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
I reckon so, Elaine.
Elaine, Tony and Mike “won” this argument long ago, there are just too many egos who didn’t examine all the evidence to be had — or didn’t want to — and now they’re too puffed up to admit they were wrong.
Please stop flogging this dead horse. It’s tiresome, and it makes a largish group of you look petulant and childish.
Gene,
I didn’t mischaracterize anything. I guess we just have a difference of opinion.
No, Elaine.
You can mischaracterize that all you like, but it doesn’t make it so. Words have meaning. If the meaning of the word “prejudice” presents a problem? I’m pretty sure that English doesn’t have a complaint department.
Not all truths are comfortable, but they have the merit of being true.
Gene,
You made a judgment about people based on what they said–just as the people you labeled as prejudiced did. I didn’t say it made you a bad person.
“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
Sorry for the inconvenience.
No, Elaine.
I forced people to consider that logically and by definition a rush to judgement can be every bit as much a prejudice as racism is a prejudice and some found that idea uncomfortable. I didn’t say it made you bad people. As OS noted, everyone has some degree of prejudice. It’s an inescapable part of human psychology, but it is an outcome based phenomena in deciding whether it is good or bad. It also is what it is. The Law of Identity holds. Again . . .
“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
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Activist: Paula Deen allegations just the tip of the iceberg
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/activist-paula-deen-allegations-just-tip-iceberg/nYYDW/
Excerpt:
ATLANTA —
Channel 2 Action News has learned about some new explosive allegations from an Atlanta civil rights activist against embattled celebrity chef Paula Deen.
Marcus Coleman told Channel 2’s Tony Thomas workers in Deen’s restaurants are preparing another lawsuit claiming race and equality issues.
This comes as more companies cut ties with the Georgia-based cook.
Atlanta-based Home Depot, which sold Deen’s cookware online, pulled the merchandise off its website Thursday.
Coleman said the initial allegations against Deen are just the tip of the iceberg.
“It’s sad to see people fearful when they are truly being treated unfairly,” Coleman said.
Coleman said he’s been meeting with as many as 20 current and former Paula Deen employees for 15 months.
“(It’s) a rainbow of employees, many of them Caucasian,” he said.
Coleman said they kept silent all this time waiting for a former manager’s lawsuit to begin. That lawsuit is what’s prompted the recent firestorm.
The workers are still reportedly too scared to talk on camera but allowed Coleman to speak on their behalf. He said they complain of being passed over for promotions, pay inequities and other racial issues.
“We’re talking about qualified workers with tenure that have been skipped over management positions because of their race,” Coleman said.
Gene,
You’re calling people prejudiced who used their judgment of the things a person said to draw a conclusion that said person is a racist. You did the same thing. You read what we said and used your judgment to draw the conclusion that we are prejudiced.
“The argument of reverse racism, knee jerk party line followers and other such charges lodged against those who dare question the premise of Mark’s blog have been the theme of bigotry for the last 50 years.”
Well, yeah, but I didn’t make those arguments. Did I, Mike?
Prejudice isn’t the same thing as racism, but racism is a form of prejudice.
‘It has aided and abetted the raising of the raciallist flag from the pinnacle of White Supremacy for years now and is part of the problem, not a solution.” (Mike S)
Agree with that 100%
“Bob and Mark particularly have called into question our integrity and done so in rather strong terms.” (Mike S)
I don’t really feel that way at all.
I understand the points they were making, I simply disagree. The kids in my neighborhood used the eenie, meanie, minie, mo that Bob referenced but everybody said catch a fellow by his toe so, although I got his point, it just didn’t apply to my upbringing. Mark feels somewhat sorry for Paula Deen. I don’t feel sorry for her at all and I didn’t feel at all sorry for that cello player when my agent took him aside for a little talk.
The older I got and the more life experience I gathered, the more I understood how well my parents had prepared me for life and for the world.
Yep, it’s been a good discussion.
I have not participated much in this interesting discussion, and admit I have not read all the comments due to being preoccupied with other pressing issues. I have, however, formulated a couple of ideas that might help this conversation along.
First of all, anytime someone tells you they have no prejudice, they are lying. No way to soften that one. It is harsh reality. The reason is simple, and appears contradictory. Humans are social creatures, like much of the animal kingdom. The reason is probably evolutionary. We band together with others who are like us. Same as the reason you don’t see ducks socializing with chickens. We tend, as humans, to have developed tribal instincts for both reproductive as well as self defense needs. We bond with people we live with and who look like us. Others, not so much.
Outsiders, not members of the tribe, are not only suspect but are likely to be regarded as dangerous. If the threat to the tribe is serious enough, it is human nature to react with aggression as a defense. When one is raised in a protective culture, the “other” is a threat. One way this is done is to dehumanize them. A guy who used to work for me was an Osage Indian. He explained to me that in his language, “Osage” meant “human being.” That meant, he said, that anyone who was not Osage was not a human being by implication.
In our culture, we have seen almost every ethnic and religious group dehumanized in some way. And like it or not, have participated to some degree in that dehumanization.
“Bob and Mark particularly have called into question our integrity and done so in rather strong terms.”
But I haven’t.
And to be precise, the point I’m making is about being prejudiced, not about being a bigot (bigotry is a special type of prejudice and I don’t think any of you are bigots). Prejudiced perhaps. But not bigots.
Gene,
It is true that you haven’t resorted to the sd hoinem as have Mark and Bob. However, regarding prejudice on the part of Tony, Elaine, Blouise and I we could make the same charge in return yet haven’t. The argument of reverse racism, knee jerk party line followers and other such charges lodged against those who dare question the premise of Mark’s blog have been the theme of bigotry for the last 50 years. It has aided and abetted the raising of the raciallist flag from the pinnacle of White Supremacy for years now and is part of the problem, not a solution.
Blouise/Mike,
My lesson was different. It came from my grandfather. I was a war story and like all of his war stories, I took it to heart. When he left for WWII, it was the first time he’d ever been more than ten miles from home. He grew up in a very Jim Crow South. When he got back from the South Pacific, he started a construction and plumbing company. He also hired blacks. I overheard another guy, also in the trade, giving him crap about it one day. I guess I was six or seven. I asked him about it. He said, “I don’t care what color a man is so long as he does his job and I don’t care what that idiot thinks. I learned that in a foxhole, it doesn’t matter what color a man’s skin is. If he’s a good man and has your back, you have his back. We all bleed red, boy.” I asked him, “Why didn’t you tell Levi that?” He said, “I tried. He couldn’t understand. Or maybe he didn’t want to understand. Sometimes a lesson can’t be taught, only learned.”
It made an impression.
It’s part and parcel of why I said “Racism is a wrong, but no racist has ever changed their mind on the matter without coming to that conclusion themselves. This requires that they ‘do the math’ themselves.”
If Deen truly is a racist? And she may be. She’ll never know it’s wrong unless she does the math herself.
Have you ever seen the (excellent) film “American History X”?
Edward Norton’s character Derek Vinyard travels that same path.
Gene,
Yet another good story, but you see I’m not trying to reform Deen and I don’t care how the trial ends. Nor do I care if she is punished financially for this issue. All I and everyone else that thinks like me on this issue is saying is that we saw enough in that tape to convince us she’s a bigot. The position adopted by Mark, Bob and you seems to be WE KNOW BETTER AND IF YOU DON’T understand what we see, the you all are the real bigots. Bob and Mark particularly have called into question our integrity and done so in rather strong terms. To call them overly defensive would be charitable. I like you all and respect you all so I haven’t been vitriolic. You guys have. But then again when people’s positions are weak they sometimes go overboard defending them. Despite that as I wrote you offline this has been one of the best discussion threads in a long time and illustrates that we regulars here are not lockstep in anything, just a bunch of cats no one can herd. 🙂
Bob,
I thought it was to the point.
At the age of 12 (1957) I did my first solo appearance with a large symphony orchestra. I travelled to the big city with my lawyer/agent and his wife who were serving as my chaperones for the 2 weeks of rehearsal.
On the first day I asked the 1st chair of the cello section if I could play with them during sectional practise and full orchestra rehearsal doing all the music on the program. He checked with the guest conductor and I sat in. On the second day, during a break, much discussion was going on backstage because the Concertmaster (1st chair violin) and the guest conductor had gotten into a loud argument regarding interpretation of a passage. One of the cello players in my section said, “Just 2 kikes who don’t know to take it outside.”
That night at dinner I relayed the story to my chaperones in the form of a question.
“What’s a kite in music?” I asked. They were mystified and asked me to explain so I did. My agent cleared his throat and said, “Do you think the word was kike, not kite?”
“Yes, I think it was kike but that’s not even a word, is it?’
His wife then asked me if I had ever heard the word n*igger. I responded that I had but that it was one of the words my brothers and I were never allowed to use. Well, kike is like the word n*igger except it’s an insult to Jewish people. I was mortified because my 2 chaperones were Jewish.
I immediately apologized and my lawyer smiled, patted me on the hand and told me it was perfectly alright to ask he and his wife anything. Then he told me that they would be at the rehearsal hall tomorrow and he wanted me to introduce him to the cello player.
I did so and my lawyer took the cello player aside for a little talk. That was when I first learned that racism, no matter how benign, is meant to be fought – always.
I have no idea what my agent said to that guy on that day, but keep in mind that the Concertmaster and Conductor rule the roost in a symphony orchestra.
BTW … “Home improvement giant Home Depot and retailer Target have decided to end their deals with Deen while drugmaker Novo Nordisk has suspended its relationship with her Thursday. Late in the day, home shopping channel QVC said it has “decided to take a pause” from selling Deen’s products. … In an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging, Paula Deen has hired Smith & Company, the crisis-management firm run by Judy Smith — the inspiration for the hit ABC show Scandal — according to a source familiar with the arrangement. Smith has served as a consultant for a host of high profile clients including Monica Lewinski, Michael Vick, Wesley Snipes and Jill Kelley, the mistress of former CIA director General David Petraeus. … Her cookbook orders have surged.”
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/27/news/companies/paula-deen-home-depot-target-diabetes/index.html
Blouise,
Great story. Bigotry must always be opposed. I had a best friend in college who came from a wealthy background and taught me the social graces. One night he and his wife started talking about the inferiority of Black people as they smoked grass in my apartment. Perhaps the weed loosened their tongues for the first time in my presence. After a fierce argument I threw them out. Both of them were people I really cared for and I was totally shocked by their feelings. Haven’t seen them since.
Deen re-created herself as a product and is now suffering some consequences. Had she really grown to understand her early racism the 2012 tape wouldn’t have come off as it did. Do I believe my lying eyes from watching the tape, or do I beleve I should withhold judgment until the end of the trial? The result of the trial is meaningless to me because I’ve got to trust my “lying eyes.”
Gene: “Apparently people are having no cognitive dissonance over failure to understand that rushing to judge Deen for something that is in itself not a crime can be as prejudicial as the very racism they condemn her for. That sounds a lot like a double standard regarding prejudice to me.”
That about sums it up; doesn’t it.
It is about time we stopped this mudslinging and direct our energy towards education and harmony among all because the colour of the blood that runs through our veins is red and btw I was told Dick Cheney’s heart donor was a brotha….
mespo, I stayed out of this because I could see from an early comment directed @ me that it would get really personal and nasty. I agree w/ your stance. I admire your courage for getting this “racists are everywhere” mentality out there and showing just how wrong and destructive it can be. And, I admire your patience and class. Most everyone played their usual roles..a couple surprises, but it’s pretty predictable in Turleyville; whether old timers want to admit it or not. Great job, sir.
In the Lisa Jackson complaint, Jackson alleges that, in 2007, Deen said:
Well, what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around
In Jackson’s deposition, on page 226, Jackson, under oath, is question by Mr. Franklin, attorney for Paula Deen Enterprises. Jackson reiterates the Shirley Temple story but doesn’t specifically mention Deen’s use of the n-word, but refers to Deen’s discriminatory prejudice in her remark. Franklin doesn’t specifically ask her about Deen’s use of the n-word.
When opposing counsel doesn’t ask a question, it’s because he knows the answer would be detrimental to his client.
There appears to be more to this story than Deen’s n-word use 50 years ago.