e.g. ‘The Secret’).

I personally have a pretty low opinion of Jay Leno – not sure what that proves.

The Condoleezza Rice story, as it’s quoted here (I didn’t click the link), doesn’t even allege any racism. Does it really belong here? I’ve seen, a number of times, white people exchanging hostile remarks with white store clerks.

@122: The anecdote has been described (more than once, I believe) as an incident in which Rice “confronted racism.”

Switzerland=very low context communication; US higher context. Pretty clear miscommunication due to cultural barriers. Opherah did construct context into words that had no context. Ok so far it happens. Less fun when a billionaire celebrity takes such unreflected thaughts into public without confirmation. Kind of fun when the define all stereotyping as racist (which does to actual racism the same as the call all government action socialism move does to the term socialism) people fail due to their own Switzerland stereotyping. Not the first time a black person goes with the stereotypical racism explanation in German speaking countries to explain behaviour shown towards everyone.

(I most certainly do resent Gates and Blankfein a lot more for their wealth considering the source…, Buffett has a pretty good record, but he still should be capped at maybe 100 million like everyone else – e.g. of not spending money on 35k bags)

In any case, I would never “defer to expertise” on a matter where the expert has personal involvement or a direct stake in the matter.

Lucky there are so many white people around who don’t have any direct stake in the matter, then. /snark

I just want to say sincerely that I was quite enjoying the Scarlett O’Hara stuff, so my vote goes for more of that.

According to a recent study, intelligent white people are just as racist as the less intelligent, only better at concealing it (or at least contradicting themselves):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130811005342.htm

“High-ability whites are less likely to report prejudiced attitudes and more likely to say they support racial integration in principle,” said Geoffrey Wodtke, a doctoral candidate in sociology. “But they are no more likely than lower-ability whites to support open housing laws and are less likely to support school busing and affirmative action programs.”
Wodtke will present his findings at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. The National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health, supported his research.
He analyzed data on the racial attitudes of more than 20,000 white respondents from the nationally representative General Social Survey. He examined how their cognitive ability, as measured by a widely used test of verbal intelligence, was linked with their attitudes about African-Americans, and about different policies designed to redress racial segregation and discrimination.
Respondents were about 47 years old at the time of the interview, on average, and had completed 12.9 years of education. They correctly answered an average of about six of the 10 cognitive ability test questions.
Among Wodtke’s findings:
–High-ability whites were more likely than low-ability whites to reject residential segregation and to support school integration in principle, and they were more likely to acknowledge racial discrimination in the workplace. But there were only trivial differences across cognitive ability levels in support for policies designed to realize racial equality in practice.
–In some cases, more intelligent whites were actually less likely to support remedial policies for racial inequality. For example, about 27 percent of the least intelligent whites supported school busing programs, compared with 23 percent of the most intelligent whites.
“The principle-policy paradox is much more pronounced among high-ability whites than among low-ability whites,” said Wodtke, who is also affiliated with the Population Studies Center at the U-M Institute for Social Research. “There’s a disconnect between the attitudes intelligent whites support in principle and their attitudes toward policies designed to realize racial equality in practice.
“Intelligent whites give more enlightened responses than less intelligent whites to questions about their attitudes, but their responses to questions about actual policies aimed at redressing racial discrimination are far less enlightened. For example, although nearly all whites with advanced cognitive abilities say that ‘whites have no right to segregate their neighborhoods,’ nearly half of this group remains content to allow prejudicial real estate practices to continue unencumbered by open housing laws.”
According to Wodtke, the broader implication of this study is that racism and prejudice don’t simply come about as a result of low mental capacities or deficiencies in socialization. Rather, they result from the need of dominant groups to legitimize and protect their privileged social position within an intergroup conflict over resources.
“More intelligent members of the dominant group are just better at legitimizing and protecting their privileged position than less intelligent members,” he said. “In modern America, where blacks are mobilized to challenge racial inequality, this means that intelligent whites say — and may in fact truly believe — all the right things about racial equality in principle, but they just don’t actually do anything that would eliminate the privileges to which they have become accustomed.

This is really the kind of complaint that the mega-rich should have the good taste not to share with the rest of us.

It wasn’t Oprah who chose to share that story here. Belle found it interesting for some reason. I wonder why?

bianca steele: “But I’m not sure why you even brought up your church story. In the story you told, the people weren’t racist, […]”

No, actually I have no way of knowing that. I can pretty confidently say that the church as a whole wasn’t overtly racist, based on current membership and pride in integrated history and so on, and also I’m pretty sure that no one said something overtly racist at the coffee pot. But some people glancing preferentially at black visitors to see whether they paid for coffee? Pretty undetectable unless you were there monitoring the coffee pot all the time, or unless you were a black visitor. Also, lots of people in the U.S. are racist at that level, so it’s not that unlikely that some people might do it.

I don’t really understand why you don’t understand why I told this story, but it’s not a binary choice of 1) “There was no racism, and it was all a perfectly innocent misunderstanding” or 2) “Racist people hassled the visitor”. There’s also 3) “Someone who we wanted to feel welcomed instead said he was being racially profiled. We’d better change things so that’s less likely to happen.” You don’t really need to decide whether it was really racist motivation / action or not, and in this kind of case there’s no forensic way to do so anyways. His perception was really all that was important.

And it’s a perception that’s shaped by a social system in which both blatant and not-so-blatant racist encounters happen all the time. It’s kind of a jerk move to say “Hey, you’re wrong this time, you’re being hypersensitive!” Who cares. Settle for 3) above. Settling for 2) leads to things like accepting the Daily Mall’s mistranslation of “cannibalize”, and misses out on other things like Oprah is really also a billionaire and the clerk really is a worker and maybe saying the clerk is a horrible racist on evidence like this isn’t the best thing to do when you’re concerned about how relatively powerless people are treated in general.

Also, the people who are all surprised that America likes to address social issues through celebrities? Don’t know why you’re surprised. “Let’s look at the real racism” is a category error.

Or, maybe, actually, there really is racism in Europe, and Oprah is not crazy for thinking that, in a country where minarets and kosher butchering are banned and your neighbors get to vote on whether you deserve citizenship based on the color of your skin, she might encounter a racist microaggression from a woman who comes from a country where black people get bananas thrown at them on a not irregular basis.

politicalfootball #133: “You wouldn’t think this would be worth all of this debate – except it clearly is, since people keep wanting to dispute the obvious.”

Yes.

I’m white and, as far as I can tell, I’m without racial prejudice. But note that word, “prejudice,” meaning a judgement in advance (“pre”) of experience. Note also that, as I pointed out in #16 above, the first time I found myself in a situation where I was totally surrounded by black people, my lizard brain went into quick-unthinking-judgment mode and set off alert signals in my brain–which I was, with relatively little effort, able to calm down.

Sometime long ago I may well have, in a conventional way, thought of myself as “color blind.” But I don’t think so now. I’m acutely conscious of color, of ethnicity. It’s the only way I can keep myself sane and decent in a world with the history our world has.

For the last two-and-a-half years I’ve lived in the Lafayette neighborhood of Jersey City, which is predominantly black and brown. I volunteer on community projects with my black and brown and white (I’m by no means the only one) neighbors. A week after Hurricaine Sandy had blown through the neighborhood, flooding some of the streets and killing the power for anywhere between four+ days and two weeks, I went to the church down the street to be with my neighbors. I’m comfortable in this neighborhood among these people, as comfortable as I’ve ever been in a neighborhood.

I have no idea about the ethnic mix of the clientele for that shop in Zurich. Mostly white I’d think. Probably some Arabs, more likely in Western than traditional Arab dress. Some Asians. And perhaps some Africans and African-Americans. Oprah was probably not the first black woman in the shop, but how many black women go to that shop? Not many. How much experience did that shop keeper have with black customers? Could she have been responding to the mere rarity of a having a black customer?

If so, then regardless of what she consciously thought, then and after, the lizard brain probably sent out alert signals. They were likely relatively weak as such things go–the shop was, after all, a safe environment and there was nothing suddenly dramatic going on–but they would have been there. So the shop keeper may have been giving out a vibe. And Oprah picked up on that vibe and conceptually “anchored” it to what, on evidence given here and there in this thread, is normal European sales assistant behavior.

And now that vibe is the talk of the internets.

bill benzon, very good, so would you classify your panic attack at that Gillespie concert as ‘racism’, or at least as a ‘racist impulse’ that you quickly subdued? Or do you feel it’s not a part of the concept of ‘racism’?

#138
In the same country where minarets and kosher butchering is banned, wealthy Arabs are regular visitors to the upscale shops of Zurich. It’s also where the looters and dictators of Africa like to shop. Maybe things are a little different for the rich.

she might encounter a racist microaggression from a woman who comes from a country where black people get bananas thrown at them on a not irregular basis.

[sarcasm]Because every Italian is a member of the Northern League[/sarcasm]

But I’m pleased to discover that the way to fight racism is by making ridiculous, over-generalized, stereotypes of whole cultures.

Or to put it a different way. What does the treatment of an Afro-American billionaire in a swanky Zurich boutique tell us about the typical Afro-American experience in the USA today?

I don’t know why we need an Oprah publicity stunt to be made aware of this.

I do.

Although Meredith’s 137 is bloody marvellous

“And, mybe you don’t think that you discriminated me because I’m a vegetarian and a manga fan”

So you think that some people not liking vegetarians and manga fans is like the result of America’s history of oppression of black people. That someone who has grown up all of their life confronting the most pervasive and extreme form of prejudice that we have to offer is comparable to anti-vegetarianism or manga dislike.

In both cases, someone saying “I was discriminated against” is saying someone about both themselves and society. In the case of racist discrimination, it’s a statement about an important part of what our society is and how our society sees them, whether they want to be seen that way or not. In the case of the person trying to not understand by making foolish comparisons to vegetarianism and manga, it’s also really a statement about racism, in this context. I wonder what that statement is?

@151
In that case, I’m sorry you felt that way. I’ll eat a carrot at lunch. : )

“But the fact that she FELT discriminated is not the same thing that she WAS discriminated, you can’t base your judgment on this only on the basis of Oprah’s personal interpretation.”

The question to which she was responding was to indicate a recent example of a time where she felt discriminated against. The question didn’t involve a time when society at large or people in Switzerland or guys who like manga think she was discriminated against, only a time when she thought that. She only, 1-0.

If I asked you to tell me a recent time you really loved something and you tell me “I had this awesome tofu casserole for dinner last night it was seasoned perfectly and really hit the spot”

I could say no, actually it was a little dry and they should have used pepper instead of corriander and actually I’m a trained chef so you should defer to my view on this……if I said that, would you still have enjoyed the casserole? Even if I brought in 1000 experts from every vegitarian club in the world, it still tasted good to you right?

Discrimination, like taste, is a matter of perception and while everyone is entitled to an opinion, only one person has a vote.

Meridith’s story was quite good and matches experiences I’ve had. Whether the shop keep is focused on Americans, blacks or tourists in general is unknown. We know he cheated people and maybe cheats all people (even locals, we don’t know that either)….but each person walking out of the store unquesitonably would have a view on why they were cheated and that would be the answer to your question. Emmit Till’s murderers were murders and discriminators. If they killed a white guy too, they’d still be both.

@155
OW wasn’t asked to describe an incident that would hold up in a court of law. She wasn’t opining on hiring practices, red-lining, admissions quotas or anything of the sort. No one, even under the harshest interpretation is suggesting the incident described something illegal.

– she was explaining an example of day to day racism, which, as covered on several recent strands, there are millions of examples. Some examples nearly everyone agrees on, some examples only a few seem to agree upon, but if you think that they “aren’t good enough” as examples or somehow remotely invalidate the premise that there millions of daily examples – I’d have to ask you what on earth are you talking about.

No one is filing an anti-discrimination suit, Fu Ko. How many times can I write that this isn’t an event for which anyone is getting evidence suitable for a court case? That we aren’t a jury on one? You’re going to have to decide what you think about this without ever getting evidence suitable for legal action.

Whenever I’ve written a comment about it, I’ve tried to qualify what I’m writing by referring to more blatant and less blatant racism, or writing about a case like this one as opposed to a case like the rodeo clown one (in which the stereotypically racist imagery was there for everyone to see). If you want to treat them all the same way, that’s an interesting choice.

BTW, saying that if you’re not in the Northern League, you’re not racist is like claiming not to be racist if you’re not a KKK member, a Le Pen supporter, or BNP member. It’s a way to dismiss anything less the the most extreme acts or attitudes as a way of minimizing pervasive, societal and structural racism. One doesn’t have to commit a hate crime or even actively spout racist views to behave in a racist manner.

Yes, we know Britta. Problem is your

“Or, maybe, actually, there really is racism in Europe..”

Is a strawman, as it has been acknowledged and accepted throughout the thread

“Rich, whether or not there is a lawsuit, the point is that this is a serious allegation and not a matter of personal “taste” or an expression of subjective feelings.”

It’s possible to trust someone’s perception — in that “If a black person raised poor in America sees racism, then let’s treat it as racism” — and to treat their statement as a serious allegation, without therefore insisting that we know what’s happened in legal terms.

On the contrary, I think that all of the arguments here for why the clerk must have been a real racist come down to a mixture of classism and being misled by right-wing propaganda. The Daily Mail and the Wall Street Journal want to cast everything in those terms. They purposefully do the racist-sneering thing, because they want to reinforce the idea that you’re either with the regular people, the working class, or you’re with the cosmopolitan multicultural elite. I don’t know what this is called in the UK, but in the U.S. this is an old as the Southern Strategy. The people who read the Daily Mail article and say “Look at the internal inconsistencies in the woman’s story” are not reading a trustworthy source.

And I know that Oprah didn’t name the woman or the shop, and had no intention of having them found. But they were actually found. And at this point if you can only support Oprah-as-black-person by saying that a known clerk with a known name was a real racist based on no evidence suitable for a court case, there’s something wrong with what you’re doing.

Rich, I’m not saying anything about “knowing what happened in legal terms.” I’m talking about the idea you describe:

“If a black person raised poor in America sees racism, then let’s treat it as racism”

Well, no, that’s not good enough. Why should it be? Being black doesn’t mean you’re automatically right about such things. There is obviously a scope for error. Everyone makes this kind of error at times, and for that reason, arguments about and dissections of interpretations of behavior are quite common. If we were dealing with an analogous situation where race was not involved, I think we would all recognize the presence of ambiguity and uncertainty, and not say we should just defer to the aggrieved party’s interpretation of events.

(Calling it a matter of describing subjective experience, I suppose, does make the aggrieved automatically right; but that kind of being right is worthless. In other words, it’s being right about the wrong matter entirely.)

Why not a post about Oprah’s Tv shows and the basic mechanism where they sensationalize a problem and then sell a ‘solution’ through some self help book. That virtually nothing is ever discussed on Oprah, Dr Phil, or Dr Oz without simultaneously hocking the latest product or trend. Let’s have that discussion, and whether someone like Oprah should be trusted at all.

A personal anecdote:

Ten years ago, I was at the Bologna railway station, in a queue to buy my ticket.
The queue, as often happens in Italy, was extremely chaotic, so that from the outside it wasn’t so obvious who was behind and who was before.

Some meters behind me, there were two groups: a couple of pakistani (I think) woman and a couple of italian men (whites). The italian men did actually join the queue for first, however, as the queue was very chaotic, the two couples were placed basically side by side.
At some point, the two pakistani women stepped forward in a way that it was obvious they were leaving the two italians back.
The two Italians were very angered by this action and started comlaining (loudly) to the two Pakistani.
The two pakistani (in perfect good faith as far as I could tell) were very offended by the accusation and assumed that the two men were trying to skip them, and that they were acting racistly (in that the Pakistani women assumed that all bystanders would have been prejudiced in favour of the two men, and that the two men were exploiting this advantage consciously).The two men were obviously ultra-offended by this accusation.
At this point I reached the ticket office and went away, so I don’t know the result of the epic battle.

My point is: both couples were clearly in good faith and regardless of the final result, both, I suppose, went away with a bitter flavour in their mouths.
The Pakistani women certainly belived they were victims of racism (with good reason, because, as Britta gently reminds us, racism in Italy is very real, and after a while the two men began with “go back were you are from” arguments), but the two italians certainly believed they were victims of “reverse racism”.
Those two guys, most likely, became a tad more racist after this incident, and this also is a problem.

Now suppose you tell them: well I don’t know what happened, but I know that racism in general is real, and I trust these two girls to know wether they are discriminated or not”. What will those two guys think? Will they become more or less racist because of the incident? I think that they would become more racist.

So, even if we know that, in general, racism is a real phenomenon, I don’t think it is a good idea to not worry too much about what exactly happened in one particular circumstance.

@169RL

Your example is a good one and I’m sure telling them as you describe would fail. Idealistically, you’d like people to recognize that people are people and everyone just wants to go home- but that thinking will have you be last on every train you take. The daily dilemma is a real one.

In my view, there isn’t a “tell others and compel them with your logic answer”. Its a personal decision to behave in a way that does by others as you’d have them do by you As per your example, those lines aren’t always clearly drawn….there’s a spectrum of behaviour ranging from absolute pacifism to overt KKK style racism and everyone is somewhere on it. Most agree that too far to the right on that spectrum is bad, evil etc.

So the question becomes, how racist/discriminatory would you like to be today? Just a little, only inadvertent, maybe only in a crowd like at the rodeo? My choice, which works for me and only me, is to try to be as little as possible and then appologize/have regrets from there when I realize otherwise. I can’t say before the fact I wouldn’t have behaved as the men in your example, I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but the moment is the moment. If I did, for me, I’d regret it….I’d realize I was wrong and work to improve.

Actual choice may vary – if OW can define her own discrimination, each of us are free to define our own antidote to it.

Since I have you, I’ll ask – Is there an Italian word for queue? (meant in good humor)
I’ve been in the queue/scrum you describe.

Thanks for the thoughtful anecdotes.

Sorry for the terse nature of the comment, was just starting it when I had to run off for a second. It does seem it was influencing their behaviour though, (even a little) from your telling (and was it obvious they were in fact foreigners?) Which isnt to take a holier than thou attitude, ive done it before in some form or another

@Trader Joe
I understand your point of view, and I think it’s morally very good, but still I think that an act, to be discriminatory, has to be objectively so, at least at some level. (The italian for queue is “coda”, that literally means “tail”).

@Ronan
Yes they were clearly dressed in a non european way. It is possible (in fact very likely IMHO) that the two guys were prejudiced from the beginning , but still it was the two women who were factually at fault, even though they didn’t realise it.

Sorry but I think this ‘racism is something that happens in the mind of the victim’ line is one of the craziest things I ever heard, and really not a helpful position for anti-racists to adopt. (Just my two cents.)

Would you guys mind if I change the topic?

Here is an interesting piece on the evidence behind the ruling striking down New York’s stop-and-frisk policy. The key point, for our purposes, is that the city no longer claims that disproportionate stops of blacks and latinos are just the result of targeting high-crime areas. They admit that black and Latino men are more likely to be stopped even in low-crime, mostly white neighborhoods. In other words, it is now officially acknowledged that New York police had a policy of targeting non-white men, the vast majority of whom (over 90% of those stopped, again not disputed by the city) have done nothing wrong.

So if the question is, Is racism still a thing?, that could be interesting to talk about too. Just, you know, as a break from Oprah.

I don’t know, Rich, I think maybe you are over-complicating things. The city has now conceded that black and Latino men are stopped solely because of their race. (Previous they had claimed that the disproportion was because stops were focused in high-crime areas, which happen to be mostly non-white.) It seems to me that if there is (as there is!) a policy of singling out black men for a humiliating exercise of state power simply because they are black, then that is racism, full stop. It really doesn’t matter what’s in anyone’s head.

“It seems to me that if there is (as there is!) a policy of singling out black men for a humiliating exercise of state power simply because they are black, then that is racism, full stop. It really doesn’t matter what’s in anyone’s head.”

I think that we’re basically in agreement — I’ve been saying that effect rather than intention (“what’s in [the person doing the racist action’s] head”) is what’s important.

But I think that you’re under-complicating it a little. The city isn’t contending that they’re singling out black men “simply because they are black” (which would be straightforward racism), they’re saying that they’re singling out black men because they’re looking for suspects, and the averaged criminal suspect profile once you do a statistical study of everyone who they’re stopping happens to be mostly non-white. I don’t see a great difference between this and the high-crime area justification. The judge is overruling them not because they just admitted that they’re targeting black men because they’re black, but because they’re (ostensibly) doing something non-racist that has a racist effect anyways.

This article might be useful. It writes about how police are still allowed to use skin color in suspect descriptions, but people that they stop now have to fit more specific descriptions. If it’s true that the majority of suspects that they’re looking for are black and Latino men, then black and Latino men are still going to be the majority of people stopped. The difference is that stop-and-frisk allows them to stop a lot more people, for vaguer reasons that can just come down to skin color — but in both cases of stop-and-frisk and of stopping people who match specific descriptions, they can present the policy as non-racist in intention.

“IMO, that’s the only thing that does matter, if we are talking about racism. ”

Well, so much for statistical studies of disparate effect, then — they don’t tell you what’s in anyone’s head. But I don’t see the need for a new word for what you call this “different idea”. When blank and Latino men get stopped and frisked routinely and white men hardly at all, then we’re in a deeply racist society even if none of the police officers or law enforcement policy-makers believe that they are racist, or hold what you describe as racist beliefs.

Racism was once an organizing assumption of a society, which implemented a program of white supremacy, in part, by heaping humiliations on members of one race. Now, racism is a taboo, and people ritually claim to never have a racist thought.

Stop-and-frisk is a policy of humiliation — to be stopped, questioned, and frisked is a humiliation. And, the police, who implement that policy, know perfectly well that they are the sharp stick of that humiliation, and, I suppose, often act accordingly, that is, with an authoritarian aggression and disrespectfulness. There’s really no way that a policy of stop-and-frisk can be implemented on the ground, with respect for the autonomy of the citizenry; it is fundamentally, an authoritarian assault on personal autonomy.

That a claim of racism is necessary or sufficient to effective political opposition to this authoritarianism is a tribute to the power of racism as an established taboo. And, the power of the taboo is further proven by the efforts made to deny racism, as well as the stridency of tribal shunning of those, to whom racism is attributed as a political motivation. But, it is also a concession that authoritarianism is uncritically accepted on its “merits”. And, that’s worrisome.

I do not think it is entirely accidental that the extremely authoritarian Obama is black, and his race gives him a degree of political immunity, which facilitates his ratification and implementation of authoritarian and economically extractive policies.

Moral righteousness is powerful stuff, and absolutely necessary to some very desirable political projects, building institutions that serve a genuinely public purpose. Focused, it comes with its own selective blindness; its light illuminates, but also shadows.

Very delicately, we need to step away from the moral power of claims of racism, long enough and far enough, to see in its own light, the wrong of the increasing authoritarianism of a government run by and for the mega-rich. We once had a taboo against torture, too. Privacy was a powerful concept, which gained us reproductive freedom and sexual liberation. Habeas corpus, the Great Writ, protected us against arbitrary detention. The holy writ of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights mandated constraints on police and Presidents, alike.

The argument for stop-and-frisk is pragmatic: the claim is that it is “effective” in “keeping people safe”. And, there’s a facially plausible case, under an assumption of good police intentions cum omniscience. The same case that’s being pressed to legitimate pervasive surveillance, and a high rate of incarceration and a foreign policy of war crimes and subversion and handing all power in society to financial institutions.

Racism is still a potent claim, a potent taboo, but it is wearing out, from overuse, as taboos are prone to do. Meanwhile, . . .

“That a claim of racism is necessary or sufficient to effective political opposition to this authoritarianism is a tribute to the power of racism as an established taboo.”

The judge isn’t working off of the power of a taboo — she’s citing the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The judge also found the city liable for violating 4th Amendment rights, which are supposed to cover the authoritarian aspect more generally. I agree that anti-authoritarianism should have been enough to stop stop-and-frisk by itself. (And note that the judge didn’t really stop it, just modified it.) And I generally agree with a lot of what you wrote in this comment. But there’s nothing about tribal shunning or moral righteousness that makes this particular decision enforceable.

My opinion about effects is not what the judge is working off of here, and in that sense JW Mason is right that I’m over-complicating something that’s supposed to be working off a simpler basis. Here’s another quote:

<blockquoteThe Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to every person the equal protection of the laws. It prohibits intentional discrimination based on race. Intentional discrimination can be proved in several ways, two of which are relevant here. A plaintiff can show: (1) that a facially neutral law or policy has been applied in an intentionally discriminatory manner; or (2) that a law or policy expressly classifies persons on the basis of race, and that the classification does not survive strict scrutiny. Because there is rarely direct proof of discriminatory intent, circumstantial evidence of such intent is permitted. “The impact of the official action — whether it bears more heavily on one race than another — may provide an important starting point.”

So the law requires intentionality, although because direct proof is so hard to get, it allows circumstantial evidence of intentionality. And “intentional discrimination” is not necessarily classic racism as Mao describes.

The holy writ of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights mandated constraints on police and Presidents, alike.

Um, actually: only recently, and then only for a few years.

Until the 14th Amendment, there was no attempt to enforce the “Bill of Rights” against the states. It mandated no constraints on police whatsoever (and there were no “federal police.” At least, not until J. Edgar Hoover came along.). Only after the 14th Amendment was read as making the Bill of Rights (which is the most applicable part of the Constitution to the states) apply to the states. The legal doctrine of “incorporation” slowly but surely lead to applying the first ten amendments (although mostly 1, 4, 5, and 6) to the states and restricting what they could do. And most of the rulings restraining police came out in the ’60’s, so they aren’t really all that old.

Restraints, of course, are only as good as the enforcement of them, and several (such as the war making power) have been ceded to the President de facto if not de jure. Sort of like racism; at least, according to your argument. But I think racism is still more honored in the keeping than in the breach. What is “taboo” is recognizing it, not practicing it. Indeed, racism is so taboo the mere mention of it is rejected by the powerful (like Mayor Bloomberg) out of hand, and it provides no constraint on his exercise of power because he doesn’t acknowledge it.

But it is also so taboo that it is immediately exercised against a (at one time) nameless rodeo clown with a bad sense of humor and even poorer sense of taste and decency.

The question, ultimately, is not about the taboo, but about whom it gets used against, and who gets to evade its censure. It’s still a question of power, in other words; and that issue isn’t going to wear out anytime soon.

Constitutional stops, as well as constitutional frisks that may or may not accompany the stop, are perfectly fine.

Aye, but there’s the rub, because what is constitutional depends on circumstances.

First, the police officer must have a “reasonable suspicion.” NYPD has already gone back and educated it’s officers again in what constitutes “Reasonable suspicion.” It doesn’t include, obviously, walking while black. Neither does it include walking in certain neighborhoods at certain times of day, or making “furtive” movements. As the judge found, blacks were apparently more likely to be “furtive” than whites.

I’m not sure what the fault with the data is. Data from NYPD, which is as good as its going to get, showed that they stopped more blacks than the known population of blacks in NYC. It also showed there was a higher likelihood of finding a gun on a white than on a black or an Asian (and yes, I’m using “black” because I’m too lazy to type out something longer); yet significantly more blacks were stopped than whites. That, too, is a finding of the court.

You can, I suppose, argue the data the court found reliable isn’t, for some reason; but the argument really is moot at this point, at least as far as the court case is concerned. Mayor Bloomberg may want to challenge that evidence, too; but they didn’t challenge much of it in the courtroom, and didn’t try to present the Police Commissioner for testimony or to rebut his statements about blacks being stopped more because they commit more crimes (a self-fulfilling statement. If we just stopped everybody on the street, we’d find a lot of them are criminals in one sense or another).

The data, in other words, has been found as far as the court is concerned; and it’s highly unlikely the appellate court will find for the city based on evidence not now in the record, unless the data is found to be unreliable as a matter of law.

Andrew F:

As to whether a stop necessarily constitutes a “humiliation” and an “assault on personal autonomy,” that’s a bit ridiculous. A stop can consist of a police officer simply saying “hold on, I need to ask you a few questions.” In itself that isn’t necessarily humiliating, still less an assault on one’s autonomy.

Separate but equal might not seem necessarily unequal, either, but, in practice, it tended to be. I think any good lawyer would advise, absolutely, never ever answering a policeman’s questions, concerning your own conduct. After you advisedly refuse to answer the policeman’s questions — as is your undoubted Constitutional right — how do you think that encounter is going to evolve? Will the policeman politely acknowledge the right against self-incrimination, which he, a moment ago, sought to violate? Apologize for detaining you? If people detained or searched under “stop-and-frisk” were free to refuse to be stopped, questioned or frisked, it wouldn’t be much a policy, would it?

The police are being required, by the mayoral administration, under this policy, to do something, which most of them, with the best training in the world, are humanly incapable of doing respectfully. To stop people, with a genuine suspicion that those people are up to no good, is an inherently aggressive thing to do. The policeman has to be a little afraid, as he initiates what is an aggressive confrontation. And, the person stopped has to be afraid, because the policeman is confronting them, and doing so with a suspicion of criminal conduct, and the power of a policeman to arrest and jail the subject on his own mere motion. The policeman must act aggressively to ensure control of the suspect (and the stopped person is a suspect, as soon that person is stopped); it will not be a pleasant encounter.

To do such stops, when they are genuinely required by manifest criminal activity, is stressful enough for the police and for the community, which may well feel caught in what may a cross-fire, literally as well as figuratively. To make a policy out of multiplying such confrontations into a police routine, displacing other important interactions between police and the public, changes the character of the police and the community, in ugly ways.

Race, and racial prejudice and animus, is exacerbated by mandating police conduct of this kind as a daily routine procedure. You are asking people — police — who may be inclined to authoritarian attitudes as part of class background, as well as serving in a uniformed hierarchy, with authorized violence, to do something, which will make a tendency, which might otherwise be controlled by professional training and norms, manifest as the face of urban policing. I’m not talking about profiling or statistics. I’m talking about how someone, who has to be aggressive, gets nasty, and rationalizes, after the fact, aggressive behavior toward people. One reasonable hypothesis would be that police will tend to pick people they view as “other” for such confrontations. Another ugly feedback loop.

“He’s free to ask; you’re free to not answer.”

Oh hogwash. Often the police will violate some minor legal right of yours, just to demonstrate to you that they will not allow your legal rights to get in the way. What do you do after that? Your calculus cannot be informed by an assumption of protection under the law, unless there is a third party witness with a camera. And the police habitually make sure to it that there is not.

It occurs to me that this could be a good illustration of what I was talking about earlier: racism vs profiling. If you live in a poor crime-ridden area, and the cops are acting in a racist manner: harassing the ‘uppity’ and ignoring crime – you’ll hate it, obviously. Otoh, if the cops are professional crime-fighters who employ profiling, so that there is a huge statistical disparity between stops in your area and upper east side – you’ll probably love it. And when new mayor JW Mason insists on redeploying half of them elsewhere to keep the white/black stop&search ratio under control, you might even consider that racist. make sense?