By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
We’ve been following the discrimination suit brought by an employee of restaurants owned by food maven Paula Deen. Lisa Jackson, who is Caucasian, claimed that she was subjected to a racially hostile work environment at Deen’s Uncle Bubba’s and The Lady and Sons restaurants. Jackson alleged that Paula Deen’s brother, Bubba, routinely used derogatory racial epithets and sexually suggestive comments during her working hours as a manager at the restaurant. She also alleged that Deen acquiesced in the treatment and used racist comments herself. A firestorm of negative publicity formed after Deen’s deposition transcript was leaked to the media in which she admitted using the term “ni**er” many years ago. Deem lost two national cable television shows and a host of endorsements following the story. Her two video apologies did little to assuage the sentiment that she was a racist.
Early this month, U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. dismissed the key elements of Jackson’s racial discrimination claim ruling that, as a Caucasian, she could not claim that racial epithets directed against African-Americans resulted in discrimination against her — which does meet both the legal and common sense test. Jackson did not rule that Jackson’s claims were true merely that IF they were true they still would not meet the test for racial discrimination against her. Jackson’s other claims for sexual harassment and abusive treatment were still pending until the suit was settled yesterday.
According to the court filings, the parties agreed the dismissal would be “without any award of costs or fees to any party. ” Meaning Ms. Jackson did not get any reimbursement of attorney’s fees or litigation costs suggesting she may not have received much, if anything, by way of a financial settlement. Ms Deen released a statement saying that she believes “in kindness and fairness for everyone. While this has been a difficult time for both my family and myself, I am pleased that the judge dismissed the race claims and I am looking forward to getting this behind me, now that the remaining claims have been resolved.”
Left unexplained are the claims by Jackson and her attorneys that scores of other African-American employees were subjected to the same discriminatory treatment and who wouldn’t be subjected to the prohibition to sue imposed by the law against Jackson who is white. Nor have any complaints been filed by the Rainbow/PUSH organization who say their investigation has “found evidence of systemic racial discrimination and harassment” by Deen and that “a family member consistently referred to a black cook as ‘my little monkey.'”
The net result is that a self-made celebrity chef has been brought low by unproven allegations of racial discrimination and subjected to vilification usually reserved for mass murderers simply based on comments she admitted she made decades ago. If there truly are people out there with bona fide claims of racial discrimination against Paula Deen they should bring them on and not hide in the shadows releasing dribbles and drabs of allegations through civil rights organization spokespersons. Anonymous statements, lurid narratives, and innuendo are not proof and guilt rendered by character assassination is not law.
Paula Deen may be an unjustified victim of a media fueled racial divisiveness and unwarranted rage or she may be a closet racist with much to hide. Despite all this turmoil and public fall from grace we simply do not know. What we do know is that she –as any accused citizen — deserves the benefit of the doubt until the allegations are proven. Sadly, this recent episode proves only that we have a long way to go in our national struggle with racism and that trial by newspaper and leaked court documents to leverage money settlements will not aid us one iota in ridding the country of the scourge of racism.
In fact, rush to judgment situations such as this only gives hate groups ammunition as they always contend that progressives and the news media are habitually harping on racism claims that, in their view, do not now exist, unless, of course, it’s reverse racism. The blame the left-wing media for hyping these claims for profit and fostering the reverse discrimination. Here’s one comment we can print from a white supremacist site:
They’re at it again, folks! Another successful White entrepreneur goes down in flames, over supposed “racist” jokes, and the use of “the n” word. The food network fired Paula today, over these supposed “racist” jokes. Apparently, quite a few years back, Paula was joking about hiring all black waiters or something. I’m really sick of seeing successful White people ruined/destroyed, because of these jealous/lazy/White hating savages. These are the same hypocrites eating her food, watching her shows, using her cookware, and buying her books. No, I’m not a Paula Deen fan, but, she’s older/White and from the South. So, it’s hardly a surprise that suddenly, she’s now labeled a “racist.” I suppose now, she’ll be making her rounds on all the liberal talk shows, getting grilled by the slew of “anti-racists'” on the daytime television circuit. It’s pretty scary/disgusting, seeing how much power blacks have over White America, now. How they can blatantly destroy someone’s life and career just like that, is absolutely frightening. How much longer are we gonna sit back, letting these thug creeps run wild on White America?
For a lot of our fellow citizens, downtrodden by life and resentful of America’s social programs, this sadly rings true– whether we like it or not. If we truly want to move past this sad chapter in our history we will have to adopt the seemingly unattainable virtue that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied in his prescription for fixing the problem. That’s going to require “a nation where [one] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” It will also require that we exercise some restraint when judging emotionally charged allegations at the time they are made. There is always time to see if the those complaining are motivated by principle or greed and this is doubly true when the allegations are against the most lucrative of targets, the rich and famous. Even “they” are entitled to the benefit of blind and equal justice.
It was the Greek philosopher and playwright Euripides who reminded us that a tree is best judged by its fruit and not its leaves. That was good advice two and a half millennia ago; it’s good advice today.
Source: CNN
UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE:
From the Huffington Post:
Before the settlement, the magistrate judge found that Lisa Jackson’s lawyer, Matthew Billups, Esq. had engaged in conduct warranting disqualification. He was accused of using the media to pressure Deen into a settlement by leaking information and asking irrelevant, embarrassing, and personal questions at her deposition. Here’s the order requiring Billups to show cause why court-ordered sanctions shouldn’t be imposed. Read the order now.
Here’ a post-settlement statement from Lisa Jackson singing quite a different tune now that the case is settled to what she called her “satisfaction”:
“I assumed that all of my complaints about the workplace environment were getting to Paula Deen, but I learned during this matter that this was not the case.The Paula Deen I have known for more than eight years, is a woman of compassion and kindness and will never tolerate discrimination or racism of any kind toward anyone. I now know that the workplace environment issues that I raised are being reviewed and will in the future no longer be at issue. I wish Ms. Deen and her family all the best in all of their future endeavors and I am very pleased that this matter has been now been resolved and can now be put behind us.” [emphasis mine]
Principle or greed? Do tell there, princess. Do tell.
But a more important question: Where does Paula Deen go to get her reputation back?
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
nick,
Whatever made you think I thought the decision was wrong? The lawsuit was weak from the getgo. But the “verdict” you admire won’t save her empire for it was the publication of Deen’s sworn statements in the deposition and her subsequent mea culpas that led to the unraveling of her empire.
I wasn’t the least bit interested in the lawsuit itself but Deen’s reaction to it and the reaction to her reaction from those who supported her was such a blatant display of white privilege that the opportunity to shine a light on it couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be ignored.
There are so many points to white privilege that I did not address and one of them is the use of the n-word by blacks. I decided not to go into it because such a discussion probably belongs on one of the Social Science blogs but suffice it to say that taking back the power of the word unto themselves and redirecting its use is something people like Paula Deen would never understand in a million years. It’s too far outside the parameters of white privilege.
@tonyc:
Well, the more you talk, the more you expose your own biases. Your theory is, one person should hold a black person by both feet and ankles with the face down and the legs wide apart, while another person lifts the upper parts of their bodies. Then we can just DOWSE for racism! Just point their heads at somebody, and if they start bouncing up and down, then there’s a racist! How wonderfully scientific!
Yeah, that gets rid of that whole, troubling “objective criteria” thingy! Because you know, the only proof was her self admission that she said the n word a couple of decades ago and if you just go with that, then you have a pretty weak case. And, by the way, wasn’t it Lyndon Johnson who said:
“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years. [Touting his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs, LBJ confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One]”
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/770072-i-ll-have-those-niggers-voting-democratic-for-the-next-200
Hmmm. I wonder how a Black Racism-Dowser would act around his grave???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Actually, raff, a disgruntled former employee made that bed for her even if Paula may have provided the sheets.
Blouise, That is the difference between the public discourse and the courtroom. No one needs to inhibit their expression of Deen in the public sector. Their are very few rules. Minorities, disabled, etc. have gotten justice in the courtroom that certainly doesn’t always transfer to the public. I happen to think Deen[who I despise for her cooking and smarm] got a raw deal and now has been vindicated in court. You think the decision was wrong and continue to say that. This is how it’s supposed to work.
I will not be complicit in giving white privilege a pass by giving one to Paula.
Very interesting article Mark. It is amazing how quickly Paula Deen’s world unraveled. However, I agree with Blouise and Tony C.. She made her own bed.
Squeeker:There is no way to prove whether your opinion, based on pattern, is correct or not as regards her. You must turn to the underlying incident(s).
There is no way to prove it to you, because you are ignorant and without experience in what those patterns mean. If an oil field geologist provides me with ten samples of rock and asks me to put them in order of increasing probability of oil, even if I have a full lab to do it I am not going to pass that test, I am not learned in what the patterns are that indicate oil or a lack thereof. She has spent a career learning those patterns, both explicitly (in class) and by her own experience in the field.
You are in the same position with regard to racism; a few million people in this country have a lifetime of experience with being on the wrong end of racism, from grade school on up. Without proximity to those experiences (either by family, by friendship or by profession, such as sociologist, psychologist or therapist) you have not been exposed enough to develop your own pattern recognition.
And as usual, you think you already know everything so you won’t accept anybody else’s opinion on it. But if we polled the experts in racism (the millions of blacks in this country) on whether Paula Deen is a racist, after they have read her deposition and watched her video crap, I think we’d find a super majority echoing her deposition answer: “Of course!”
What you think is race-baiting is not at all, you are just too ignorant to see racism where you do not want to see it.
Paula Deen is a racist, the “underlying incidents” are the proof of it to those versed in the ways racism is practiced in modern culture, under the light of political incorrectness, when overt statements have adverse consequences, so covert statements and logic concerning motivations for actions are the evidence with which we work.
And that is enough, for me it is well beyond a reasonable doubt, Paula Deen is a racist, so is her husband and brother, and they should be socially and financially ostracized by those of us that regard racism as a corrosive disease in a society, that ostracizing is society’s immune system to prevent the spread of a destructive disease.
We made copies of the photo of Jimmie Dean’s mom and printed it on toilet paper which we placed next to a similar sample of the Kardasian family in the outhouse. The Paula Dean version was not used once. No one wanted her ugly pus near their uttBay. The bugs all retreated from the outhouse though and there will be more data in on that topic as time goes on. The word “data” gets employed by a lot of journalists and other writers and we at the dogpac are becoming skeptical of any writer who employs that term. Data this and data that.
The depiction of this fat southern slobbering so called cook is too much to look at in the morning.
yippee, she’s not a racist. her insane smile and crazy eyes still creep me the hell out.
@tonyc:
True. That is why Jesse Jackson is glad the footsteps at his back in the dark belong to white folks. But in the art of using patterns, the existence of substantive evidence is kind of important. The oil company, who detects a pattern in the rocks, similar to other patterns which have proven successful, has an opinion that the same is true here also, and drills. On this endeavor, they are either successful or not.
With Paula Deen, you see a pattern. You express your opinion. There is no way to prove whether your opinion, based on pattern, is correct or not as regards her. You must turn to the underlying incident(s). Where, I am not seeing much evidence of racism.
But, from my point of view, I also see a pattern. One the author also sees, although with less malice than me. I see a pattern of race-baiting. It is also an established pattern, with a lot of history. People who do this usually seek some kind of power. Or to satisfy some personal needs. They do this by ascribing all sorts of bad intent to the racial scapegoats.
The only way to figure out whether it is race-baiting, or a sincere desire to root out racists, is to look at the actual underlying incident or event. Here, I see one where people claim she is a racist, without much evidence of the same. My conclusion is obvious.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paula Deen
Date of Birth
19 January 1947, Albany, Georgia, USA
Birth Name
Paula Ann Hiers
Height
5′ 6″ (1.68 m)
Mini Biography
Born in Albany, Georgia, Deen is a notable graduate of Albany High School. She married her first husband after graduating high school in 1965. Her parents both died by the time she was 23, and a resultant fear of death led to chronic agoraphobia. She was a proficient Southern cook, and used it to help deal with her condition. in 1986, she felt okay enough to take a job as a bank teller. She was robbed at gunpoint the next year, and that incident led her to deal with her agoraphobia head-on. After the family moved to Savannah in 1989, she decided to parlay her cooking experience into a clandestine catering service. She made sandwiches and other meals, and her sons delivered them.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Brian J
Spouse
Michael Anthony Groover (6 March 2004 – present)
Jimmy Deen (1965 – 1989) (divorced) 2 children
Trivia
Her first business, The Bag Lady, lasted for five years out of the kitchen in the Best Western in Savannah.
Owns the “Lady and Sons” restaurant in downtown Savannah with her two sons, Bobby Deen and Jamie Deen.
Films her cooking show, “Paula’s Home Cooking” (2002), out of her kitchen in Georgia.
In 2007, Forbes Magazine estimated her earnings for the year to be $4 million.
Editor-in-chief of “Cook with Paula Deen” magazine.
When she was 18, her uncle, Bob Hiers, took her to the 1965 World’s Fair in New York City. He used to be a water-skier in water shows, which is where he met Carol Burnett and they dated for four weeks.
Grand Marshal, Tournament of Roses parade. [2011]
Named “TV’s Sexiest Female Chef” by Maxim magazine [October 11, 2011].
In January 2012 she announced that she was diagnosed with having Type 2 Diabetes.
Diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes [January 17, 2012].
Mother-in-law of Brooke Deen.
Grandmother of Jack Deen and Matthew Deen.
gbor387: She should have lied in her deposition …
She probably wasn’t quite that dumb. She probably considered that it was at least possible somebody had her on tape, sometime and somewhere, using the n-word, and that is the most probably explanation for why she waffled when asked if she used it later, and claimed she couldn’t remember exactly, and admitted it was used in jokes by her husband and family. She couldn’t know who else would testify or had testified or what they had said.
Lying in a deposition is perjury and a crime in itself. She could have been in MORE trouble if she were caught lying.
Perhaps she should have plead the fifth and said nothing. I think she thought she could breeze it away with a little Southern charm; her opening gambit was jolly admission (“Of course!”). Lying would have been really, really stupid.
Squeeky: Who says the pattern is discernible only by one person? I didn’t say that, and basically everything we learn is pattern recognition and correlation, as much as that is maligned.
The brain (human or not) is a pattern-making organism, from the neurons up. Neural training is the recognition of patterns from partial evidence, including the partial evidence of other neurons firing.
The theory of gravity and uniform acceleration laws of Galileo arises from recognizing patterns; the geocentric model of the universe arose from pattern recognition, the better heliocentric model of the solar system arose from recognizing an underlying pattern that was less necessarily complex.
You seem to think learning comes from others, but there has to be a way to learn something new that nobody else knows: Newton wasn’t taught a anything about his theory of gravity, he justified it by showing that it was a simple explanation of patterns he and others observed in the behavior of orbiting objects.
We discover new knowledge by recognizing patterns and finding ways to explain why the patterns occur; the objective is to accurately predict the future and traits of things that are important to us. When oil companies explore for oil, they don’t just drill anywhere, they use patterns of geomorphology that are correlated with underground oil reserves; and they then use probes (like deep explosive echo processing) that can be predictive, all to predict the probable future (if we drill here, will we strike oil?)
For blacks and others that regard racism to be a cruel and unfair trait to be avoided, shunned, despised and punished, predicting the presence of that trait is worth learning to do by recognizing the patterns of speech and linguistic gymnastics engaged in by racists to justify their racist actions without defeating their discriminatory objective by simple open admission.
It isn’t just one person’s learning or recognition, it is a collection. And it isn’t a witch hunt, because witches do not exist: Racists actually exist, racial discrimination does exist, and racism is engaged in by people that purposely try to obscure the truth of their motivations.
A court finding is not proof of innocence, and even if it were, Paula Deen was not on trial for being a racist. Being a racist is legal. If Ms. Jackson has no case for Discrimination, that doesn’t acquit Paula Deen of being a racist or prove she is not.
Her words and actions prove to many of us she IS. And for us, we are inclined to punish such words and actions by economic boycott as an object lesson to others that we find such words and actions socially unacceptable, legal or not. She has free speech: So do we, and I think we have shown her and her racist sympathizers who can speak the loudest.
Blouise,
I’m with you.
She is Jimmy Dean’s mom. He changed the spulling of the last name to get some space for himself. Whether she is a bigot or not is neither here nor there. She is a fat, squirrel, hillbilly, fat food cooking, joke of a tv cook.
@tonyc:
Hmmm. “Pattern” evidence, even when the pattern is that of a sole person, is not usually admissible in court. “Pattern” evidence, here between Paul Deen and third parties unknown, is of even less probative value. You are entitled to base your personal opinion on whatever you like, reasonable or not, because this isn’t a court room. But the logic does transfer to real world. A lot of people are going to find that “She’s a racist because she does stuff we think other racists do!” is far less than reasonable.
I would submit this blurb from a Salem Witch Trial site, regarding “spectral evidence”:
But the problem of spectral evidence remained, for the only ones who could see the witches in their spectral form, and thus say who it was that caused their pain, were the accusers themselves. Here Mather could find no answers in his library. He must leave it and enter the world of ordinary people. No abstract theory or abstruse theology could dictate commonly accepted contemporary notions of the truth of testimony.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeker: See, you judged her by your own subjective biases.
No, I judged her in light of experience, and that is not a subjective bias. It is experience that lets us see patterns of commonality in racists, like anybody else they learn the most effective ways to do anything, including leave themselves room to wiggle out of any charges of racism. But the patterns themselves, when used, produce the question of why they are being used, and why they were learned. One of those patterns is, “I was just quoting what I heard one black person say to another black person,” which Deen uses. And there are others, which the plaintiff’s attorney called her on, because these dodges usually work in normal conversation but fall apart under aggressive questioning (like in a deposition).
There is no subjective bias.
>> you need to consider that you have become what you do not like, an extremely prejudiced and closed minded individual.
No, for the purpose of this argument what I do not like are racists, and I have not become one. If I am closed-minded because I am not open to racism, or racial hatred or racial resentment or nostalgia for slavery, so be it. If that makes me “prejudiced” against the likes of Deen, I am okay with that. The day Deen leaves this world I will applaud the world becoming a better place for it.
@tonyc:
No, Tony, you didn’t conclude nothing. Look at what you yourself just said:
See, you judged her by your own subjective biases. You think that because you are a scientist, that you are somehow immune to confirmation bias, but you aren’t. But look at how you yourself say the process worked for you. You have put yourself in the role of a Witch Hunter, and you have your various Witch Hunter tests, and if Paula Deen has a mole, then that is a Devil’s mark! Why? Because as a Witch Hunter, you are “sensitive to and accustomed to” the Devil’s mark. Then, you can watch her “apologetics” and just know that she is lying! Because she has a Devil’s mark, and she is a witch.
If that is NOT the person that you wish to be, you need to listen to what the author of this post is trying to tell you. Because God knows you are sure aren’t going to listen to anybody who disagrees with you. What he said was, that there isn’t enough evidence for anybody to know anything. it may not be a comfortable thought, but you need to consider that you have become what you do not like, an extremely prejudiced and closed minded individual.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeker: No, what actually happened is that you found something to confirm your own bias,
No, squeek, I am a professional scientist and I am quite aware of confirmation bias and logic errors. That did not happen. I do not conclude everybody accused of racism is guilty of it; I know quite well it is an easy charge to level and therefore leveled by those seeking unfair advantage.
Unlike you, I do not trust anybody else to do my thinking for me, my professional peers are the smartest people on the planet and I do not take even them on faith, I know they can be wrong and have been wrong. I think independently. I did not assume Deen must be a racist because she is old, or from the South, or because she was accused of it. I have an 89 year old white neighbor and I am sure she is not a racist. I have in-laws from the South and I am sure they are not racists. I have seen managers accused of racism and I knew they were not racists. I have black in-laws that I know have accused people of racism when I do not believe racism was involved.
I concluded Deen was a racist.
>> The net result is that a self-made celebrity chef has been brought low by unproven allegations of racial discrimination
Unproven to whom? Only unproven to one sitting judge, and that is not a standard we are required to accept in making our own decisions about the character of other people.
>> Rush to judgment…
Except for most of us that believe Paula Deen is a racist there was no rush to judgment at all, for those of us sensitive to and accustomed to the linguistic dodges and excuses routinely used by racists, a reading of her deposition is enough to come to an initial conclusion, and watching her talk show performance and apologetics is enough to finish the job.
You only call it a “rush to judgment” because you disagree, you have no proof whatsoever (other than that disagreement) that those of us that think she is a racist began with a presumption of innocence and concluded her guilt only after deliberation, perhaps using experience and study of which you are unaware.