By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I never much liked Paula Deen’s cooking. Filled with butter and gravies and things like Krispy Creme Donuts for hamburger buns, Paula seemed too culinarily eccentric … to foodie excessive … too health oblivious even for a southern cook in 1813 much less 2013. Her story though, like her southern twang, had a certain charm to it: single mother of two left penniless makes ends meet by selling food-to-go out of her home kitchen and works her butt off until she reached the top of the sundae’s cherry with three shows on the Food Network and some spin off shows for her two sons.
That all ended Friday as a deposition of Ms. Deen was released. In that dep (in a case Lisa T. Jackson v. Paula Deen et al. involving a claim of racial and sexual discrimination by an employee of her restaurant, Uncle Bubba’s), Ms. Deen admitted to using the no-no of racial epithets in the past — the distant past, like 50 years ago. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of Paula’s deposition to see just what I mean:
Q
Okay. Have you ever used the N word yourself?
A
Yes, of course.
Q
Okay. In what context?
A
Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.
Q
Okay. And what did you say?
A
Well, I don’t remember, but the gun was dancing all around my temple.
Q
Okay.
A
I didn’t — I didn’t feel real favorable towards him.
Q
Okay. Well, did you use the N word to him as he pointed a gun in your head at your face?
A
Absolutely not.
Q
Well, then, when did you use it?
A
Probably in telling my husband.
Q
Okay. Have you used it since then?
A
I’m sure I have, but it’s been a very long time.
Q
Can you remember the context in which you have used the N word?
A
No.
Q
Has it occurred with sufficient frequency that you cannot recall all of the various context in which you’ve used it?
A
No, no.
Q
Well, then tell me the other context in which you’ve used the N word?
A
I don’t know, maybe in repeating something that was said to me.
Q
Like a joke?
A
No, probably a conversation between blacks. I don’t — I don’t know.
Q
Okay.
A
But that’s just not a word that we use as time has gone on. Things have changed since the ’60s in the south. And my children and my brother object to that word being used in any cruel or mean behavior.
Q
Okay
Realizing perhaps too late, the Deen Food Empire (books, utensils, cutlery, you name it) sprung into action. First a very public apology for sins past, then a new revised one on YouTube, the town square of our age, where Paula looking quite shaken literally begs for forgiveness. PC gods served? You tell me:
On cable TV shows up and down the msnbc roster, Deen was decried as racist, uncaring, and calls for her banishment from polite society became overwhelming. So much so that the Food Network pulled the shows and consigned Deen to places we reserve for the likes of George Wallace and Sheriff Bull Connor. But is that fair?
Deen grew up in place far away –temporally and culturally — from most of her critics and, as one who grew up in the same locales, I can tell you that her sin was a popular one in the South in the 60’s . Everybody who wasn’t white and rich had a name: wops, pollaks, heebs, rednecks, pope lovers, crackers, and yes those christened with the “N” word. And each group used the words liberally to each other and even among each other. I never saw a fight over the name calling but there were some close calls.
Surely it wasn’t a very hospitable place for African-Americans who bore the brunt of discrimination, but neither was it a hospitable place if you were poor, or Catholic, or ethnic, or anything other than wealthy, white and Protestant. That didn’t mean people weren’t civil to one another. By and large they were, but there was a palpable feeling of place and hierarchy that was enforced with a rigid caste system administered by state and local governments. That sat pretty well with the white elite who ran things back then.
But you should know those in power considered folks like Paula Deen no better that the “n*iggers” they brought in to do their cooking and cleaning and to raise their kids. Those “people” were there and free only by fiat of the government in Wershington and, by god, if that was the case they were going to be useful, or so it was thought.
The South changed and evolved in the ’60s and ’70s with the Civil Rights Movement as Dr. King’s words touched hearts both white and black and brightened them all. For those who wouldn’t listen, scenes of pregnant women blasted with water cannons and vicious police dogs attacking kids was surely enough. White people who drove pickups and worked in plants and farms started to realize that the folks who lived across the railroad tracks and who drove older pickup trucks and worked in plants and farms weren’t really much different from themselves and they had the same lack of control over their lives. The wedges of words that the ruling élite had no interest in curtailing melted away and it is clearly true that the advent of political correctness shown a glaring light on those southern dinosaurs who couldn’t or wouldn’t change.
Which brings us back to Paula Deen. Paula likely grew up in one of those same southern small towns like I did. She also likely made a distinction between “black people” (as they were called then ), who worked hard and raised their families as best they could under grinding poverty, and “n*ggers” who were seen as lazy, irresponsible, thuggish and no account. She likely came to learn that names reflect stereotypes and they can be and are often wrong; that people don’t fit nicely into boxes; and that, as Edmund Burke so wisely reminds us, you can’t draw up an indictment against a whole people.
Paula evolved and the South evolved. But the question remains for Paula and those like her: When is the sentence for violating political correctness over? When can you freely admit a mistake made decades ago without fear of reprisal? Not the criminal kind administered by the state, but the reprisal from the overlords of decorum who sit in ivory towers or corporate boardrooms and wax philosophic on all manner of society’s ills and largely for their own benefit ? When will a society committed to free expression allow itself to deal honestly with its past and say publicly a two-syllable word that most find offensive?
In my view, you don’t need a word that no one can utter. You don’t need to continually explain and apologize for sins made years ago in a culture far, far away if you’ve done it once and sincerely. And perhaps most importantly, you don’t need to feel society’s wrath for simply telling the truth about that society.
Paula Deen is no hero, but she is certainly no villain for growing up as she did and living as she did. When we master that fact perhaps we can overcome the racism that divides us even as we accept that our differences spring largely from things over which we have little control, and that we can come together in spite of ourselves if we forgive as freely and as often as we decry.
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Mark: One wonders who appointed you Lord High Protector of a people who’ve made no overture to you for anything.
There is no authority to appoint any of us Mark, there is only the dictates of our conscience, for those of us that have one. You seem truly incapable of understanding that this isn’t about Holly or any given individual, this is about an injustice in and of itself that I believe causes societal harm.
Shall you now deny that racism creates any harm to anybody?
If I find a man wounded and unconscious lying on the sidewalk, I do not need his permission or call for help to stem his bleeding and call 911. If I believe that racism is an injustice that does real and significant harm to other people, I do not need to find some specific individual and get their permission to act in a way that reduces that harm and punishes those perpetrating that harm. It is my conscience that dictates my actions to fight injustice, I do not need your permission or anybody’s permission to rail against racism.
Gene H:
“Racism is a wrong, but no racist has ever change their mind on the matter without coming to that conclusion themselves. This requires that they “do the math” themselves.”
*******************
Amen. And concluding someone is a racist with nothing more than we have here says more about the accuser than the person so charged.
Amen. And concluding someone is a racist with nothing more than we have here says more about the accuser than the person so charged
She has proven herself a liar about her racist comments.
I keep reading your remarks that she has done nothing recently. I think her own statements, including from 2012 about Hollis, belie your belief.
(As for Holiis, even if he was white I think on national TV you do not take that moment to stand up and point a finger “J’accuse” especially when the person you would be accusing is keeping you in your current lifestyle.)
1. No one said it was racist to point out racism. It can be, however, prejudicial to point out racism.
2. Political correctness is not the province of ether the left or the right. It’s the Thought Police, of which no good has ever come. PC is a bad idea no matter how noble or how foul the ideology pushing it. You do not change people’s mind by simply telling them they are wrong. That is just as likely if not more so to simply entrench their ideas and the consequent behaviors. You must convince them that their ideas are wrong, for then and only then, will they change in a substantive manner. Racism is a wrong, but no racist has ever change their mind on the matter without coming to that conclusion themselves. This requires that they “do the math” themselves.
And do not mistake pointing out the folly of prejudice in attacking someone for a specific form of prejudice as pleading Deen’s case.
She’ll have her day in court.
Preferably without media prejudicing the proceedings.
Tony C:
“t it is our duty as a society to protect the weak from the predations of the strong.”
*********************
How about making sure they are weak — or even offended –before you launch into your spirited defense. One wonders who appointed you Lord High Protector of a people who’ve made no overture to you for anything. I suspect Holly would consider you as much a fool (Don Quixote comes to mind) as I do with your grandiose plea for Holly’s emancipation from a woman he proclaimed publicly to love. Of course, you and yours know better despite Holly’s one year chance to recant, dispute, or even “clarify” his feelings. Holly’s a dolt and doesn’t even know he is being discriminated against. Poor, poor, Holly.
You know, you’re the worst kind of liberal and what infuriates people who have no particular political axe to grind. The kind who rush off to aid what you proclaim are “weak” people who have not even suggested they need it–in fact they don’t want it. Maybe it’s some psychological projection on your part but the fact is that you have no right to treat a whole class of people like children who can’t take care of themselves.
That’s prejudice far worse than racial discrimination.
But we try not to convict without considering the totality of the evidence, Tony. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes new evidence comes to light and convictions or judgements are overturned on appeal. The idea of the totality of the evidence isn’t directly about prejudice. It’s about good practice in evaluating evidence. Although related, don’t conflate the two.
Gene: Obviously in my mind I wasn’t clear enough, since I believe you misunderstood my intent. And I am still waiting for a definition of “prejudice” that demands having good reason to believe something demands a consideration of the “totality of evidence.”
If that were the definition, how could we ever decide to put people on trial to discover the totality of evidence without engaging in prejudice first? We can have good reason to believe somebody is guilty of something without the totality of evidence being present, and good reason in the absence of the totality of evidence is not “prejudice.”
Those who wish to present Paula Deen as an example of the “evolved southerner” are stuck with arguments that eventually breakdown into absurdity.
1. It’s racist to point out it’s racist. – The great table turner and what is often called the “Avon Ally,” the cosmetic approach.
2. Stop being so politically correct – Four centuries of white supremacy versus four decades of political correctness -sooo annoying!
Racism is meant to be fought – always. That’s how you get rid of it. Sometimes it’s in a Court of Law but always, always it’s in the Court of Public Opinion.
“1. It’s racist to point out it’s racist. – The great table turner and what is often called the “Avon Ally,” the cosmetic approach.
2. Stop being so politically correct – Four centuries of white supremacy versus four decades of political correctness -sooo annoying!”
Blouise,
Two telling points at the heart of this long debate. Remember though that our three most prominent commentators pleading Deen’s case, while all non-racists in my estimation, are lawyers. Lawyers will even argue lost causes beyond the point of hopelessness and are trained to do so.
Gene: No. 1…
Ahhh, that sucks. Oh well, I expect that will die down eventually.
By . . . being clear in the first place?
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your lack of qualifying statements, Tony.
They’ve provided exactly what was needed to make the point about prejudice.
Gene: Qualification of statements usually works better when you don’t have to do them post hoc.
Absolutely true, but when one has been misunderstood, I see no other way to correct that misunderstanding.
Paula Deen cookbook surges to No. 1 on Amazon amid controversy
Nate,
Your statement presupposes racism is a genetic trait. It’s a learned behavior. Unlike eye or skin color, it can be readily changed if the holder of the idea is open to arguments that what they think is wrong.
Bron: I think the only angle is our general belief (which I do not think you share) that it is our duty as a society to protect the weak from the predations of the strong. Racism is, in my view, an inherently hostile belief that has negative consequences for a minority that can be subjugated or harmed by the belief they are inherently inferior to other humans. That hostility is returned with hostility, particularly when hostility (as an attitude) is the only available legal recourse.
To put in terms from (I believe) your point of view, you exhibit a hostile attitude to “big government” and “taxation” primarily because you have no viable alternative except that. We are hostile to racism because we have no viable alternative, at least those of us that think about it agree we cannot make it illegal, we believe in freedom of speech and thought. So our only viable alternative to control and diminish racism is social shunning as a punishment, which tends to be expressed with verbal hostility.
Bron,
Might I suggest you and your wife consider the folly of political correctness as an explanation. Deen is being seen as politically incorrect and that is her “social crime”. If you don’t like racists? Don’t patronize their businesses or hang around with them, but if you’re truly upset about what they think? Convince them of the error of their thinking, but don’t try to tell them what or how they need to think by fiat. No idea, good or bad, ever changes changes itself. Only the thinker can change their ideas. That’s why you attack ideas, not people.
Perhaps not appropriate in this day of shallow political correctness, but this is how I personally feel.
A bloodline in which racism runs deep.
Would have been better if in the course of the human experiment this bloodline would have been relegated to the dustbin of history long ago.
Tony,
Qualification of statements usually works better when you don’t have to do them post hoc.
Sorry if pointing out that prejudice is a far broader concept than simply racism is inconvenient. And if you don’t think that observation applies to you? Then why worry about it, Elaine? I don’t recall taking any of your statements directly to task. You’re an advanced language user. I’d expect you to understand that prejudice isn’t just racism. However, “we often discuss different aspects of a post.” That’s a given. I thought that’s precisely what we were doing. If you think that’s passing judgement on others for not realizing that simple truth pointed out? I still like Tony and yet I do not like racists, ergo, I haven’t judged based on the prejudice he’s shown nor anyone else. If I had, I wouldn’t like him and possibly think he needs to be punished for something that isn’t a crime or a tort. You’re all entitled to your opinions and I never said otherwise. I did, however, point to a basic and fundamental hypocrisy in prejudging Deen when she is on trial for a claim of alleged discrimination tangentially related to her possibly being prejudiced herself. Allegations that may or may not be true regardless of whether or not she is in fact a racist or not.
If you take pointing out these inconvenient matters as a scolding? If this truth some how rumples anyone’s clothing of moral indignation at being on “the right side” of a social more?
Most humble apologies, but the observation is what it is: truthful about the nature of prejudice. Despite what you may think, my motivation is not condemnation. It’s something else altogether.
“I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.” – Pietro Aretino
As for my statement, “Paula Deen is evil and deserves punishment,” I think that clearly did not refer to the court case, it referred to the topic of Mark’s article, which was whether the Food Network should have fired Deen. After analysis I do think racism is evil, and Paula Deen is a racist, and like all racists (in full control of their faculties) deserving of punishment in the form of social shunning.
I do not know how many times I have to say I will leave the jury to decide if she is deserving of legal punishment, my “punishment” was referring to the social and commercial consequences of being a racist, precisely the topic of the post talking about the loss of her job as a TV personality and whether or not we should forgive her for past transgressions, whether we should take Obama’s advice to “look forward, not back.”
mespo:
my wife and I cannot figure the angle on why people are jumping on the anti-Deen band wagon. Is it just about money or is it something else?
Usually when the left [or the right] jumps on some one there is a political angle or philosophical angle. Typically with the left it is usually more of a philosophical nature while with the right it is political because they dont seem to understand the underlying philosophy.
In any event, to me, this seems more than just about money because of the nature and hostility of the comments.
Mark: It’s obvious to anyone with a passing acquaintance with English that you’ve made up your mind (“unforgiveable”) well before anyone on the blog mentioned the 2012 video interview which you now say forms part of your basis.
No, it is obvious to anyone with a passing understanding of English that “sometimes” is not an absolute, and what I was attacking is your childish implication that everything is forgivable if sufficient time has passed and enough contrition is asserted.
It isn’t. This isn’t church, it is the real world. In church, somebody never harmed by your actions has the power to forgive you. Or perhaps you have the meaningless power to forgive yourself. That doesn’t work in the real world; some people do damage that is irreversible, some do damage to strangers they will never meet again, some have done damage to people that are now dead, whether the damage was contributory to that death or not, and that makes the actions unforgivable. Period. Karma is not a real thing, your forgiveness of Paula Deen does not help the people she harmed by her racism. It means nothing to anyone but you and Paula. Likewise, Hollister may forgive and accept Paula, but that doesn’t help all the others harmed by Paula’s racism and long continued acceptance of her racist brother’s actions.
That bad logic is what I was attacking, your emotional plea to forgive Paula Deen for sins you think she committed 50 years ago and then stopped.
Well, from the deposition alone, which I had already read when I made my first comment, I was already convinced Paula Deen was on the stand struggling to not commit perjury and still conceal her own private racism.
I have also learned her bank robbery experience was in 1986; that was 27 years ago. Was that the last time she used the N-word? No, she says, it wasn’t. Which is later than I expected but fits my expectation, she was already an adult with children by the time that happened, it was more than two decades after the civil rights movement (in which she was ALSO an adult), and she was still using the N-word so frequently she could not remember the contexts in which it was used.
But you insist upon continuing the lie that all this was “50 years ago,” which it turns out more than doubles the span of time referenced in the deposition.
Mark: You then entreat Gene H:
No way, dude. I was explaining to Gene why he was wrong. Gene won’t admit to a mistake in logic, I presume it is in his nature to stubbornly defend the indefensible. Since you seem to feel the need to invoke Gene as an authority instead of arguing for yourself, your claim is only a reflection of his. I have explained why he is wrong in terms anybody can understand.
I will again: “A or B” is a false dichotomy when it excludes the possibility of alternatives to A or B, like C and D, or an infinite number of other choices that are in the set “not A and not B”. In a false dichotomy, the set “A or B” narrows the infinity of possibly true statements to just two.
“A or not A” is a dichotomy but it is not a false dichotomy, because it excludes nothing. The adjective “false” is in necessary in front of “dichotomy” because not all dichotomies are false. (Note “A or the opposite of A” is really a form of “A or B” which may also present a false dichotomy, by narrowing the universe to just two options.)
“A or not A” is the equivalent of the statement “either A is true or A is false.” One danger in this kind of claim is if A is a paradox (for example, A = “This statement is false”), or A is self-contradictory. To be safe we should suspect any statement A that is self-referential, because often being self-referential will allow the construction of a claim that is paradoxical or just self-contradictory.
A second danger is when the statement A is vague, meaning it represents a state that can be simultaneously true and false; which can also lead to paradox. Because if A is both true and false, we cannot claim A is limited to being true or false.
A good example of the first kind of false dichotomy is the claim “you are with us or against us,” it is a false dichotomy because it is of the form “A or the opposite of A”, which presents two alternatives and excludes many other alternatives, like “neutrality” or “in partial agreement with us.”
However, modifying that statement to read, “You are with us, or you are not with us” is also a false dichotomy, because A = “with us” is too vague a construction. Does “with us” imply “100% agreement?” Can I disagree on a few points, but still go ahead with the plan? Who, exactly, is “us”? Does that mean George Bush and Dick Cheney, or does it mean the American citizens, or the Constitution? If it means citizens, how do we know what “with us” means if large groups express mutually exclusive demands on a course of action? In short, because the “you” can plausibly be “with us” and “against us” simultaneously (say, agreeing on the need for retribution but not the form of retribution); the terms are too vague, and overlap in some real sense; people cannot be neatly divided by the condition “with us.”
As long as the claim “A” is not self-referential and not too vague to describe a specific condition, then the statement “A or not A” excludes nothing, everything in the universe that is not A is, clearly, contained in the term “not A”.
For another example, I can claim an elemental atom is “gold or not gold”, and that is not a false dichotomy. Claiming an elemental atom is “gold or lead” is a false dichotomy, it excludes many other possibilities.
My statement is not self-contradictory, and it does describe a specific condition. it is either true or false that Paula Deen is a lifelong racist. (By “lifelong” I mean as an adult; not as an infant.)
So if Paula Deen changed her racist ways at any time in the last 50 years, that condition is contained in the term “not a lifelong racist.” Thus my statement does not exclude changes in character. It does not exclude being a racist in 1964 and having realized by 1968 that one has been wrong. All the infinity of possibilities gets represented in the set “A or not A”, and “lifelong racist” is just one of them.
That logic is not assailable by Gene, all he can do is insist it isn’t true and demand I recant, which I will not, because I am right. He cannot present any suitable example (by my description above) of a claim that fits this model, “A or not A” and excludes other possibilities. His examples are of the form “A or B,” or “A or the opposite of A”, which is a subset of “A or B”, or using an “A” that is too vague to definitively classify a state of being.
As a dichotomy, the two options I presented, “a lifelong racist” or “not a lifelong racist” are not self-referential and not overlapping, they are mutually exclusive and all inclusive; therefore the dichotomy is not false. The only possible attack is to claim that the condition “a lifelong racist” is too vague and can be simultaneously true and false, which I will leave to others to ponder, but I do not believe it is possible.
If racism is the belief that one race is inherently inferior to another, then I do not see how one can hold that in a single normal mind racism is both present and absent simultaneously.