“It’s reminiscent of the endlessly repeated claim that criticism of Barack Obama proves racism is alive and well in America. Somehow Obama’s defenders are unable to see past the color of his skin and notice that he is president of the United States.”
Ah. I knew Taranto’s opinion sounded odd.
Surely they wouldn’t have to commit anything to memory at all if they simply treated every customer as if they were able to afford the merchandise. But if you were to assume somebody wasn’t… and that somebody just happened to be black… well I’m sure that’s just one huge coincidence.
where did you read she was being arrogant ?
Oh, this is up there with the editorial that claimed that Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have survived if he had lived in Britain…
Well, considering that the issue in this case* is that the clerk refused to show Oprah some bags because they were “too expensive” (i.e. that Oprah, as a black woman, “clearly” couldn’t have afforded them), she obviously didn’t recognize her, as she would have realized that Oprah, as a billionaire, could have easily afforded to buy them…
*This is not the first time that clerks in European luxury goods stores have treated Oprah poorly.
I had the same experience.
Taranto’s column frequently uses in-jokes and subtle humor. It is easy to first assume stupidity, particularly when dealing with someone whose political views differ from yours, but it is not always correct.
Taranto is just a literate Rush Limbaugh. He’s smarter and a better rhetorician, but at his heart no less snide, petty or small.
I dunno… German humor is almost as inscrutable to me as Bavarian, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Germans who were fans of Leave it to Beaver found June Cleaver speaking Bavarian almost as funny as we found her speaking jive.
Agreed. Taranto is many things. But stupid really isn’t one of them.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he meant it as a joke.
I met a girl who worked at the Louis Vuitton in Paris on Champs-Elysées. She said she was specifically instructed to try to distinguish rich from not rich and to only give good service to the rich. She was told the rich want to feel special so they needed to try to treat the rich different.
On the other hand, while this specific issue might be racist it’s not strictly always about race. I have friends, a white couple, with several million in the bank. They never dress up. He’s usually in jeans and t-shirt. She’s usually in jeans and sweat top. They got treated like shit at some Lexus dealer because the salesperson assumed they couldn’t afford a Lexus. Wouldn’t show them the car, wouldn’t let them test drive.
I’m Bavarian in that my parents met, married and conceived me in Munich, and it is where I have spent the last four years of my life living.
The funny thing about the ugly, inherently and intrinsically mean-spirited, guttural Bayrisch dialect is that in some cases, such as this clip here, you don’t need to understand a single word of it to get the Full Metal Jack’n flavor of its auditory salt.
Most people get the joke right off the bat, otherwise this clip would not have gotten nearly 5 million YouTube views from a dialect that only has 13 million native speakers, which would be one of the greatest statistical anomalies ever recorded.
Sorry, but you can’t afford those seats
He sure showed him!
Now I want to see this video subtitled Downfall-style, into a long lecture about German humour and Bavarians as butts for German jokes.
Time once again for yet another of Ruben Boling’s “Lucky Ducky” toons, based on yet another infamously insensitive Wall Street Journal editorial.
Let’s expand the conversation in a new thread:
I always thought of Sgt. Schultz as the Bavarian character on the show, bumbling, avuncular, and Klink as the cold Prussian. I was rather surprised to learn that the Bavarians seem to have been the real warmongers. Schultz seems more sinister now.
Right, because the folks who work in the equivalent shops in California are required to memorize Swiss celebrities on the off chance they decide to drop by. And be able to speak Swiss well.
Swiss celebrities?
