Jesse Jackson hasn't yet declared Zurich the new Selma, but from some of the news coverage you'd think Oprah Winfrey was the next Rosa Parks. The former TV-talk superstar experienced what New York's Daily News calls "a disturbing racial incident" last month at "the posh Trois Pommes boutique" in Switzerland's largest city.

In Winfrey's account, she wanted to examine a Tom Ford handbag and asked the clerk to retrieve it from its glass display case. "She says, 'No, it's too expensive,' " Winfrey...