Really, is no one gonna touch this? I have been responding comments an questions to attempt to explain my position, but no one has addressed my main concern in this or why I am bothering to argue this point to the extent that I have.
I mean everything I have said and intend for people to catch it. I believe I have been very clear. People seem to be reading more into it than what it is, or implying things that are not. Or as Ombre12 said, reacting emotionally.
Because her own words can’t exactly be overblown, and no amount of context actually erases what she said.
You are bothering to defend her because you’ve probably got a personal stake in it. Given that you’ve said you don’t mind when people say racist things around you, your personal stake is likely that you don’t want to feel judged. If you can argue that Paula Deen is perfectly peachy, by extension your feelings and actions are also peachy. If people can’t judge her, why, they can’t judge you either. If you can get people to buy this helpless, born in the south doomed to be a racist whatcha gonna do? defense, then you can claim that for yourself, too.
This chair doesn’t even have arms.
I don’t see how I have a personal stake in it. I have heard many racist things be said around me by many types of races, mainly jokes. With close friends I, myself make such jokes as do they. From my experience, these incidents are socially acceptable amongst friends. Also, these jokes seem to carry across racial, gender and region, since I have seen many instances where others have also used such jokes in mass media.
As for Paula, her comments are 30 years old. If you look at the southern wedding comments, I would argue that she wasn’t going for a slave themed wedding as some people like to state and most people reaching for a southern antebellum theme aren’t looking at that aspect of it. Even if she WERE to go through with the wedding, is it so different than hiring black people to play a slave in a movie because if Paula did throw such a wedding and hire such staff, those servers would not be slaves but people hired to play a role. Just like a slave in the movies today.
If you are born in the South you are not born to be racist and racism is looked down on in the south. I personally, will not judge someone by 30 year old comments because times and people change.
You really don’t see the difference between paying people to be actors portraying slaves and paying people to be servants and portraying them as slaves?
Even though I realize that I’m fighting a quixotic battle here, I will add my couple of cents worth:
I’m from the South. I’m so southern that I’m related to myself. In fact, I’m related to Paula Deen herself (distantly,) and am double cousin to her sons (her mama and my daddy were Akins, and my great-granddaddy was a Deen. It’s something like third cousin once removed on the Akins side, and second cousin twice removed on the Deen side.) I have ancestors who owned slaves (not workers. Slaves. Human beings whose entire lives were dependent on whichever crazy person owned him.) I’m closely related to people of Paula’s generation (one generation before mine,) and of equally southern and rural roots. And we aren’t the effete and elites - mine was the first generation of the family to attend college. Only one of my grandparents even attended high school. My great-grandmother finished the second primer in school. One of my grandfathers finished the eighth grade, one finished the fourth.
I’m sorry, but even my ignorant, uneducated southern family knew/knows that it’s offensive to use the term “nigger.” It’s not really that complicated. (Per the fact that one might hear one African-American refer to a friend as “nigger/nigga?” That’s sort of like my operational rule: I can call my Mama a bitch. My mama might be one. But you - general “you” - could get hurt by calling her one if I hear you say it. I’m not claiming that’s logical, but I am claiming that’s just how it is.)
I’ve read the deposition. Paula’s answers strike me as disingenuous at best. I don’t think she’s a terrible person, necessarily, but I think that she isn’t totally honest, and I think that she allowed her brother to create a hostile work environment at his restaurant. And whether or not one believes that Paula Deen herself is a racist or a bad person, that’s more than adequate reason for a company to decide that such an individual is not a proper spokesperson for a product or company.
I would just like to point out that this is one of perhaps two good answers to this question and she might have answered this way on the advice of her lawyer.
If she had answered no she had never used the word other than that one time, then ANY testimony that she had would have impeached her entire deposition (she lied about using that word, what else did she lie about?)
If on the other hand she answers yes, I have or I probably have, there is nothing to impeach.
Two things going on here. There’s the denial. And there is the inescapable duality of slavery. The Antebellum South manifestly put itself into a position beyond enlightenment, cementing their minds into the subject-object relationship of master-slave. It is perhaps worse than you realize.
This ‘distancing from the past’ is also too bad- an ongoing duality that puts the South behind the enlightenment curve. The lack of enlightenment has got to be my main beef with the South- but try and resolve the issue and you just piss people off! It is difficult indeed to be undisturbedly one with such piratical behavior. Though you, aa, seem to be trying…
If Paula’s allegations are overblown, then thoughtful people will be compelled to forget them. But if they’re not, it will be a mistake for the Paula partisans to presume that her detractors are simply stupid.
For me, the whole Paula Deen question is a matter of timing with SCOTUS’s VRA decision. I can see their point in the decision, but the effect seems to be that since racist lawmaking has spread beyond the South, we might as well allow it everywhere. The error is demonstrated by the ongoing, observable racism in the South, regardless of whether or not Deen herself comes out judged as racist.
Try2B, I’m not busting on you, really, and some folks whose names I won’t mention aren’t helping, but painting all southern USA-ans with the broad brush of “ignorant and racist” shouldn’t be any more acceptable than using insulting words to describe people based solely on skin color.
Flabbergasting.
Seems to me a certain poster or two just doesn’t get it. It’s not just the use of the racist term, it’s Deen’s inexcusable actions in an effort to excuse both the racist term and other racist actions. Had she said, “Yes, I used the term many years ago and I was wrong to do that,” then the reaction would likely be different. Deen’s not suffering anything she doesn’t deserve now for the way she’s acting now.
I’m not:
Not me. You’re not worth it. I don’t truck with the willfully ignorant. You and the other “I don’t understand what’s racist” racist poster can continue to circle jerk each other without my help. You’ll both probably be done on the Dope and off to greener pastures at Klan meetings than any of us will even remember your nonsense. It ain’t worth anyone’s time to keep tilting at inane and disengenuous claims of defense on poor Paula’s behalf. See you on 4chan.
Just quotes from this thread - bolding mine… As I said, I’m not picking on you, and I’m sure as fuck not defending any behavior by Paula Deen, but I don’t think it’s any more acceptable for you to judge me based on where I was born than it would be for you to judge me based on skin color, gender, etc.
See above. I have no doubt that you have good intentions, but your own words make it seem as though you believe that a lot of good people are irredeemably ignorant and racist, based on nothing except where we were born or raised.
I’m sure Paula has made it perfectly clear that the N-word is an offensive word to not be used. No one is advocating the use of the word. Per her admission, she used it in private or when quoting what other black people say.
I don’t know what world you think you’re living in, but I’ll set the following text in boldface type to get your attention.
White southerners who were members of slave-owning families who refused to participate in overt expressions of racism or who expressed philosophical objections to slavery were not routinely tied to a horse, whipped in the town square, or hanged outside the court house.
So, either you are seriously mistaken about the history of white privilege in this country or you are a dire propagandist.
On the other hand, a non-white person like me, who might have done nothing more than look at a white woman like Paula Deen the wrong way, would routinely be subject to being dragged through down tied to a horse, whipped in the town square, or hanged outside the court house.
And even if I never actually offended the white power structure, I would still be subject to the extreme limitations of living in a racist socity, such as being limited in occupation, movement, social interactions, or advancement, and constantly being required to show deference to whites and being condescended to by same.
Sure, you’re sure.
“She doesn’t think the N-word is bad, as long as it’s used in a joke.
Deen said that she and her husband taught her children not to use the N-word in a mean way. Asked when exactly that word be used in a not-mean way, she said either when repeating what you may hear “black people” say in the kitchen or when used in a joke.” Daily Beast
"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.” The New Yorker
“She calls him the ‘black sheep’ of the family.” She also somewhat infamously called him “black as this board”—gesturing to a dark backdrop—(Don’t stop with this quote, read the whole Time article to get a feel for the patronizing bullshit Deen and her clan lay on the minorities in their entourage)
You probably can’t click on any links that don’t have “Fox News” between the slashes, but I included a variety of cites that contradict your assertions that Deen is a blameless product of her environment and age. She’s a patronizing shit who is actually very aware of the effect her behavior and beliefs have on her image:
“Well what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,” the lawsuit claims Deen said. “Now that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.” TPM
Correction. Had. The effects her behavior and beliefs had on her image.
I don’t see the denial. I see the distancing or trying to lessen the harm caused, but no one in the south denies slavery. Also, I believe that since segregation has been done away with that each generation since is coming out immensely better, or more enlightened as you would put it. People born in Paula’s time still had a lot of racist views and practices to justify. Now we are dealing with more subtle forms of racism that can be much more difficult to recognize.
"It is difficult indeed to be undisturbedly one with such piratical behavior. Though you, aa, seem to be trying…’
I’m not sure what you mean by this.
As far as the VRA, as I understand it, it was struck down because lawmakers were using really old information to determine who was effected. It’s been 50 years and things have changed. We just had an election fiasco last year. However it was the white folk that ended up suing over it because they didn’t want to have a penny sales tax increase that would be used to transportation and the city bus. Those folks live in the mostly white areas that were waiting 3-7 hours to vote. I live in an area that is more ethnically mix and I was in and out in 20 mins.
The Supreme Court’s decision seems common sense to me and they left the opportunity for the legislation to do their part and fix the law.
Why? Paula Deen is having no picnic right now and losing millions of dollars. But what she is going through is nothing like the pressure for social conforming was 100 years ago.
So I read the lawsuit that Lisa Jackson filed and apparently Paula’s brother Bubba is quite the character. I wonder if Paula would have chosen her words more carefully during her deposition if she didnt have such a bad attitude about the reason she was deposed in the first place.
I also read the deposition, and they asked her about using the word “massaged” in the way where one is trying to smooth things over. Early on she said she never used that word other than in the literal massage therapy way, and she acted like it was an affront that using it in another way was suggested. But then later, she does use it in the “smooth things over” way, just like Ms Jackson said she did.
If what Ms Jackson claims is true, Paula was complicit in her brother’s behavior and she not only tolerated his racism and sexism but didn’t seem to have a problem with it at all. Her brother is portrayed as a drunken, sexist, racist asshole and since he was family, she was just fine with Ll of that.