I’m sorry… who is Paula Deen? And why should I give a crap about what her opinions are? Wait… doesn’t she cook food or something? Oh… well then, maybe I should give a crap about what she thinks of black people.
I was talking to Eric Snowden earlier this morning (as I’m sure Homeland Security knows) and he said if you think what she said in court was bad you should listen to her phone calls.
Did anybody see her interview on The Today Show this morning? I did not, but I love the description on Today’s FB feed. Bolding mine.
Lengthy for some tastes, but my favorite reply to her is this Open Letter by Michael Twitty, one of the few openly gay black Jewish food historians and slavery reenactors you’re ever likely to meet.
Read it. Liked it. Thanks for the link.
In the interests of fighting ignorance, the wedding was not slavery themed. Deen references going to a restaurant where the servers were predominantly middle aged black men and they were wearing white shirts, and bow ties and thinking the waiters at her brother’s wedding should dress similarly. This reminded her of a man in a Shirley Temple movie and she was not sure if the man was depicting a slave. The man she refers to was probably Bill “Bojangles” Robinson who starred with Temple in “The Little Colonel”. The movie takes place in the 1870s and Robinson plays a rich man’s butler who dresses in black tie, with black tails. She wanted the servers to dress like old timey butlers.
Hereis the outfit he wore.
A butter sculpture brought to life by a malevolent fairy.
I can’t tell what is real and what isn’t about this story - is it literally true that the person she called a n*gger tried to rob her at gunpoint?
Or is that hyperbole?
Regards,
Shodan
Thanks for the link. Well-written and thoughtful. I was especially pleased to see the friendly comments.
I wonder if Ms. Dean will take up his challenge.
I live about 20 minutes away from Stagville and am thinking about buying tickets to this dinner. If Paula shows up I’ll let y’all know 
I spend so damned much time on SDMB looking for the “Like” button.
That’s what she said in the deposition.
Thanks, but I shouldn’t have asked. The question “does someone who robs you deserve to be called a n*gger” is not one I want to consider.
Regards,
Shodan
The lawsuit says she used the word frequently in front of the staff of the restaurant she co-owns. In the deposition she said she’d used the word once* regarding someone who had mugged her* (one suspects she was reaching for the most innocuous possible instance). So its true, but its not the source of the accusations that are causing her current woes.
*On TV she said it was only that once, when she was under oath giving her deposition she admitted that wasn’t the only time.
How to Serve Negroes by Paula Deen
From a NY Times Opinion piece by Frank Bruni -
Good lord, can we be done now? :smack::mad:
Well, apparently her go-to answer would be “sauteed in butter”.
In Southern Georgia… Negros serve you!
Its a COOKBOOK!
She shouldn’t have left it on that podium.
My mother, bless her heart, will turn 101 this summer. And in the '70s, her go-to phrase was ‘nigras’ and then ‘darkies’. She was born in 1912, mind you. Her grandfather would have fought in the Civil War, if he’d been American. None of the generation my age would think of using any of the n-words. I hope kids these days grow up not caring so much about race. Of course, there’s the whole LBGT/nerd-jock-geek worlds to get hung up on.
I was expecting the next line to be “It’s like they think they’re people.”