ET FIRST | OPRAH WINFREY ON BEING A RECENT VICTIM OF RACISM, THE PAULA DEEN CONTROVERSY AND THE N-WORD
“Nobody in their right mind is going to call me that word.”

CHEAT TWEET: .@Oprah opens up to @ETonlineAlert’s @NancyODell on racism, the N-word, and the Paula Deen controversy. www.ETonline.com

August 5, 2013 (New York, NY) –  ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT’s Nancy O’Dell spoke to Oprah Winfrey at thepress day for Lee Daniels’The Butler, in which she stars, and revealed to O’Dell that she recently experienced racism while in Switzerland for friend Tina Turner’s wedding. Winfrey tells O’Dell she left the hotel in Zurich to go shopping by herself and stopped in a store, which she will not name, and asked to see a large purse. Winfrey goes on to say, the sales clerk responded to her request to see the item by stating,  ‘No, it’s too expensive’ and would not show her the bag. Winfrey pressed the sales clerk but she was repeatedly refused and shown smalleritems.  According to Winfrey, the sales clerk said, “No you don’t want to see that one, you want to see this one because that one costs too much.  You won’t be able to afford that and I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Winfrey tells O’Dell she ultimately walked out of the store without making a big deal about it.

O’Dell also asked Winfrey if she has spoken to celebrity chef Paula Deen since her recent headlines regarding allegations against her use of racial slurs to her staff. “I  haven't spoken to her. In the very first days I tried to reach her and then I decided to stay out of it as I saw it blowing up.” She goes on to say, “In time she will be fine. For me, it all just felt kind of sad.” Winfrey tells O’Dell that she feels Deen was used as a symbol because people use that word all the time. She tells O’Dell that they need to let the “dust settle” before they speak about it and have a “real conversation.”

When O’Dell questions Winfrey as to whether she has ever been called the N-word Winfrey responds stating, “I would have to say that racism for me doesn’t show itself that way. Nobody in their right mind is going to call me the N-word.  You know, you see those fools on Twitter sometime say ridiculous things.  But nobody in their right mind is going to do that to my face cause true racism is being able to have power over somebody else.  So that doesn’t happen to me that way.  It shows up for me if I’m in a boardroom or situations where I’m the only woman or I’m the only African American person within a hundred mile radius. I can see in the energy of the people there, they don’t sense that I should be holding one of those seats. I can sense that.  But I can never tell, is it racism, is it sexism?” 

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