# Paula Deen **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 27, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049 "2013-06-27T17:56:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/381 "2013-07-08T18:56:34Z")
**jsgoddess** , you said that your former MIL used the word and you stopped associating with her. I’m saying that what you did was a lot easier - I mislabeled it disowning - but still, a lot easier than expecting us who grew up with family members using that word to do something about it. Your point about powerlessness is well-taken, but I just don’t see this particular situation that way. I grant that the word was always offensive - but it has taken on supernatural power that I just don’t see as being the result of black people being formerly powerless. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/382 "2013-07-08T18:59:05Z")
> [@aag3981](#): > > I whole heartedly believe that Paula holds prejudiced views End of fucking conversation. Nothing else is relevant. No excuses are possible (nor have any real ones been offered). ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/383 "2013-07-08T19:01:23Z")
> [@aag3981](#): > > Where was the history re-write? And who said you needed more than a racial slur to determine if someone was racist? What was said was as time has past, the word has become more and more taboo. Just because YOU grew up not hearing a word or raised to not say a word, doesn’t mean everyone was. Just because you were born in an era post civil rights in a region where (I assume) there was less racial discrimination doesn’t mean everyone did. Some people born and raised to believe thats blacks were inferior and then have other beliefs pushed on them (justifiable and right beliefs, yes, but other’s beliefs all the same) may just take a little more time to come around than someone born in a different region, in a different time and with different beliefs. So are you calling Paula Deen a liar? She said that here parents did not raise her that way. ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/384 "2013-07-08T19:03:30Z")
> [@MacCat](#): > > At least she’s not prejudice. :smack: Again, people that don’t read what I have said. I have never claimed to not be prejudiced. I believe everyone holds some sort of prejudiced views. [Psychologicial research](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110929144713.htm)has indicated this in many studies. I believe that I need to work to recognize and over come it. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/385 "2013-07-08T19:04:19Z")
> [@aag3981](#): > > I disagree only that I expect people to keep up with modern PC jargon. Paula knew enough not to use the word any longer. It’s not fair to measure something that was said 30 years ago by today’s PC standards. I think 30 years ago they were using the AT bus standard on PCs, so I’d give her a break if she doesn’t know how to plug in an extended PCI card. But 30 years ago anyone with a brain knew that the n-word was virulently racist and inappropriate. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/386 "2013-07-08T19:07:35Z")
This whole “She just said it once” reminds me of when you see one cockroach - cause there’s always more than one. ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/387 "2013-07-08T19:19:11Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > How does a child disown anyone? > > As for the word “nigger,” white people seem to want to act like the word wasn’t that big a deal because there wasn’t this huge uproar every time it was used. But a lack of huge uproar doesn’t mean the word wasn’t a big deal; it means that the people who would have complained were powerless. > > It’s as if a white man walked up to a black slave in 1840 in Louisiana and punched him in the face and, when the slave didn’t punch him back, claimed that the slave didn’t mind being punched in the face. > > Lacking the power to create change doesn’t mean we’re not offended or hurt or demeaned. It means we lack power. Well to turn that back around, making something a big deal 30 years later doesn’t mean it was a big deal when it was said. Paula wasn’t running around during the 80’s calling black people “niggers”. She said it amoungst family and friends and maybe quoting other people, if her testimony is true. Regardless of our feelings about the word now, that was not the sentiment it carried in the 80’s. I’m not saying it was a word that was considered ok to say or call anybody, but I don’t believe the use of the word then would have invoked this wrath. Also, your analogy makes no sense. Paula didn’t do anything to a black person and believe that it was perfectly ok because they didn’t complain about it. She acknowledged that she used hurtful language that is offensive and apologized for it. Considering the circumstances she reported saying it under, I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine that her goal at the time was to say the most hurtful thing she thought she could about man that put a gun to her head. ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/388 "2013-07-08T19:23:31Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Nigger used to make it on broadcast TV, too. All in the Family said it. SNL used it. Both were for purposes of making the point that the word was racist, but it wasn’t like saying cunt or something, like it is now. The word has become too powerful. Words were made for us, not us for words. > > I love when white people explain how the word nigger isn’t offensive. Oh wait, no, not love, that other thing. HATE. I **hate** when white people explain how the word nigger isn’t offensive. Where, oh where did he say that “nigger” wasn’t offensive? His comment very clearly states that it didn’t hold the power then that it does now. ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/389 "2013-07-08T19:27:40Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > So are you calling Paula Deen a liar? She said that here parents did not raise her that way. Neither. Idk how Paula Deen’s parents raised her and may have raised her as she stated they did, but when and where Paula grew up, segregation and discrimination was a practiced and integregrated part of southern life. It was everywhere. Her parents didn’t have to teach it for Paula to learn it. ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/390 "2013-07-08T19:34:58Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](#): > > This whole “She just said it once” reminds me of when you see one cockroach - cause there’s always more than one. If people said she only said it once, they didn’t read the testimony (no shock though, no one on here has read it either). The point is not that she said it once, or used it for a period of her life, the question and concern people have is, should the fact that she used the word 30 years ago matter. All other testimony seems to support the fact that Paula doesn’t use that language now and it seems that any complaints she heard from Jackson she deemed suspect because she didn’t really trust Jackson (there were apparently other exaggerated claims made by Jackson before the lawsuit) and she is likely over protective of her brother (and may see him in a better light than he actually is in). Those were just the complaints she heard. If her testimony is to be believed, she wasn’t informed of several issues at the restaurant (assuming the issues are true) because she had people that handled day to day stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/391 "2013-07-08T19:49:37Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > If in the year 2013, a 70 year old man talked to me in private about how “niggers are running wild” or talk about “fag marriage”? I would smile and let it go, but not think less of him. If the same man used that word to a black man to scold him, I would speak up and defend the black man. > > If a 20 year old, in a private conversation, used the word “nigger” or “fag” I would think less of him, but not speak up unless it was directed at someone. > > In 1973 or 1983, or hell, in 2003 those words didn’t have the same strong negative connotation they do now. I can’t expect everyone to keep up with the latest PC jargon. This attitude explains so much about your backwards, prejudiced views on other topics. You know, it’s okay to rise above your upbringing and embrace knowledge and diversity, right? There’s a whole wide world outside your childhood home and church. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/392 "2013-07-08T19:50:09Z")
I remember talking to this guy Dan at work about a decade ago (he’s black, I’m white). We were talking about racism in sports and I said the phrase “the n-word” when talking about something (no idea what any more). He said “you can just say nigger, you know” and my response was “no, I can’t.” I’m not sure why I think it’s relevant, but there you have it. That was 2003, or thereabouts. eta: just to be extra clear, my literal words were “the n-word,” I didn’t actually use the n-word. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/393 "2013-07-08T19:52:35Z")
> [@aag3981](#): > > Where, oh where did he say that “nigger” wasn’t offensive? His comment very clearly states that it didn’t hold the power then that it does now. Which is bullshit. Look, I grew up in the 80s with racists all over the fucking place. I had racist relatives, racist neighbors, and racist peers. And I knew they were ignorant as shit. So don’t even sit there and act like it’s totally okay since everyone was using that language. It was never okay. There is no excuse. As far back as you go in history, no matter how many people were owning slaves or oppressing black people, it was _never_ okay. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/394 "2013-07-08T20:19:00Z")
> [@Kid\_Charisma](#): > > I think it’s quite sad that we give a “pass” to people born in the south on rude behavior. It’s absolutely chilling - for sure - I just don’t get it. Does your geographic location mean that you are exempt from basic, rudimentary decorum? As a southerner it irks me too, on several levels. For one thing, I guarantee you that while using the word might fly in a small mom’n’pop convenience store or family owned restaurant, if you say that word in a public school or a Starbucks or a bank or a call center you’d be fired just as quickly here as at any place in the nation, possibly quicker since there are a lot more black customers to be offended in most of the south. For another, it implies we have a monopoly on racism, which we don’t and never have. For third, it implies that the word is so much a part of our culture we can’t get past it, which is bullshit. I’ll admit that when I was a kid I was much more racist than I am now, as probably were most black kids my age, and I used the N word frequently as a teenager (never as interchangeable with ‘black’ but when applied to ‘trashy’ black people- the ones who if they were white would be considered whitetrash) and I said it for about the same reason teenaged boys say “fuck” and “pussy” a lot and sneak cigarettes- it made us feel we were growing up. I also said ‘faggot’ and told Pollock jokes. However, while I own that I once did this, I don’t do it anymore and understand that and why it was wrong to do it then, and I completely understand and accept that even when applied to someone who is every negative racial stereotype imaginable it is just as racist a term as if applied to Barack Obama. My problem with Deen isn’t that she used the word 30 years ago but the fact she doesn’t seem to have grown at all in that 30 years. She can blame it on her culture, but that’s bullshit: I lived in Albany, GA where she got her start- it’s a rural Dagobah like flat town in southwest GA with lots of “good country folks” and not so good types, both black and white, and while I didn’t like the place I can assure you that you didn’t hear racial slurs everywhere you went, nor was I called faggot (at least to my face) when I mentioned I was gay. (Mentioned for bizarreness quotient: it’s the only place I’ve ever seen where the gay bar shares a parking lot with an all-you-can-eat catfish-nugget buffet.) Paula Deen does not represent all southerners or all Georgians or all Savannians or all Albany-ans or all fat women with diabetes or all big haired morons with more dollars than sense, she represents Paula Deen. As for the “having older relatives who don’t mean any offense by the term”, I call bullshit. The term “nigger” has been understood, even by rural whites, to be intentionally offensive at least as long as I’ve been alive, and I grew up in the sticks of Alabama. My oldest relatives did (and my 88 year old aunt still does) use the word _colored_ and even _nigra_ without meaning any offense; I totally understand that if\* I\* were to call Michelle Obama “a beautiful colored woman” or refer to Alice Walker as “my favorite nigra author” they wouldn’t be much less offended than if I used “the n word” and for my generation it wouldnt’ be, BUT I really don’t believe the generations that can remember WW2 and before mean/t anything racist by it any more than I do when I say “black”, a term some consider offensive, or when I say “mentally retarded” which I honestly did not realize until recently is considered offensive now when referring to ‘developmentally disabled’ (or whatever the current preferred term is) individual. “Nigger”, though, has always been offensive and even considered a trashy word. For at least as long as I’ve been alive it’s been accepted that you don’t use the word around black people because it’s very bad manners/offensive/racist and, perhaps most importantly, low class. The same people would say ‘nigger’ to mean black who would say ‘titty’ to mean breast- it’s a word EVERYBODY knows not to use in polite society and has known for generations and that’s not meant to be interchangeable with ‘black’. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/395 "2013-07-08T20:46:26Z")
> [@aag3981](#): > > Where, oh where did he say that “nigger” wasn’t offensive? His comment very clearly states that it didn’t hold the power then that it does now. His comment is shit stupid. It has always held the power to hurt, demean, and offend. The fact that white people didn’t fucking care if they hurt, demeaned, or offended black people doesn’t mean that the word didn’t have that power. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/396 "2013-07-08T21:23:09Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > His comment is shit stupid. It has always held the power to hurt, demean, and offend. The fact that white people didn’t fucking care if they hurt, demeaned, or offended black people doesn’t mean that the word didn’t have that power. I have this feeling we’re not communicating well. I agree that the word demeaned and offended. I agree that it’s always had some power. I don’t agree that ‘white people didn’t care.’ Some white people didn’t care; some did. Some cared a little, but still told jokes about what PONTIAC stood for. I agree that the word had some power, but now it has more. I think we grant the word too much power. Finally, I don’t agree my comment was shit stupid. Your experience growing up was yours; mine was mine. _I_ have seen the strength of the word change. I don’t think the movie _To Kill a Mockingbird_ could get made today as it was made in 1962. I think censors would limit the script to one use of the word _nigger_, and it would be used as the last word in a hateful speech by Bob Ewell or something, and he’d practically slobber while drawing it out like he was trying to summon a demon. You took my observation that the power of the word has grown, and that we let it offend us too much, as a statement that the word is not offensive and it never had power is unfair and overly simplistic. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/397 "2013-07-08T21:26:19Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Finally, I don’t agree my comment was shit stupid. Your experience growing up was yours; mine was mine. _I_ have seen the strength of the word change. I don’t think the movie _To Kill a Mockingbird_ could get made today as it was made in 1962. I think censors would limit the script to one use of the word _nigger_, and it would be used as the last word in a hateful speech by Bob Ewell or something, and he’d practically slobber while drawing it out like he was trying to summon a demon. > > You took my observation that the power of the word has grown, and that we let it offend us too much, as a statement that the word is not offensive and it never had power is unfair and overly simplistic. Actually, I owe you an apology, because I didn’t read the nested quote well and thought it was a reference to jtgain’s idiocy. I’m sorry about that. jtgain’s post was shit stupid. Yours I just disagree with. I completely disagree about the word nigger. Again, sure, it was more prevalent before and people made less of a fuss, but that’s because people who were offended lacked the power to make a fuss, not because they were less offended and hurt. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/398 "2013-07-08T21:31:47Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I completely disagree about the word nigger. Again, sure, it was more prevalent before and people made less of a fuss, but that’s because people who were offended lacked the power to make a fuss, not because they were less offended and hurt. Sammy Davis Jr. could use the word to make white racists look stupid. So could Richard Pryor. Black comedians today catch shit for using the word. That’s the kind of almost mystical quality people have assigned to it - like uttering it is akin to saying Voldemort’s name out loud. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/399 "2013-07-08T21:34:33Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Sammy Davis Jr. could use the word to make white racists look stupid. So could Richard Pryor. Black comedians today catch shit for using the word. That’s the kind of almost mystical quality people have assigned to it - like uttering it is akin to saying Voldemort’s name out loud. You don’t think Pryor was offending people? He was offending the fuck out of people. Just because you didn’t hear it doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. The internet and power dynamics can make people’s offense more visible, but it was always there. ETA: I’m sincerely flabbergasted at the notion that Richard Pryor wasn’t extremely controversial and considered risque and offensive by many people. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049/400 "2013-07-08T21:35:39Z")
People are still trying to argue that Paula Deen isn’t a racist? And that she’s being punished only for “saying the word once 30 years ago!”? And that the n-word isn’t racist because black people use it? Good lord. I’m totally linking to this thread every single time I hear some asshole claim “America is a post-racial society now.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paula-deen/662049.md?page=21)