For everything else, there's the race card

It appears that Oprah Winfrey was denied access to Hermes of Paris 15 minutes after the shop closed:

The store said the incident occurred on June 14 around 6:45 p.m., about 15 minutes after the store closed. It said Winfrey and her team arrived at a time when "a private PR event was being set up inside."

Harpo Productions spokeswoman Michelle McIntyre said Winfrey "will discuss her 'crash moment' when her show returns from hiatus in September."

"Crash" is a film dealing with race relations. The phrase "crash moment" refers to situations where a party feels discriminated against on the basis of skin color.

The "crash moment" for me in this case is the realization that Oprah believes she is due preferential treatment from a store after hours simply because she is Oprah Winfrey. If I am the store manager at Hermes, I can choose to let a customer in after hours or not. If you or I went to Hermes, and the store was closed, there may have been a clerk that opened the door, stated that the store was closed, and that would be that. We would either choose to go back the next day or take our business elsewhere. But not Oprah! She is denied preferential treatment and immediately plays the race card. Oh the drama!!

The New York Daily News cited sources close to Winfrey as saying the talk show host was first rebuffed by a clerk and then a store manager. The Daily News reported Winfrey had gone to the store to buy a watch for singer Tina Turner, her dining partner that night.

She was rebuffed? What the hell does she expect? She's shopping in Paris for cripes sake! Parisians (or as I prefer to call them, parisites) are equal opportunity jerks. They rebuff everybody (look what they did to George Bush).

I can just envision a new ad for the multiculturalist left:

• Handbag from Gucci $4500
• Lunch at Cafe d' nuit $275
• Using the "Race Card" for being denied access at an exclusive store in Paris after hours? priceless.

For shopping there's American Express. For everything else, there's the Race Card®.

Don't leave home without it.