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
It’s rather amusing how this witch hunt in the alleged name of vanquishing bigotry from the earth has panned out.
What I find particularly amusing is how people who are predominately white and do nothing in their lives that actually help oppressed black people have decided to lynch Paula Deen for uttering the word “nigger” in her past. They derive joy from her fall from grace; blinded by their own arrogance that they’re also punishing a person who has set up charities that “in Savannah, Georgia, that benefit “almost exclusively oppressed and poverty stricken black people.”
Yes, that’s right, in their zeal to appear righteous, this allegedly indignant lot, feigning care for black people everywhere, is actually harming charities set up to help oppressed and poverty stricken black people.
Don’t let the existence of said charities affect the conclusion as to whether Paula Deen is in fact a racist. Never mind that the alleged racist does more for black people than 99.99% of anyone accusing her for being racist. The indignant will have their way with her.
But is this real indignation or pseudo indignation; real indignation being based on objective moral principles universally held and sufficient evidence supporting the claim and pseudo indignation being, well, whatever else?
Might that pseudo indignation blind the mob to things like their own hypocrisy?
Why Has Paula Deen Been Vilified, While Alec Baldwin’s Been Given a Pass?
“The cases of Paula Deen and Alec Baldwin have more to do with our collective sense of perception than anything else.”
“Why does #AlecBaldwin get a pass when he uses gay slurs? If a conservative talked of beating up a ‘queen’ they would be vilified,” tweeted CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who is gay.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/01/why-has-paula-deen-been-vilified-while-alec-baldwin-s-been-given-a-pass.html
Elaine,
That is an interesting claim. In Jackson’s deposition, she argued that the operation of the restaurant towards blacks put her in a position of privilege, which was discriminatory.
Paula Deen’s Lawyers Cite Hollingsworth V. Perry In Bid To Dismiss Race Lawsuit
By Joe Satran
Posted: 07/01/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/paula-deen-hollingsworth-v-perry_n_3530174.html
Excerpt:
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which effectively legalized gay marriage in California, could have a very surprising beneficiary: Paula Deen.
On Monday, the celebrity chef’s lawyers cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision on the case in a filing submitted to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Georgia. Deen’s lawyers have argued for months that a lawsuit brought by Lisa Jackson, a manager at one of Deen’s restaurants, should be dismissed because the plaintiff lacks the standing to bring it to court.
(It was during a deposition for this lawsuit that Deen admitted to making several statements that were widely interpreted as racially insensitive, sparking a huge controversy that ultimately resulted in the vast majority of Deen’s corporate sponsors ending their partnerships with the chef.)
Deen’s lawyers first mounted the standing argument in a December motion to dismiss the lawsuit [pdf], writing that Jackson can’t sue Deen and her brother Bobby Hiers for racial discrimination because she herself is white. In their most recent filing [pdf], the defense bolstered this argument by quoting a paragraph from Roberts’ decision, emphasizing one sentence in particular: “In other words, for a federal court to have authority under the Constitution to settle a dispute, the party before it must seek a remedy for a personal and tangible harm.”
The idea here is that Lisa Jackson shouldn’t be allowed to sue for racial discrimination because she could not have been harmed by it, regardless of whether any racial discrimination took place. Just as the Supreme Court refused to consider former Calif. State Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth’s defense of gay-marriage ban Proposition 8 because they believed he could not be tangibly harmed by gay marriage.
Tony C:
Take it up with Big Al and his family.
As I told Gene, I am just telling what Big Al told me.
Gene:
Big Al may have done so, but he did grow up very poor. So I just accepted the story.
Pete: Three cheers. Besides, the dog will eat bugs and worms and restaurant grease if it is hungry; and it isn’t that hard in the modern world to rustle up 600 calories a day, which is the typical metabolic requirement for a person. Bron is pulling chains, he has a bad case of hero worship for sociopaths.
nick
my mother grew up during the depression one of ten kids. to this day she will not eat boiled meat.
i had a short period some years back that all i had to eat was corn meal, dried beans and whatever i could catch. i was lucky that it was only me and that i lived next to the intercoastal waterway.
i’d eat roadkill before i’d eat my dog.
“that is a true story told to me by Big Al.”
Or that could be Big Al totally yanking your chain.
gENE/Juliet:
that is a true story told to me by Big Al. I did not eat Scruffy. Now maybe Big Al was not telling the truth but it sure seemed like it when he was telling me the story.
Gene:
Maybe they only had a couple of eggs for the whole family. You dont know so I wouldnt be so quick to judge.
If my children were starving, I’d serve Scruffy right up along with a side of kitty.
Bron,
If you had eggs, you had protein and eating Scruffy is not only redundant but mean.
I had a boss once who was so poor he had to eat his dog Scruffy for breakfast. By the time he told me about it, he was over the pain and said that he had to eat “Scruffy and eggs” due to poverty.
He said he was heartbroken but had to so he wouldnt starve to death. He made up his mind to never eat another pet and he became wealthy.
Scruffy was his motivation and did not die in vain. With Scruffy as his life coach/spirit guide Big Al was able to rise above the mean, cruel life he endured as a child.
I dont recommend eating “Scruffy and eggs” as a way out of poverty but it worked well for Big Al.
I was too poor to have a pet to eat, wiseacre. 😉
Sorry, Mark. I should have looked at your link before I responded. I apologize.
Unlike Deen’s past, there was no home to be repossessed, because we moved in with my grandparents when my parents divorced. My grandpa was a carpenter and he built our house, with help from friends and neighbors. We had a two-holer outhouse. This was 1974 or 1975. We couldn’t have moved anywhere, because we couldn’t have survived without our extended family.
Juliet, Do you ever remember being hungry and w/o food. My mom grew up in a family of 13 kids w/ an absent alcoholic father during the depression. She, and all her siblings have told me that changes you. It is seared into your memory..the worst being going to bed hungry. Your momma didn’t raise no fool!
If I ever went hungry, I don’t remember it. One of the benefits of growing up in the country is there’s food to be had. Friends would let you pick their gardens, and mom would can everything she got. There’s also farm work to do most of the year. I remember digging potatoes for the first time, and my mom laughing at me the next day when I thought I was dying. My first sore muscles were traumatic.
The only really bad “poor kid” memory I have is wearing a new dress to my dad’s church and being told by one of the other kids that my mom had bought it at her mom’s yard sale. That makes an imprint. Probably not like being hungry does, but it leaves kind of a nasty mark.
My past isn’t like Paula Deen’s. My people never owned people, to my knowledge. We were mostly German immigrants.
When we put the Indian population, who had eaten a high protein, complex carb diet only, onto reservations, we ruined their metabolism. Bread, dairy and other processed food turned this lean mean fighting machine culture into obese, diabetic, alcoholics.
Growing up in an Italian family I was blessed w/ eating very little processed food. We tried to pass that onto our kids, but w/ limited success. Madison Ave., SCHOOL FOOD, vending machines, are ubiquitous. But, we always ate supper together unless a valid excuse was presented. And Sunday Supper excuse had to be a hospitalization or something of that genre. It was sooo tough because few of their friends had family meals. We had a “no phone calls taken” between 5-6p. Our kids are now in their mid and late 20’s and are starting to understand.
Juliet N:
Your family history tracks remarkably close to Paula Deen’s story.
http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-chapter/Paula-Deens-Humble-Beginnings-and-Dreams-for-Her-Family-Video
Gene: We are in the age when billion dollar food manufacturers can routinely use functional magnetic resonance imaging of brains in the process of consuming their product; and look for all the right addictive lights.
Science is power. For better or worse.
Q:What would you call it if they held a spirited –sometimes heated –conversation about racial attitudes in the U.S. and a cooking show broke out?
A: A wonderful day!
BTW, we need Patty C to come on back and add to the culinary dialog. That lady could cook.
Carry on.
Juliet: Wow, I grew up on peanut butter and jelly; around the age of five or six that was our dinner a few nights a week. When both of my parents were working at night, we had no sitter and fended for ourselves. So sandwiches or cereal. Sometimes we were given permission to cook hot dogs on our own; one of my earliest memories is my older sister at the age of six, on tiptoe in front of the stove, cooking hot dogs for us in a frying pan. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I ever used a dictionary.
We truly didn’t have the money for peanut butter. My divorced, single mother made pinto bean soup and cornbread, along with macaroni and tomatoes, much more often than I care to remember. She used to pick wild “creasy greens” very early in the spring, because we were desperte for fresh produce, but didn’t have the space (or the woman power) for a garden. But she insulated me from the stigma of being poor, pretty well. I don’t remember feeling deprived until I was probably 9 or 10, when selling sugar stick candy became a popular fundraiser for schools. At 10 cents a piece, it was too dear for us. That sounds almost unbelievable to me as I write this, because people now probably have a few bucks in change, lying around the house or in their cars. We didn’t. My mother would have found any spare change and squirreled it away for necessities. I’m fortunate to have had such a smart, resourceful mom. She taught me quite a bit about needs versus wants.
Juliet,
There is a huge difference in the fat content and calories of the two dishes primary ingredient. Butter is high fat (1 oz = 23g, 201 cal., 200 from fat). Mozzarella (even whole milk) is a fairly low fat cheese (1 oz. = 6.2g, 85 cal., 57 from fat).
But there is a social conditioning/cultural norm difference too.
The South has a notorious love affair with butter. And bacon fat and shortening and lard for that matter. I once heard a chef from the South on “Iron Chef” joke that he was “22 before he realized you could serve vegetables without bacon”. It was an exaggeration I’m sure, but the joke says a lot about the South’s love of fats. I say all of this as a native Southerner. Elaine quoted an article earlier referencing Nathalie Dupree – “‘It’s almost like a spoof of Southern cooking,’ said Nathalie Dupree, the author of ‘Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking,’ a cooking teacher and food historian in Charleston, S.C. Ms. Dupree, 73, said that in her childhood fried food was a once-a-week treat, that rich desserts were served even less often, and that vegetables and grains like rice and grits made up most of what was a healthy, farm-based diet.” When I first started learning to cook from my grandmother (Southern country), Dupree’s observation was quite correct. My grandmother would make for dinner or lunch maybe one thing that was high calorie/high fat once or twice a week (excluding holidays) but a lot of it was simply prepared vegetables that usually didn’t involve bacon (the exception being cooked greens which always had bacon or ham as a seasoning), rice and homemade breads (usually cornbread). Desserts were usually a weekend/holiday thing. To make a crude but I think accurate comparison, it was more Provençal than Parisian. Luckily I went on to learn to cook from people in other traditions as well so I ended up with a fairly broad exposure and experience to different cuisines, but the high fat/high calorie trap is as easy to fall into in Southern cuisine as the high salt trap is in many Asian cuisines.
Today I notice the diet of many Southerners has shifted further into the Deen/parody model. I’ve got friends and relatives who are the nutritional equivalents of dump trucks although that’s not just in the South. I’ve got a distant cousin who has been known (I kid you not) to simply eat a stick of butter right out of the wrapper – the thought of which just makes my stomach turn. I’m not so sure this dietary shift isn’t in part a reflection of the move away from “small” and family farm agriculture toward Big Ag and that while family or community gardens were common when I was a kid they are becoming less so (limiting the variety and availability of good produce). It could also be a reflection of the general shift in the population toward a fast food culture. Good food takes time and effort to find and make whereas fast food loaded with salt and fat is simply convenient.
That being said, really good fried mozzarella made with a quality cheese is a wonderful taste treat.
I just don’t think butter and cream cheese sounds like a good combination.
I grew up with southern cooking, but it was “poor people southern.” We didn’t have much in the way of butter, cheese or other processed foods. In fact, I had my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich at age 37. When I lived in Germany during my early 20s, I had a diet of fatty meats, cheese and butter (used somewhat interchangeably) and bread. I believe the change to processed foods triggered a lifelong struggle with my weight, immune system and overall health. People would be wise to reject nearly everything about “Paula Deen,” the brand; perhaps Paula Deen, the person, can be saved.
I’ve been back on real food for almost a year, now. Fried mozzarella — even the good stuff — doesn’t seem as appealing, anymore.
David Blauw “Bob, esq. Err eh uh….nevermind !” Amen.