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
Tony,
I was going to start by stating that you failed to distinguish, much less acknowledge, the two grounds of obligation; moral and legal.
As I read further I was troubled by your abject ignorance of the topic.
Then I read this:
“But I think “choice and free will” is a flawed place to start for morality. Don’t some moral behaviors require a person to exercise self-restraint? Isn’t that a brake on “choice” and “free will”?”
That’s hysterical!
You don’t even have a cursory understanding of moral philosophy as it has been discussed since the time of Aristotle.
You are completely lost; as the rest of your post illustrates.
Only in your solipsistic world are you correct.
Tony,
I was going to start by stating that you failed to distinguish, much less acknowledge, the two grounds of obligation; moral and legal.
As I read further I was troubled by your abject ignorance of the topic.
Then I read this:
“But I think “choice and free will” is a flawed place to start for morality. Don’t some moral behaviors require a person to exercise self-restraint? Isn’t that a brake on “choice” and “free will”?”
That’s hysterical!
You don’t even have a cursory understanding of moral philosophy as it has been discussed since the time of Aristotle.
You are completely lost; as the rest of your post illustrates.
Only in your solipsistic world are you correct.”
Tony C.,
since you have been trying to keep this discussion on an intellectually mature level I think that as a Psychotherapist I must intervene to explain to you Bob’s continuing to obsession with his ceaseless attacks to defend a position that has been shown to be bankrupt, ad hominem, straw man and downright vicious upon anyone who disagrees with him on this thread. That he couches it all in in pedantic rhetoric, referring copiously to intellectual philosophical sources is immaterial. His performance here is on a level of maturity befitting a five year old having an angry tantrum. Here for you benefit then is a translation from Bob’s childish tantrum, which you as an intelligent adult can
finally understand:
“Me right you mean doodyhead! You’re BAD and I’m gonna tell my Mommy!”
Now as I gratefully return to my well deserved vacation from the blog this week, I can be certain that Bob will launch another one of his attacks on me, knowing that I won’t respond, as he did above after I said I was leaving the discussion. I’m sure you will all be entertained by his pseudo-intellectual pretensions and the copious quoting of the dead philosophers that he uses to provide a simulacrum of humanity to the dessicated nature of his existence.
When he pleads that I am attacking him gratuitously I would refer the reader to the nature of his own attacks on you as quoted above and then to his numerous screeds on this blog thread as summarized in this translation below:
“I hate all you mean DOODYHEADS! I’m right, your WRONG. NYANHH, NYANHH, NYANHH!” 🙂 🙂 🙂
Bron: The moral is the chosen, not the forced;
That definition fails because it makes the word “moral” a meaningless synonym for “whatever the hell I feel like doing.” It is the sociopathic definition of “moral,” namely something that does not constrain them in any way, and makes no distinction whatsoever between what is moral, immoral, and amoral.
Bob asks: “by what moral authority can you claim that said person can be used as a means to an end in fulfillment of your political goal?”
By the same moral authority that obligates anybody in society to act within the bounds of behavior set by that society, the same moral authority that lets a society impose obligations on its citizens, from routine taxes to potentially lethal military service.
That authority is the will of the people, typically as discerned by some majority or super-majority, which is how we do it here in America: As much as idealists might wish otherwise, the entire Constitution and every law of the land is technically up to a super-majority vote of citizens, indirectly but inevitably. Nothing is sacrosanct. If 75% of citizens were agitated enough, for long enough, the entire Bill of Rights could be repealed. It continues to exist because that is our collective will.
The same theory applies to Nal’s claim, “Those in a position of privilege have an extra responsibility to reflect the values of our egalitarian society.”
It is Nal’s right to take that position and act upon it within the law. He needs no moral authority other than his own conscience to take action within the law.
Bob says: Morality is about choice and free will; …”
No it isn’t. If that were true, rich autocratic dictators would be moral; they have the most choice and free will of anybody. But aren’t they the least moral because they deny choice and free will to so many others?
Under that frame, racist white supremacists are the least moral, because their prejudice is to deny choice and free will, exercised to the extent they are able, to a majority of the world’s population.
But I think “choice and free will” is a flawed place to start for morality. Don’t some moral behaviors require a person to exercise self-restraint? Isn’t that a brake on “choice” and “free will”?
For example I think it is normal human nature to covet, but it is our sense of morality that prevents us from stealing objects left unguarded, even if we know we could get away with the theft.
Putting aside even the corruption of claimed “morality” by religious organizations to focus on the non-religious, non-ideological, prosaic examples of morality that a majority of us can agree upon, morality is a demand for self-restraint, fairness, and often a self-imposed loss to effect a greater gain for others.
For an example of the final point, I think Snowden’s revelation of NSA secrets was driven by his feeling of moral obligation to reveal the truth, even though that would personally cost him dearly.
A second example would be a soldier choosing to risk their own life to save a fellow soldier from certain death. Such choices are driven by a feeling of moral obligation; that it is the right thing to do, regardless of the personal consequences.
The Guileless ‘Accidental Racism’ of Paula Deen
Americans have condemned her and shamed her. But, looking at our history, what do we we expect?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jun 24 2013
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/the-guileless-accidental-racism-of-paula-deen/277153/
Paula Deen was born in Southwest Georgia, a portion of our country known for its rabid resistance to the civil rights advancements of the mid-20th century. It was in Southwest Georgia that Martin Luther King joined the Albany Movement. It was in Southwest Georgia that Shirley and Charles Sherrod fought nonviolently for the voting rights that were theirs by law. It was in Southwest Georgia that Shirley Sherrod’s cousin, Bobby Hall, was lynched. It was in Southwest Georgia that Shirley Sherrod’s father was shot down by a white man. This man was never punished.
A few months ago I was interviewing a gentleman who’d migrated up from the South in the 1930s. When I asked him why he’d left, he said he was looking for “protection of the law.” It is crucial that we remember that the South, for black people, was not just the home of “Colored Only” water-fountains, but was a kind of perpetual anarchic terrorist state. There was no law.
For some reason we like to think that members of ruling class raised in such environs remain unaffected, that the brutality which the children witness does not, somehow, work on their morality, their character and bearing. Our forefathers knew better:
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient.
“The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.”
I confess myself refreshed to hear Paula Deen respond “Yes, of course,” when asked if she used the word “nigger.” We have conditioned ourselves with a kind of magic to believe that racism is a matter of kindness and prohibitive vocabulary — as though a hatred of women can be reduced the use of the word “bitch.” But what does a country which tolerates the terrorism of Southwest, Georgia expect? What does a country whose left wing’s greatest policy achievement was made possible by an embrace of white supremacy really believe will happen to children raised in such times? What do we expect in a country where many find it entirely appropriate to wear the battle-flag of the republic of slavery?
Perhaps it expects that they will be savvy enough to not propose sambo burgers or plantation themed weddings. But this is an embarrassment at airs, not the actual truth. When you watch the video above, note the people cheering and laughing. For those without video, here is what was said:
“Deen, talking at an event months before losing her job for using the “N-word,” recounted how her great-grandfather was driven to suicide after his 30 slaves were set free.
“Between the death of his son and losing all the workers, he went out into his barn and shot himself because he couldn’t deal with those kind of changes,” Deen said at a New York Times event. Deen, owner of a restaurant empire, asserted the owner-slave relationship was more kinship than cruelty.
“Back then, black folk were such an integral part of our lives,” said Deen. “They were like our family, and for that reason we didn’t see ourselves as prejudiced.”
“She also called up an employee to join her onstage, noting that Hollis Johnson was “as black as this board” — pointing to the dark backdrop behind her. “We can’t see you standing in front of that dark board!” Deen quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.
“At the same event, Deen at one point described race relations in the South as “pretty good.” “We’re all prejudiced against one thing or another,” she added. “I think black people feel the same prejudice that white people feel.”
Here is everything from Civil War hokum to black friend apologia to blatant racism. And people at a New York Times event are laughing along with it.
This morning, I showed this video to my wife. My wife is dark-skinned. My wife is from Chicago by way of Covington, Tennessee. The remark sent her right back to childhood. I suspect that the laughter in the crowd was a mix of discomfort, shock and ignorance. The ignorance is willful. We know what we want to know, and forget what discomfits us.
There is a secret at the core of our nation. And those who dare expose it must be condemned, must be shamed, must be driven from polite society. But the truth stalks us like bad credit. Paula Deen knows who you were last summer. And the summer before that.
Bob,
True enough, but I’ve found over the years that using the term ethics avoids confusion with the “My Invisible Guy Says” crowd. Not that either of you are in that crowd mind you, but there’s plenty of reason to not kill humans other than it’s on a list given to a wandering Jew by a pyrotechnic shrub.
Gene,
Denotatively speaking, there is no difference between moral philosophy and ethics; they are one and the same.
Connotatively speaking, “moralizing” is associated with religious zealots.
I’d like to interject that ethics is a code of values based on reason. Morality is often a code of values that comes from theological dogmatic dictates on permissible and proscribed behaviors within that particular tradition. Reason need not factor into it. Ethics (in most rational systems) dictates by the application of reason to evidence that racism is an unethical thing and socially detrimental. Morality might not have a problem with it. Just ask the clowns at Westboro about their moral justifications for prejudice or any of the self-identifying Christian white power groups. I’m sure they feel they are making morally reasoned judgements. There is a distinction between having a rationale and a reasoned argument. The later is principle based thinking based on observation to determine action and shape outcome. The former is a reason for reaching a predetermined outcome and not feeling bad about it.
Nal: “Morality is a code of values based on reason. Racism is not based on reason. Science shows us that Paula Deen is descended from Africans. It is irrational to despise someone based on their race when that race is whence your ancestors came from.
If wanting reason and science to determine those values is a political goal, then so be it.”
You didn’t answer my question Nal.
I asked “by what moral authority can you claim that said person can be used as a means to an end in fulfillment of your political goal? Morality is about choice and free will; how we choose to exercise that will for good or ill. Who are you to say that one who has a good will but chooses to exercise it in a way that fails to help your particular political goal is immoral?”
Did you notice now you failed to acknowledge the first part of my question? It’s a fair question Nal. What does the irrationality of racism or the genetic lineage of Paula Deen have to do with your reasoning behind morally obligating anyone to “reflect the values of our egalitarian society?”
Nothing.
Sure, you can create a legal obligation, e.g. by forming a government based on socialism or communism, etc., but that’s not a moral obligation. A person may live his whole life exercising his good will towards high moral purposes without ever fulfilling your particular political goal.
Nal: “If people treated each other rationally, there would be less need for the charities that alleviate the effects of irrationality.”
Ya think?
The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality.
Bob, Esq.:
Morality is a code of values based on reason. Racism is not based on reason. Science shows us that Paula Deen is descended from Africans. It is irrational to despise someone based on their race when that race is whence your ancestors came from.
If wanting reason and science to determine those values is a political goal, then so be it.
If people treated each other rationally, there would be less need for the charities that alleviate the effects of irrationality.
You’re welcome. In the words of the Jolly Green Man, one lives to be of service.
Gene H:
thanks, I didnt think it was true as it was pretty fantastic.
This seems to be the source of the story:
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/07/russian-forces-to-provide-security-at-us-events/
This is what SPLC has to say about The European Union Times . . .
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/12/16/racist-skinheads-wife-behind-european-news-website/
From SLPC:
EUTimes.net is not a reliable source for news.
Juliet N.
That is correct. But I was hoping someone could find out if that is true. I am not sure of the sources myself. But the national enquirer [not the source] is often true.
An unsettling report prepared by the Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM) circulating in the Kremlin today on the just completed talks between Russia and the United States in Washington D.C. says that the Obama regime has requested at least 15,000 Russian troops trained in disaster relief and “crowd functions” [i.e. riot control] be pre-positioned to respond to FEMA Region III during an unspecified “upcoming” disaster.
According to this report, this unprecedented request was made directly to Minister Vladimir Puchkov by US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Director Janet Napolitano who said these Russian troops would work “directly and jointly” with her Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of whose mission is to secure the continuity of the US government in the event of natural disasters or war.
Important to note, this report says, is that FEMA Region III, the area Russian troops are being requested for, includes Washington D.C. and the surrounding States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, “strongly suggesting” that the Obama regime has lost confidence in its own military being able to secure its survival should it be called upon to do so.
In his public statements, yesterday, regarding these matters Minister Puchkov stated, “We have decided that the US Federal Emergency Management Agency and Russia’s Emergencies Ministry will work together to develop systems to protect people and territory from cosmic impacts,” and further noted that his meeting with DHS Director Napolitano also covered other kinds of natural emergencies, such as recent years’ extreme weather in both Russia and United States.
Where I come from, we ûsually ask for a link for a pronouncement like that. What is the etiquette here?
Bob Esq:
“Forgetting that, by what moral authority can you claim that said person can be used as a means to an end in fulfillment of your political goal? Morality is about choice and free will; how we choose to exercise that will for good or ill. Who are you to say that one who has a good will but chooses to exercise it in a way that fails to help your particular political goal is immoral?”
That is one of the finest statements in defense of individual liberty I have ever read.
“These “rules” are REALLY complicated”
I can’s speak for everyone. But they don’t seem that complicated to me.
Either your believe minorities are entitled to the same rights and treatment as everyone else or you don’t.
If you were a racist in the past, have you changed your point of view and treatment of others or not?
As with any question of fact, the evaluation of the evidence may be a problem.
But the rules seem pretty straight forward to me. But then again I am not an attorney or a logician.
Nal: “The motive is that many people will point to these charitable works as evidence of non-racism. It may be evidence of not being a KKK level of racist.”
How do you know this? It sounds more like you’re bootstrapping by assuming complete lack of charitable intent.
Nal: “If Jackson’s testimony that Deen used the n-word in 2007, during the Shirley Temple incident, were true, would that be enough evidence?”
After amending the complaint the way she did; no.
Nal: “Those in a position of privilege have an extra responsibility to reflect the values of our egalitarian society. That appears to have been a responsibility Deen ignored.”
Care to elaborate on that “moral imperative” of yours? A person who works their way from nothing to a position of wealth is a person in a position of privilege?
Forgetting that, by what moral authority can you claim that said person can be used as a means to an end in fulfillment of your political goal? Morality is about choice and free will; how we choose to exercise that will for good or ill. Who are you to say that one who has a good will but chooses to exercise it in a way that fails to help your particular political goal is immoral?
Elaine:
“I plan to leave what I have to my daughter..”
Not if people like Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson have a say in the matter.
Bob, Esq.:
There are also those people who believe blacks are inferior because they grew up in or live in an area where such beliefs are normal.
The motive is that many people will point to these charitable works as evidence of non-racism. It may be evidence of not being a KKK level of racist.
If Jackson’s testimony that Deen used the n-word in 2007, during the Shirley Temple incident, were true, would that be enough evidence?
Those in a position of privilege have an extra responsibility to reflect the values of our egalitarian society. That appears to have been a responsibility Deen ignored.