MeMelYup wrote:bcschae wrote:Just to show the difference in the class of some people:
Oprah makes a huge ordeal about a woman not showing her a purse because the sales persons thought she couldn't afford it.
Jase laughs off the hotel employee and completely understands how the mistake could be made.
I think the difference is Oprah thinks its her right to be treated that way and gets very offended if not and becomes very emotional.
Jase don't care, is more tolerant, and
thinks what a jerk, without being offended and getting highly emotional about it..
It goes further than that. Jase laughs it off, and says that if he were in the employee's shoes, he might have done the same thing. He didn't think the other guy was a jerk, and he hoped that the other guy wouldn't get in trouble for it. That's true forgiveness.
There is one subtle difference between Jase and Oprah though, and that is that Jase can shave off his beard and get a haircut anytime he wants to, and he'll be like his brother Al, whom nobody ever bothers because he looks "normal." But Oprah can't take off her blackness, and her politics, wealth, fame, social stature all have nothing to do with how she will be treated by people who don't know who she is. Some, because they are not racists, will treat her fairly and without any preconceived notions of her financial state; and others, because they are subconscious bigots, will do like the woman who inadvertently insulted her by trying to steer her to a less expensive item. Jase can walk in that hotel the next day, all cleaned up, and have a good laugh with the doorman who tossed him, and say "can you believe that I'm the same guy you threw out of here yesterday because of my beard, and today you're opening doors for me?" Oprah walks into that store the next day, and she's still the same black woman of whom some people are going to assume based on her color that she can't afford to buy whatever she wants to buy......and she'll be treated accordingly. There is no avenue of escape for her from that.
I don't like the woman. But I don't like her because I think she's a useful idiot for the left, and her great wealth empowers her idiocy to a much greater degree than than the more pedestrian garden variety useful idiot. But her politics and wrongness aside, I can totally understand her offense at being indirectly insulted because of her race by a subconscious bigot.......even though that bigot probably
thought they were doing the nice thing. Jace can afford to be gracious, because he knows that it is
his own decisions about dress and grooming that result in some people mischaracterizing him. It is within his power to change that any time he gets tired of other people's misperceptions about his social stature. It is not within Oprah's power to change her situation, although her enormous wealth certainly insulates her somewhat from racism's most vile expressions.
So if she reacts ungraciously to the unintentional soft bigotry of a sales clerk in a high-priced boutique, it's probably because she's just real
tired after 59
years of putting up with it. In a perfect world, she
should be gracious and forgiving about it.....but we don't live in a perfect world, and she's just human. In forgiving the hotel doorman and laughing the whole thing off, Jase is just acting out his Christian faith. I have no idea of exactly what Oprah believes in, but her adoration of Deepak Chopra tells me that she is not a Bible believing Christian—so maybe she is spiritually unable to forgive that easily. I don't know. It may be easy for me to say, being a white guy and all, but if I were a person of color, I think I would rather face open hostility than thinly veiled condescension from a bigoted person—because with the former at least you know where you stand, and the latter is in the long run both far more debilitating
and dangerous.
That's just my 2¢. YMMV.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
