Oprah Winfrey might regret bringing that racist Swiss shopping clerk to everybody’s attention.

It just brought her own hypocrisy along with it.

The television star — whose activity on behalf of animal rights got her named the 2008 Person of the Year by the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — was actually interested in buying a purse made of crocodile skin when the clerk offered to show her a cheaper model earlier this month.

That non-incident became world famous when Oprah cited it as example of racism – which she later took back. But what was little noticed was the material the bag was made out of.

A European animal rights group changed all that this week, criticizing Winfrey for being either ignorant or  indifferent in asking to see the bag in the first place.

“We do not know if Ms. Winfrey actually wanted to buy the bag,” said Chantal Häberling, spokeswoman for the group Four Paws International (Vier Pfoten International). “But she should know crocodiles suffer for the production of such items.“The animals are kept in extremely small enclosures. To kill them the animals are beaten with a hammer on the head, and in some farms and it sometimes takes two hours before they are dead.”

Besides being against factory farms, Oprah has made a big deal of refusing to wear fur, telling her own magazine in 2011 that “I gave all my furs away 20 years ago.”

It raises an interesting question.

She doesn’t like fur. She does like crocodile skin. So what other kind of leather might Oprah be buying from clerks who aren’t racists?

HT: The Gateway Pundit