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
Gene H.:
Discrimination against whom? A finding of no actual harm against Jackson doesn’t mean that actual harm against other employees didn’t happen just the way Jackson testified to.
Nal: “And can we not say that a person who sets aside part of her estate to establish charities for the purpose of helping oppressed and poverty stricken black people is covering up evidence of hatred or disdain for said race than a person who has no such charitable inclinations?”
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? In the sense that you discovered Paula Deen had established charities for the purpose of helping oppressed and poverty stricken black people AFTER you heard she uttered the word “nigger?”
Elaine: “The Koch brothers have donated lots of money to the arts, to education, and to medical research. In my opinion, that doesn’t absolve them of the bad things that they have done/do.”
That’s a faulty analogy Elaine. I’m not talking about charitable donations washing away sin like the Vatican once asking specific amounts of money for different types of sin after confession.
I’m talking about evidence of racism; evidence of hatred of a particular race.
“There was no manipulation and no rush. I read both depositions and found Jackson’s more credible.”
And if there is no evidence of an actual harm – an actual discriminatory work place – will Jackson still be more credible?
Gene H.:
My point exactly. So, when Bob, Esq. says that this behavior “exhibits less evidence of hatred or disdain,” there’s no evidence of this intent.
Bron:
There was no manipulation and no rush. I read both depositions and found Jackson’s more credible.
Corporations are amoral entities as well as a legal fiction. WalMart shops on both sides of the political aisle. The only color they care about is green. However, in re character assassination, both sides do it and they do it for political reasons or personal gain. It’s a tactic and no one political stance owns or even dominates its use although if you look at the record, the right – especially the far right – are probably more adept at the tactic overall is a fair statement.
Most far left people boycott Walmart.
Bron, Walmart cut ties with Paula Deen. Are you tring to say that the Walton family and the management is far left? I don’t care that much about Paula Deen but that’s ridiculous.
Nal:
Or maybe she is making amends for past transgressions. She saw the light and was horrified by her thinking and vowed to try and make amends during the rest of her life and beyond.
You and others are being manipulated in your rush to judge her. This is more than just about racism or hate speech. When the far left “assassinates ” someone there is always a reason and it usually political.
I’m super-glad Republicans never assassinate someone’s character for political gain! Someone has to be the hero, around here.
Can we not say that a person who sets aside part of her estate to establish charities for the purpose of helping oppressed and poverty stricken black people might be genuinely trying to help?
And we are back to having no evidence of intent.
And can we not say that a person who sets aside part of her estate to establish charities for the purpose of helping oppressed and poverty stricken black people is covering up evidence of hatred or disdain for said race than a person who has no such charitable inclinations?
Bob,
“Who are the people/witch hunters of which you speak? Is it everyone who has said that they think Deen may be a racist or may still harbor some racist feelings?”
I got the answer to my first question. Is the answer to my second question a “yes” or a “no?”
Bron,
Rev. Jesse Jackson: Paula Deen Can Be ‘Redeemed’
By TAMMY WEBBER
06/26/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/jesse-jackson-paula-deen_n_3506218.html
Excerpt:
CHICAGO — Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson says he’s agreed to help celebrity chef Paula Deen try to make amends for her past use of a racial slur, saying she shouldn’t become a “sacrificial lamb” over the issue of racial intolerance.
Jackson told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Deen called him this week, and they discussed how she might recover.
Jackson says if Deen is willing to acknowledge mistakes and make changes, “she should be reclaimed rather than destroyed.”
Bob,
The Koch brothers have donated lots of money to the arts, to education, and to medical research. In my opinion, that doesn’t absolve them of the bad things that they have done/do.
Bob Esq:
I have to agree with you. It is also why Jesse Jackson gave her a pass.
Elaine,
The witch hunters are those who conclude that Paula Deen is a racist given little more than her utterance of the word “nigger” in the past.
Can we agree that a racist is a person who believes a particular race is superior to others; and while doing so, harbors some sort of hatred or disdain for said race?
And surely you agree that blacks are victims of racism.
And can we not say that a person who sets aside part of her estate to establish charities for the purpose of helping oppressed and poverty stricken black people exhibits less evidence of hatred or disdain for said race than a person who has no such charitable inclinations?
Accordingly, assuming you haven’t set up charities like the aforementioned, it appears that Paula Deen exhibits less hatred or disdain for black people than you or I.
The witch hunters are, in this case, as Mark so astutely put earlier, the “strident people …who give progressives like [Mark] a bad name. [Those who] talk first; think second; and emote often.”
Those who can’t, or refuse to, distinguish “dumb” from “diabolical” because they cast judgment before applying any objective moral standard to their calculus.
Bob: I see, you think money should buy her the right to be as racist as she wants.
It doesn’t. We help more people by vilifying her and ruining her career, as best we legally can, to prove to others by example that we will not tolerate the exercise of her brand of racism. Whatever charity she doles out would not be necessary if it weren’t for people exercising the racism they feel, it is more important for us to stop the disease than to salve a symptom.
Paula’s Worst Ingredients
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: June 24, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/opinion/bruni-paulas-worst-ingredients.html?smid=tw-share&_r=5&
Excerpt:
Paula Deen is where sass meets crass, where the homespun and folksy curdle into something with a sour aftertaste.
Her manner may be as sugary as her cooking, her smile as big as the hams she hawked for Smithfield. But she doesn’t pause when she should. Doesn’t question herself when she must.
There’s a dearth of reflection, a deficit of introspection, and that’s not just a generational thing and not just a regional thing, as some of her fans and other observers have begun to assert, unprepared to surrender their image of Paula the Southern Eccentric to the reality of Paula the Deep-Fried Boor.
It’s a judgment thing. A sensitivity thing. It’s what happens when your shtick proves as golden as hers and your world is larded with handlers who only say “yes” and fans who only say “more.” You don’t think anybody could possibly see anything untoward in you. So you stop looking for, adjusting to, and correcting the untoward impulses that are in every last one of us.
A fresh illustration of this traveled through cyberspace on Monday, a video that shows Deen at The New York Times last October, being interviewed onstage by my colleague Kim Severson. The subject of race comes up.
“I feel like the South is almost less prejudiced,” Deen says, “because black folks played such an integral part in our lives. They were like our family.”
That statement alone is awkward — she’s referring to servants, presumably — but she doesn’t stop there. Motioning to the inky backdrop behind her and Severson, she notes that her beloved driver, bodyguard and assistant, Hollis Johnson, is as “black as that board.”
“Come out here, Hollis,” she adds, looking offstage and directing the audience’s attention there. “We can’t see you standing against that dark board.”
That’s a lot of apparent focus on skin color, in a vein so breezy it really does make you wonder, especially given what that creepy deposition brought to light last week. She admitted having used “the n word,” more than once. She admitted finding beauty in a “plantation-style wedding” with an all-black wait staff. From her butter to her banter, she’s a Confederate caricature, and a reminder of a past that’s still too present.
Paula Deen’s Ugly Roots
Posted by Dana Goodyear
July 2, 2013
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/07/paula-deens-ugly-roots.html
Excerpt:
Deen has repeatedly defended herself over the past week, denying that she is a racist. But she keeps getting tripped up by the fact that the N-word does mean something to her, and when she has used it she intends for it to be a grave insult. Crisply dressed black waiters who served her in another Southern restaurant? In the deposition, she denies referring to them with that word. “No, because that’s not what these men were,” she says. “They were professional black men doing a fabulous job.” On the “Today Show,” she told Matt Lauer that the only time she remembers using the word was about a black man who held a gun to her head and robbed her in 1987. Weirdly, she thought this constituted a relatable excuse rather than a revelation of her actual attitudes.
But the weirdest part of the “Today” interview was when she seemed to shift blame, criticizing her staff, presumably the black cooks, for any improper language used in her establishments. “It’s very distressing for me to go into my kitchens and I hear what these young people are calling each other. It’s very, very distressing.” She went on, “It’s very distressing for me because I think that for this problem to be worked on these young people are gonna have to take control and start showing respect for each other and not throwing that word at each other.”
Right around the time Deen admits to having used her slur of last resort—the word she apparently reserves for really bad black people—hip-hop and rap took it up. By now, its over-usage in youth culture has neutralized it to some extent, certainly in-group. That’s probably what’s going on in her kitchens, and it’s hard to imagine that she doesn’t get that. (Then again, she does say in the deposition that she doesn’t read e-mail, and seems to take a lot of meetings in her large bathroom while getting her makeup done, so it’s possible she is just that out of touch.) Deen’s cooking purports to bring back Southern traditions; her troubles revive the most degrading aspects of that history, and return a word that has acquired new layers of meaning to its ugly roots.
Bob,
Who are the people/witch hunters of which you speak? Is it everyone who has said that they think Deen may be a racist or may still harbor some racist feelings?