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
AY,
To paraphrase Steve Martin, “Some people have a way with logic and some people . . . have not way.”
Gene,
I’d say that there has been more passion exhibited by most of the identified logicians here. I went back and read through this thread. It appears to me that it was logicians who began labeling/criticizing other people and their comments. We keep hearing the same thing–that the people who disagree with the “logicians” rushed to judgment. I’d say that the logicians have been extremely judgmental of those of us who expressed opinions different from theirs.
I’m not particularly passionate about the Paula Deen case. I become passionate when I get accused of things of which I know I am not guilty. I’ll stand my ground and argue my position…and not change my opinion because someone tells me that I’m wrong…or prejudiced…or bearing a pitchfork…or rushed to judgment when I know I didn’t.
“I’d say that there has been more passion exhibited by most of the identified logicians here. I went back and read through this thread. It appears to me that it was logicians who began labeling/criticizing other people and their comments. We keep hearing the same thing–that the people who disagree with the “logicians” rushed to judgment. I’d say that the logicians have been extremely judgmental of those of us who expressed opinions different from theirs.”
Exactly Elaine as your reading of the record proves. Those “calm logical minds” rushed to personal attack mode at the temerity of anyone not to agree with their self-congratulation. When they opine that all reasonable people agree with their point of view, that really mean the rest of us shouldn’t dare to disagree with them and forgets the fact that in this quite long thread their opinions are in the minority and their “proofs” are superficial at best. Then too, it always is a good tactic to frame the argument the way that suits ones viewpoint best, while attacking the “disbelievers” state of mind. Seriously, considering that they all have good minds it has been surprising how weak their arguments are.
I had to laugh about being given the “rules list” in the same thread where my person had been attacked so viciously.
Mark: “We haven’t argued for anything except moderation, circumspection, and not rushing to judgment. Maybe for a little forgiveness, too.
If we’ve lost that battle we’re all in trouble.”
Amen.
Gene: “Mike S., however, is impressively obstinate.”
Pity. He just won’t let go of that torch and pitchfork of his.
“Pity. He just won’t let go of that torch and pitchfork of his.”
I’m just a garden variety peasant storming Castle Frankenstein.
Some are cute, some are witty…. Some folks logic is shitty…. Gene that a confirmation bias….
Nice confirmation bias there, Smom.
Bob,
No.
___________
Elaine,
What it means is we’re all trained to look at arguments (and evidence) dispassionately. There seems to be a lot of passion coloring the arguments for a rush to judgement. So much so that some are having a problem understanding “she’s a racist” and “prejudice is more than just racism” are parallel arguments albeit one is an argument that doesn’t really favor pillorying Deen without knowledge of her intent or proof of actual harm for something that in neither crime nor tort. While such passion is laudable as a personal trait, it can get in the way when looking for justice.
Again, I return to the Martin case as an example. The original injustice – aside from the death of an unarmed teen walking home from a Skittles run – was that Zimmerman wasn’t arrested and investigated as anyone else would have been in that situation if their father wasn’t a magistrate and the suspect wasn’t getting preferential treatment. That was a manifest injustice as it was giving a confessed killer a pass without adequately investigating the situation to find out if the killing was a chargeable offense or one of the narrow exceptions for a permissible use of lethal force. I said quite a bit about that situation of Zimmerman’s treatment by LE. Since he’s been investigated and subsequently charged? Not so much. In fact, I’ve said almost nothing. Why? Because we’re in the process of sorting out the fact from fiction by conducting a trial. Did Zimmerman kill Martin? Without question. We have a body and Zimmerman’s confession. Was that killing some degree of murder or self-defense? Was their intent and to what degree and what was the actual harm (which would be none of found to be self-defense)? I could have said “he killed the boy! burn him!” but I didn’t. Why? Because in the light of dispassionate analysis, we didn’t know enough from examining the totality of the evidence to say what Zimmerman’s intent was or whether or not the facts of the matter showed a legitimate use of lethal force.
______________
Tony,
No. I’m pointing out that maybe someone well versed in logic and evaluating evidence just might be on to something if they are pointing out flaws in your logic and how you are evaluating evidence. An appeal to authority is only invalid if the authority is invalid. You’re not talking to a bunch of concrete finishers or ophthalmologists about the logic, reasoning and evidence related to the pursuit of justice. You’re talking to a group trained as professionals in the pursuit of justice and the attendant logic, reasoning and evaluation of evidence. A group who is uniform in rejecting the logic of your “sides” rather impassioned (albeit misguided from a justice standpoint) argument.
If 9 out 10 doctors tell you that you need surgery, are you going to credit their expertise or ignore it?
_______________
If the fact that the refutation of the rush to judgement is being deployed by a rarefied tactic – argument in parallel – is confusing to some? Doesn’t invalidate either the form, function or content of the argument.
Still, there is no logical refutation about the larger point about the nature of prejudice. A lot of indignation at not everyone gleefully jumping on the “she’s an evil racist and deserves to be punished” bandwagon. But nothing that refutes that, in context, saying she’s definitively a racist without proof of intent and/or actual harm is just as much a form of prejudice as the very racism you’re accusing her of.
Having a double standard about prejudice exposed can be as uncomfortable as having any double standard exposed, but that doesn’t mean the holders of said double standard are less than human. In fact, if you take OS’ observation about everyone having prejudices about something as valid (and I do), then such things are evidently just part of being human. You want to think Deen is a racist? Okay. That’s not the point of the parallel argument. The point is you should examine that your branding of her – in the context of the pursuit of justice – is every bit a form of prejudice.
At least Elaine has stipulated that Deen may very well be a racist and not have created a discriminatory work place. And Tony has admitted that some of the proof is non-existent. And both have admitted that, yeah, it might be wrong to wrong to prejudge Deen in a judicial setting.
Yet you are all missing the point that by narrowing the focus to judicial proceedings, a larger point out the nature of prejudice is being made.
One that doesn’t comply with a rush to judgement because Deen’s remarks don’t comply with your moral/ethical standards or considering the problem of prejudice only within the narrow confines of its inclusive subset racism.
Mike S., however, is impressively obstinate.
You’ll either come to grips with the idea that combating one form of prejudice with another presents inherent contradictions or you won’t. I’m not questioning the purity of your motives. Racism is an evil. I am questioning the underlying logic (or lack thereof) of your tactics. If she’s found to have proven bad intent and caused an actual harm? Much like if Zimmerman is found guilty of some degree of homicide, I’ll gladly join the “she’s a witch! Burn her!” brigade.
Nal, You are the true “logician” here. 🙂
By not rush to judgement do you mean we should maintain our previous judgement? On what evidence should we base the retention of our previous judgement?
By moderation do you mean analogizing those who hold a different opinion from you to a lynch mob? Or analogizing what’s happening to Deen to tar and feathering? Or analogizing what’s happening to Deen to a mob with pitchforks?
Deen has lost her position of privilege. The pedestal of privilege is a precarious perch.
mespo,
Should we forgive Deen before all the evidence is in? What if she is found guilty of discriminating against Black employees?
Mike S:
We haven’t argued for anything except moderation, circumspection, and not rushing to judgment. Maybe for a little forgiveness, too.
If we’ve lost that battle we’re all in trouble.
Juliet:
I love it when the “free market” actually works like it’s supposed to.”
********************
Like when the orthodox-ests from the other side burned Dixie Chicks CDs and drove them off the stage for saying other “unsayable” words? FYI the pre-sales of her book were off the charts, but likely the publishers feared the backlash from reasonable folks like you and Tony C.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/paula-deen-book-sales-surge-following-n-word-controversy/
Facts keeping getting the way of your arguments, don’t they?
Once again, mespo, you prove yourself unworthy of a seat at the grownups’ table.
It was extremely unwise for the Dixie Chicks to bite the redneck, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathers hands who fed them. Fan ire was to be expected, because freedom isn’t free. Free market. Don Cathy turned his chicken stores into anti-gay zones. Some people boycotted. Others went out of their way to show support. Free market. I am certainly free to call my boss a bitch, but she in turn is free to fire me, if I do. Again, free market.
Be smarter.
Perhaps there’s a reality show in the offing.
Blouise: “These are a lot of very public cancellations. Do you think it’s within the realm of possibility that they all know something we don’t?”
Well, I have to agree with Gene; but I will add my own twist: I think they all know something we know. Like politics, it is not unusual for the entertainment industry to go to great expense to figure out what the public is thinking, employing statisticians and computer modeling of reactions.
Like politicians they don’t always get this right, but I think it is a mistake to think their reactions to charges of racism are either reflexive or short term thinking; analysts (sociologists like my sister) study this stuff and help write the play book to minimize damage.
But the play book depends on their audience, so if the scientists involved are competent, they tend to replicate (or copy) each other’s results, and all do the same thing.
So indirectly what this tells us, as individuals, is what we collectively believe: We find racism, as indicated by the casual use of the N-word repellent; except in the circumstances I have discussed that make it highly improbable the word is being used for derogatory effect.
I don’t know what their models demand in the long term, but for most of them it is apparent the first best (least costly) action is to put as much distance between themselves and Paula Deen’s crumbling house as possible.
Considering Paula’s age (no offense) I am not sure a long term come back is feasible. Like the surge of commercial support for Chick-Fil-A, I think she will enjoy some “political statement” commercial success, but that doesn’t last in the long term.
Market Reasoning: People that weren’t going to Paula’s restaurants before are unlikely to become life long converts, they will almost all return to their old habits and favorite haunts. What appealed to them about their faves before, and kept Paula off that list, will reassert itself. A few percent (early adopters, first exposure category) may become regulars, but the 95+% will revert.
However, those repelled by the attitude of Paula and family, like myself, are likely to stay away permanently. Because NOT going to a place is different than going to a new place; were I a fan of Deen’s restaurants before, I could not sit in one again and be happy: I would be angry at myself for supporting a racist family to satisfy my own hedonistic pleasure; which I find intolerable. For me at least, and I suspect those that despise racism, the prospect of ever buying another Deen family product is now intolerable. So those customers are probably lost for good; any new customers will be lost by reversion, and most restaurants are a relatively low margin, high volume business; if she suffers a net loss of 20% of her traffic, that is probably too much to remain in business.
Because she doesn’t have much career time left to be rehabilitated, and her food is decidedly non-mainstream, I think it more likely than not Deen is gone from the national stage for good. There are still moves she can make, and since she has hired professional help I half expect those moves will be made; so this story isn’t over.
Paula Deen’s words echo South’s racist past
By James C. Moore, Special to CNN
June 26, 2013
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/opinion/moore-paula-deen
(Editor’s note: James C. Moore, a Texan, is a business consultant and partner at Big Bend Strategies, a best-selling author and an on-air TV political analyst. He also writes at http://www.moorethink.com.)
(CNN) — Maybe the American South is more complicated than anyone realizes. We seem to exist down here in a kind of a moral and physical duality. The land gives up bountiful crops while it also grows vigorous weeds. There is no other valid explanation for the actions of either Paula Deen or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Deen, a televangelist of butter, let slip in a court deposition that she had used a degrading racial term to describe African-Americans. Imagine the surprise of almost no one in Dixie. Deen came of age in a country that was just beginning to institute the equality it had been bragging about for almost two centuries. If her childhood was like most Southern baby boomers, she was raised on the lexicon of discrimination, and probably used it.
Un-ringing such a bell is not simple. Passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 meant that people who had been taught that it was socially acceptable to use terms like the N-word in public suddenly found themselves struggling with restraint on their language. Unable to exorcise the term from their vocabulary fully, they took it into private quarters and used it among friends who had similar experiences and sentiments. It is grossly foolish, though, to dismiss Deen’s stumble as a minor ineptitude with speech. In certain cultural circles in America, racism abides. And sometimes it simply forgets to close the door.
Apologists racing to Deen’s side are equally awkward in their articulations of defense. Author Anne Rice fretted about our “lynch mob” culture crucifying Deen, seemingly oblivious to the racial freight hauled around when using such a phrase to defend a privileged, Southern white person. Less than 100 years ago a 17-year-old black farmhand named Jesse Washington was lynched on the courthouse lawn in Waco, Texas, chained to a tree and burned alive. Parts of his body were sold as souvenirs to a cheering crowd of 10,000. He had admitted to a murder many historians doubt he committed.
How hard is it to understand that any ethnic person whose race has a history of being so victimized in a nation that espouses equality is likely to have a justified sensitivity to the bumblings of Deen, who had also expressed an offhanded interest in a “plantation-style” wedding dinner where the waiters were black males?
Deen might have argued that her attitudes were forever altered when a black man robbed a bank where she worked in 1986 and held a gun to her head. But sympathy is a tough emotion to conjure when reading her 2012 interview with The New York Times where she speaks of slavery as a familial relationship, not an injustice, and says, “(F)or that reason we didn’t see ourselves as prejudiced.” She also used the same forum to suggest that the freeing of her grandfather’s 30 slaves was the cause of his suicide.
Consequently, it is disturbingly wrongheaded for comedian Bill Maher to argue that what she said is “just a word.” Words are powerful things. Words have changed the world. Regardless, it is still a bit awkward labeling Deen a racist when she had Pat and Gina Neely on her program so frequently that the African-American barbecue chefs became stars of their own cooking show.
It is probably a gross oversimplification to suggest Deen didn’t know any better because she lives in two parallel and contradictory environments. No such explanation is sufficient for the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act, either.
The court’s perceptions are as confounding as Deen’s. A conservative majority voted 5-4 that Congress used “outdated facts” to force mostly Southern states to seek federal approval for voting rules changes that affect minorities. We can infer from the opinion’s language that the problem of racial discrimination in the former slaveholding states has been mostly resolved. Can we all share a “hallelujah”?
Unlike Deen’s mishap, this news will generate surprise among minorities, particularly those living in Texas and Arizona. The high court had already ruled that the Texas Legislature drew congressional district lines in a manner “designed” to discriminate against minority representation, which, not surprisingly, meant nothing to Gov. Rick Perry and his Republican, conservative legislature. They recently readopted the plan that had been ruled unconstitutional.
The high court also has a kind of Southern duality that puts it at odds with its own rulings. A week before the Voting Rights Act decision, the justices struck down an Arizona law that required people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. A judicial body that contradicts itself one week after a progressive ruling is struggling as much with the law as it is with the reality of the culture where it is employed.
In the South, people understand how Paula Deen and judges can be as wrong as they are right. Unfortunately, there is considerably more at stake in this discussion than the buttery delights of a Southern cooking show. Regardless of how much we debate and legislate ourselves toward equality, we have not yet arrived. America seems immobilized by its history; we just can’t stop staring at that tree on the courthouse lawn in Waco.
And we wonder why we still haven’t got this right.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0630-page-20130630,0,3687193.column
Paula Deen’s menu: Foot in mouth
Clarence Page
June 30, 2013
You knew Paula Deen was in serious trouble when the celebrity chef turned for help to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He’s still the go-to guy for celebrities in dire need to patch things up after breaches of racial etiquette.
“I’ve had wonderful support from Rev. Jackson,” she said in a tearfully apologetic interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday, a week after news broke of her admission in a videotaped deposition for a discrimination suit that she had used the “N-word” racial slur in the past.
Fallout from that revelation and other racial remarks began to unravel the celebrity chef’s food and media empire with breathtaking speed. The Food Network dropped her two shows, and a parade of major corporations have cut business ties with her and her products.
But Jackson, who has stirred up more than a few racial controversies of his own over the years, stepped up to defend Deen. She shouldn’t become a “sacrificial lamb” to the cause of racial tolerance, he told The Associated Press. If she is willing to acknowledge mistakes and make changes, he said, “she should be reclaimed rather than destroyed.”
I’ll go even further. I think Deen should be thanked, not just spanked, by those who believe as I do in the value of candid racial dialogue. Americans don’t like to talk enough about race across racial lines, partly out of fear of offending someone. Deen apparently was too ignorant to be afraid.
While being questioned on May 17 in a discrimination lawsuit, the celebrity cook, Food Network star and Savannah, Ga., restaurant owner was asked if she has ever used the N-word; Deen boldly replied, “Yes, of course.” Although she also said, “It’s been a very long time,” her bold “Yes, of course” probably was not the most diplomatic way for a defendant in a discrimination suit to respond.
Lisa Jackson (no relation to the reverend), former general manager of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, one of Deen’s Savannah restaurants, filed the $1.2 million lawsuit in March 2012 against Deen and her brother, Earl W. “Bubba” Hiers, over allegations of racial and sexual harassment involving racial slurs and off-color jokes.
The federal lawsuit contends among other charges that racial slurs and jokes about women, Jews and blacks were common at Uncle Bubba’s. Questioned about racial and ethnic jokes, Deen said in the video deposition and on the “Today” show, “I can’t myself determine what offends another person.”
By now I hope she has a better idea.
Her cross-cultural cluelessness shows itself vividly in the video of her appearance at The New York Times last October, in which she cheerfully observes, “I feel like the South is almost less prejudiced because black folks played such an integral part in our lives. They were like our family.”
Integral, indeed.
Since my family is rooted in the South, I’ve been hearing that “like our family” line since I was a kid. I’m Deen’s age, 66, but I have a slightly different view of what life was like in the 1950s from the black side of the “white” and “colored” signs. Movies like “The Help” offer a pretty good recreation.
Deen offered a hint, although not in the way she might have meant, when she pointed to a dark backdrop on The Times’ stage to illustrate how her long and trusted driver, bodyguard and assistant, Hollis Johnson, is as “black as that board.”
“Come out here, Hollis,” she added, looking offstage. “We can’t see you standing against that dark board.”
With that, she reminded me of some of my white dormitory friends in college who thought they were oh so clever every time the lights went out and they said, “Smile, Clarence, so we can see you!”
Why, I wondered aloud, do white guys always think they’re the first to think of that joke?
My classmates have learned better since then, I hope. Paula Deen still appears to be learning.
Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune’s editorial board, blogs at chicagotribune.com/pagespage
‘Come out here Hollis! We can’t see you standing against that dark board!’
http://youtu.be/AebW7VqUcDY
http://www.eurweb.com/2013/06/and-just-who-is-paula-deens-black-black-friend-hollis-johnson-watch/
Paula Deen Is America’s Racist Grandma
She may embarrass us, but that doesn’t mean we can—or should—ignore her.
By Tanner Colby
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/paula_deen_she_s_america_s_racist_grandma.html
There was this Thanksgiving dinner once, at my aunt’s house in Houston. That morning we’d read an op-ed in the local paper about a school that still used corporal punishment. A white teacher had paddled a black student. People were up in arms about the obvious racial overtones, and my grandmother, my sweet little 70-year-old Nanny, offered that she, too, didn’t think the white teacher should have paddled that black student, because she “wouldn’t want no niggers beatin’ on her kids, neither.” This occasioned lots of eye-rolling from the grandchildren and some gentle rebukes from our parents. Then someone passed the gravy.
As a typical Southern white family, we didn’t talk much about race. But whenever the older generation hauled it indelicately to the surface, it was an opportunity for us grandkids to see the ugliness our country would rather forget. For our parents it was a teachable moment, a chance to show us just how ugly prejudice is. In this way it was useful, instructive even, to have an old racist grandma at the dinner table.
Which brings us to Paula Deen. By now Deen’s crimes are well known. Among other offenses, she’s confessed to saying she wanted “a bunch of little niggers” to dress up in antebellum finery for an Old South-style wedding feast she was throwing. As punishment, she has been stripped of her Food Network show and her endorsement deal with Smithfield Ham. In other words, polite society has tried to sweep her ugliness under the carpet where we can safely ignore it.
That’s exactly the wrong thing to do. Whether it’s Ross Perot’s “you people” or Don Imus’ “nappy-headed hos,” our reaction is always to ostracize the offender. But as perverse as it may seem, you cannot have a National Conversation About Race and not invite racists to be a part of that conversation. Paula Deen represents a sizable constituency in this discussion. Witness the support for her among Southern whites, which has been unapologetic and loud. The morning after the Food Network dumped her, the line outside her Georgia restaurant snaked around the block. The “We Support Paula Deen” Facebook page has 376,558 likes counting. Deen has the kind of mind that can look back on America’s Holocaust and see nothing but cotillions and hoop skirts. There’s little use in pretending that mentality doesn’t exist. All we do is push it back into the shadows where it waits to spill out again.
Paula Deen is America’s racist grandma, and we should treat her as such. Racist Grandma may be racist, but she’s also your grandma. You can’t just disown her.
And, contrary to what some might think, having a racist grandma isn’t entirely bad. No doubt there are many white families where racism is passed down generation to generation like some cancerous gene. But for others, seeing that gene and knowing you’re predisposed to it is a warning sign, a nagging reminder to take preventive measures for yourself. I say let’s push racist Grandma back to center stage and let her keep talking.
The counterargument to keeping Deen on the air is that someone with her repugnant views shouldn’t be rewarded with a lucrative television contract, and that’s fair as far as it goes. But Paula Deen is already a millionaire. She will remain a millionaire whether her TV show exists or not. And had the Food Network kept her on, Deen would hardly be the only racist in America with a decent job. Deen has a platform. That has value. It can be used for good or ill, but eliminating that platform helps no one. Should she be punished for her actions? Of course. Our racist grandmas may get a pass, but as a public figure, Deen has responsibilities. Which is precisely why she should be forced to remain on television.
Because here’s the thing about white people: They hate dealing with race—are incapable of dealing with it, in large part. Have you ever seen a white CEO stand in front of a black audience and tell them how much he “cares about diversity”? I have. It’s excruciating. What better penance could there be than to have Deen wake up on Monday morning and stand in front of a camera and open her mouth and do her job? Because she’s become far more than just a TV chef. She has set herself up as a voice for all that is good about the South. And despite its sins, one thing the South can rightly be proud of is its food. Southern food is a big bucket of deep-fried awesome. Who doesn’t crave a heaping helping of biscuits and gravy or shrimp and grits? Southern food also perfectly captures the complexities and contradictions of how race is lived in that part of the country. When you find moments of genuine interracial community in the South, it’s usually over a plate of red beans and rice or a huge slab of ribs, people sharing favorite recipes or swapping stories about whose grandfather liked to cook this or that; food may be the thing poor Southern whites and poor Southern blacks have most in common. But Southern cuisine also gives fuel to some of our worst racial stereotypes. Fried chicken and watermelon and all the rest of it. And the politics of food, of who serves what to whom, the very thing that got Deen in trouble with her antebellum dinner party, is ever present. Whether it’s whites refusing to serve blacks at the lunch counter or blacks in dinner jackets serving the soup course to whites, you could write a whole book on the power dynamics of putting a plate on a table below the Mason-Dixon Line.
Food and race and the South—it’s a minefield. And I would love to see Paula Deen walk through it on national television. She knows exactly where she screwed up and why, and to have to face that with the whole country watching? Just imagine it: with no pause for “reflection,” with the eyes of a multiracial nation upon her and “the N-word” like a yoke around her neck, Paula Deen standing in front of a big Sunday spread of buttermilk fried chicken, barbecue brisket, collard greens, corn bread, fried okra, pigs’ feet, and sweet potato pie. Let her stand there and explain where all that good food came from and how her mama’s housekeeper used to make the best green bean casserole and see if she can learn how to do it without putting her racist foot in her mouth. Then, when she screws up, make her go back and do it again. That would be a punishment that fits the crime. It would make her a better person. It would make our National Conversation About Race a conversation worth having. And it would also make fantastic television.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-paula-deens-slurs-are-a-bitter-pill-to-swallow/2013/06/27/be0cc248-df5c-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html
Paula Deen’s slurs are a bitter pill to swallow
By Eugene Robinson, Published: June 27
Paula Deen needs to give the self-pity a rest. The damage to her carefully built image is self-inflicted — nobody threw a rock — and her desperate search for approval and vindication is just making things worse.
Sorry to be so harsh, but come on. Deen is tough and savvy enough to have built a culinary empire from scratch, in the process becoming the most famous Southern cook in creation. She incarnates the whole “steel magnolia” archetype, with razor-sharp toughness beneath the flutter and the filigree.
“I is what I is,” she said in her weepy exculpation on the “Today” show.
And that’s fine. Go ahead, be what you be. Just don’t try to make everybody else responsible.
For anyone who somehow managed to miss this whole melodrama — distracted, perhaps, by trifles such as landmark Supreme Court rulings or shocking revelations of government snooping — Deen’s troubles stem from a deposition she gave last month in a lawsuit filed by a former employee.
Under oath, Deen acknowledged that “of course” she had used the racial slur known euphemistically as the N-word. This was years ago, she explained, and, well, people use inappropriate language when they’re telling jokes, but she never used that word in a hurtful way.
On the contrary, Deen told “Today” host Matt Lauer, she is now the victim — of “very, very hurtful lies” and the erroneous judgments of “people I have never heard of (who) are all of a sudden experts on who I am.”
I guess that includes me. But I believe Deen is familiar with the Food Network, Smithfield Foods, Wal-Mart, Target, Caesars Entertainment and the Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical company, all of which have severed or suspended their business relationships with her in recent days. Executives of those firms are the constituency that Deen seems to have lost, even if much of her fan base remains loyal.
The question isn’t just whether Deen used an ugly, forbidden word, or how many times she used it, or how long ago that was. The question is whether there is anything about race and diversity in this country that she really understands.
For me, the most jaw-dropping passages in Deen’s deposition concern plans she was making for her brother Bubba’s wedding. In thinking about how the food service should be done, she recalled visiting a restaurant “in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere” that she admired.
“The whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie,” Dean says in the deposition. “I mean, it was really impressive. And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that, I said, but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret.”
Her fears are well-founded.
“Of course I’m old but I ain’t that old,” Deen goes on. “I didn’t live back in those days but I’ve seen pictures, and the pictures that I’ve seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America.”
Asked what era she’s talking about, Deen replies, “Well, I don’t know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.”
The attorney questioning her says: “Right. Back in an era when there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.”
Deen answers: “Well, it was not only black men, it was black women.”
She goes on to acknowledge that in antebellum years those well-dressed servants would have been slaves but clarifies that she “did not mean anything derogatory.” She needn’t worry, because the only person she’s derogating is herself.
The woman is 66, not 96. She was all of 7 when the Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education decision, which means she’s had plenty of time to get used to it. She has spent her adult life in an America where black people are not compelled to be subservient to whites. She has made her fortune in an America where most people, white as well as black, consider warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia for the days of slavery and Jim Crow to be highly offensive.
I’ll put it in terms that someone who missed the last 50 years might understand: All black people are uppity now. Every one of us, I’m afraid.
I hope she figures it out, because anyone that fond of the deep-fryer can’t be all bad. A period of silence would be a good start. My advice: Eat some hush puppies. And don’t talk with your mouth full.
Bob: Oops. I do not believe I am a solipsist. …
Ah screw it, I phucked that joke up… I hereby declare you non-existent.
Bob: I do not believe I am not a solipsist. Which means if I were a solipsist, then since I believe my mind decides reality, I would not be a solipsist.