Iconic southern cuisine chef
Paula Deen has become the 21st century's Typhoid Mary for certain admissions that she'd used the "n" word and having once planned a slavery-themed wedding. This had prompted Miss Deen to plead her case to
Matt Lauer yesterday in which she accused others of telling lies about her by citing her own words in a court deposition for a discrimination lawsuit and being out to destroy her. Deen ended the interview by defiantly saying, "I is what I is and I'm not changing." Since the admission, Deen has been dropped by
Novo Nordisk, Target, Home Depot, the Food Network, Wal-Mart and Smithfield. (The news isn't all bad, as Fox News hastens to remind us: Deen's new cookbook, The New Testament Cookbook,
just shot up from #18 to #1 on Amazon, even though it's not due to come out until October.) Aspiring writer
Anne Rice also came to Deen's rescue, asking if we "had a lynch mob mentality." Deen's admissions that "of course" she used the "n" word and the slavery-themed wedding were bad enough but weren't the only ones in her deposition, What are some other self-confessed examples of Paula Deen's racism?
1) Martin Luther King piñata for oldest son's fifth birthday party.
2) Election nights 2008 and 2012, shot up life-sized butter sculpture of Barack Obama in back yard.
3) Field testing Creole rub on the heads of random African Americans.
4) During her "Bag Lady" days in Savannah, pioneered Happy Meals by including with every bagged lunch slivers of Lester Maddox axe handles.
5) During one 2005 episode of her show, once invited poet Maya Angelou but solely to wash dishes afterwards.
6) Once told Emeril Lagasse on Essence of Emeril, "I love it when you say Bam! Makes me think of Medgar Evers, Dr. King and Malcolm X."
7) Since 1974, every Thanksgiving turkey with little Klan hoods on drumsticks.
8) Paula taught sons that, every Halloween, black people carved watermelons instead of pumpkins.
9) Once asked by food magazine what wine would go best with soul food and replied, "Ripple."
10) Admitted to calling Dr. Martin Luther King a "shit-skinned, tap-dancing, watermelon-munchin' jigaboo pickaninny Tar Baby" but only once or twice since his assassination.
3 Comments:
I understand the outrage but there is a certain ridiculousness to all this too.
If you ever used the word the “N-word” represents, then *you’ve* used the N-word. If you’ve ever quoted verbatim someone who’s used the N-word, then you’ve used the N-word. If you’ve read certain Mark Twain passages out loud, you’ve used the N-word. If you’ve ever said the name of the band also known as N.W.A., then you’ve used the N-word.
I have used the N-word before. Next question?
Twain's use of the word was not vicious or ignorant. Plus, Twain was a man typical for his generation and was merely reflecting the use of the "N" word. Paula Deen is a contemporary woman who'd been around more than long enough to know that white people simply should not use that word and justifying it by saying "Of course" I used that word.
Next question? How come we're coming down on Paula Deen when Rush Limbaugh has a much more virulent, as well as a much longer, history of racism? Yeah, the man's lost a shitload of sponsors but, unlike Deen's employer, Clear Channel hasn't seen fit to part company with him.
I agree that the racism in the common code words used in the blather by Rush and the like is far more destructive than Deen's ignorance.
There's an element to the question that reminds me of, "When did you stop beating your spouse?"
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