Orion's picture

    Paula Deen, The N-Word And Prejudice

    By Orion on Sat, 06/29/2013 - 8:55pm |

    Once upon a time, I was a hardcore libertarian. I think you can still find my stuff - at websites like United Liberty and The Liberty Papers. During that really critical stage in development when you start to form ideas about the world, around eighteen and nineteen, I had worked for a Seattle rap magazine where the editor was (and he still is) a hardcore libertarian. Hip-hop is something I love and so I connected the two, even if that connection no longer makes any sense.

    Libertarian politics took me far. In California, I worked for a conservative Democrat who sounded a little libertarian and eventually I worked for really big time conservatives in Washington D.C. The rude awakening happened - most these guys weren't like my editor, they were all racist as hell. Like so racist that they weren't even really aware of it. It wasn't like old school conservatives were the only ones suffering it - new school libertarians seemed to have old Southern racist ideology at the core of their political philosophy.

    When I discovered that, I had the visceral reaction that most people from progressive parts of the United States have. A lot of bad things happen in big cities like Seattle, San Francisco or Portland but hearing white folks say prejudiced things about black folks is not one of them.

    After all that, I traveled much more - to Asia, actually. I realized that it's much more complex than that. Prejudice is everywhere. It's part of the human condition. Chamorros in Guam were very prejudiced towards Japanese, even if they did business with them every day, and had disparaging terms for folks like me, even though folks like me were a big part of their life too. Because of all sorts of things, though, the prejudice held by white folks in the Southern and rural United States is looked at a bit more critically.

    It's not seen as colloquial like other sorts of prejudice. Whenever it raises its ugly head, thoughts of Mississippi Burning, George Wallace in front of the University of Alabama and other loathsome thoughts come in to their head.

    I haven't really followed the Paula Deen story but when I actually did read about it a little, by way of an article about former President Jimmy Carter's opinion on the whole escapade - I was a bit shocked. This is what shocked me:

    Former President Jimmy Carter said embattled celebrity chef Paula Deen should be forgiven, arguing that while there's no condoning the racial slurs she uttered, the well-known personality has been candid and apologetic.

    "She was maybe excessively honest in saying that she had in the past, 30 years ago, used this terrible word," Carter told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux in an interview Friday. "I think she has been punished, perhaps overly severely, for her honesty in admitting it and for the use of the word in the distant past. She's apologized profusely."

    She is in trouble for admitting to using this word 30 years ago? Really? Isn't that a bit extreme? It seems that maybe we are in denial about reality. I have a sibling who went on a racist tirade while I had the misfortune to be around her only a couple months ago. The word was dropped like a Lil Wayne record in the most recent Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained.

    If that's the core of the story and I'm not missing many other elements, making it about Paula Deen is strange. "Nigger" is only a word - I've actually heard it at least a couple thousand times from the near constant hip-hop soundtrack I've had for the last 15 years. Disturbingly, since Barack Obama has been elected, I've heard it more than I ever did before then. A discussion about that word and about prejudice may be well in order but centering in on the host of a cooking show, who is from the south no less, for admitting to using it is really strange and doesn't solve anything.

    Prejudice as an attitude itself needs to be discussed. I personally have been prejudiced against - prejudice comes when people actually want to hate someone else. It doesn't really matter what that other person does or thinks - the prejudiced have a negative stereotype of what that person is and evidence to the contrary actually seems to just upset the prejudiced a bit more. That attitude, which poisons the water in most of our society, is what really needs to be discussed.

    NEWS: So it looks like Paula Deen will be hosting a cooking show on Fox News. Cooking and news don't seem like a natural mix to me and I don't think it's a good example for someone to get in trouble for being racist and then go to Fox News but then again it certainly shows they are in touch with their demographic. The Fox News audience would probably relate more to a cook who has been known to drop the n-word than just some ordinary cook that doesn't drop the n-bomb.

    Comments

    I really didn't think much about the story.She used the word after a hold-up when she was a bank teller. Then can a story of imagery of middle-aged Negroes in tuxedos serving at a fantasized wedding. Then the Don Imus rule was broken. When Imus ridiculed the Blacks on the Rutgers women's basketball team, his friends (virtually all White) were on the verge of saving him.Good buddy Harold Ford Jr. Disappeared. Then Blacks who worked at NBC and MSNBC chimed in with their displeasure, and Imus was on his way to another network.

    Blacks who worked for Deen are voicing their displeasure. The plot thickens and she got the boot. She has a "black friend", Hollis Johnson, described by Deen as being so black that you couldn't see him if he stood next to a blackboard. That either meant that she was very good friends with Hollis, or oblivious to her racism. I haven't seen Hollis come out with public support. The employees statements bode ill.

    Deen will be forgiven. The pre-sales of her new book are off the charts.


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 06/29/2013 - 9:40pm

    The publisher has dropped the book in spite of the record pre book sales.  Hopefully and other publisher will pick it up that needs a solid pre sales.


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 7:22am

    She can set up ebook sales and keep all the profits.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:06am

    Foodies like real cookbooks that they can make notes in and leave on their coffee table.  I can skim through a cook book faster and find ideas then googling for "I don't know what to make."  E cookbooks are not as practical and fun.  Technology may move on and your e cookbook may not be readable 10 years from now.  My cook books go all the way back to WWI and I spend time in all of them.  


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:51am

    There's an app for that smiley

    You can group things by food type and you don't have to remember which cookbook has what,, You can search by keyword.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 9:21am

    I see the racists are already lining up to make buying Deen's cookbooks a cause.  She'll be serving cracker buffets for Rush Limbaugh before long...


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 11:49am

    Perhaps she can do the recipes for Cracker Barrell. blush


    by Orion on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 12:24pm

    You know one of the traits I most admire about southern whites is how they embrace the slurs flung at them and make them their own:

     

     

    Tarheel

    Redneck

     

     

     

     

    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 3:59pm

    Perhaps that's where Southern blacks got it from? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypOQObkqSRw

    What if the attitude was flipped?


    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 11:39am

    Modern racism is very subtle. There are no more lynchings or legally segregated schools, thankfully. Prejudice still exists, of course, but rarely shows its face in public.

    The N-word acts as a sort of beacon to that underground prejudice. Like most people, Paula Deen knows better than to use the word in public. But the allegations of the lawsuit against her, combined with her unapologetic acknowledgement of using the N-word and her rejection of the plantation-themed wedding "because the media would be on me about that," present a picture of someone who is still racist and who restrains herself only because of social mores, not because she means it.

    Maybe that picture is inaccurate. The evidence is slim, and the media loves to jump to conclusions when it comes to moralizing. But accurate or inaccurate, the point is not Deen's use of the word per se but rather what her use of the word--and how she talked about it--says about her character and beliefs. 


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 2:17pm

    Frankly I don't think we should be using anything said by a woman with a gun pointed to her head. It doesn't seem fair. This isn't Mel Gibson getting drunk and hurling abuse - this isn't self-induced, it's a reaction to terror. AFAIK, whatever other possible weirdnesses the woman might have, the only mention of the "N-word" was from that gun incident. I'm sure if someone held a gun to my head I'd use every rational & irrational epithet available.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 3:24pm

    My guess is that Deen, like many other Georgia girls her age, was strongly influenced by the romanticized antebellum South in Gone with the Wind and its main character, Scarlett O'Hara. Later in her life when she was divorced and broke with sons to raise, I would not be surprised to hear that she had her own "as God is my witness" moment and flashed back to that scene from the movie. It fits with her own success story. It might even explain the wish for that plantation-themed wedding.

     


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 3:31pm

    To the previous comments, you can interpret Deen's comments more charitably or less charitably. If I were her friend or otherwise inclined to think well of her, it's not hard to fall back on the explanations you offer. But on the face of it, I see no reason to bend over backward to deny the obvious: that she's probably a racist.

    That said, I probably wouldn't fire her based on such inconclusive evidence or attack her reputation in a more public way than a random comment on a small blog. (Not that her employers gave a damn whether she's really racist anyway. It was enough for them that a significant portion of the public seemed to have that impression.)

    But all this is beside my main point: why people care when a white public figure utters the forbidden N-word. It is not the word itself but rather what the word suggests about the speaker's mindset that matters.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 3:54pm

    FWIW

    Scott Adams Blog: The Paula Deen Context 06/26/2013


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 4:11pm

    Yeah, we don't like redemption however much it plays in movies - we like thorough destruction. In real like the redemption somehow happens off-screen in a wishy kind of don't look too close way. I.e. supposedly when you toss someone onto the street, they pick themselves up and rebuild their lives. How often this actually happens is anyone's guess, but it makes us feel better when we're trashing someone - we're not really ruining their life, just teaching them a good Mosaic lesson.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 5:00pm

    Paula Deen is being punished for directed a slur against Black people. Black people are reeling from the VRA decision, not focusing on Deen. Adams writes a piece about  Deen and of all the shows he watches he either openly or subconsciously picks out Keli Goff, a Black pundit,  for criticism. I doubt that there are a large number of Black executives with the power to give Paula the heave- ho. In the large scope of things the Scott Adams post is truly hilarious.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 10:31pm

    Here's a perspective from This Week in Blackness 


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 11:03pm

    From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/01/opinion/seymour-deen-racist-language/index.html?hpt=hp_c4


    by Orion on Tue, 07/02/2013 - 11:10am

    otherwise inclined to think well of her

    Well, many foodies are inclined to think well of her, as representing old style southern home cooking that comes from a culture that also happened to be racist. And she is in the foodie business, selling that food culture.

    This Salon piece by an African-American professor who loves Southern food and likes Paula Deen addresses this well, I think:

    ....Why is everyone acting so surprised that a white Southern lady of a certain age has used the N-word? Of course she has. I wouldn’t believe her if she said she hadn’t. I’d be surprised if there are many Southerners Deen’s age who have never used it. I disagree with the knee-jerk reaction of the Food Network and other companies to dump her – who did you think you were getting when you signed her on? She is still a sassy, funny, Southern cook who likes fattening comfort food. But now, she’s also a real person. Discrimination and prejudice will never get better if we sweep it under the rug and pretend it’s not there.

    I’d love to sit down with Paula Deen and have a long talk about the legacy of slavery and the power of the N-word, because I think she’d listen. That’s more than I can say about Justices Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas.

    I haven't paid much attention to the whole story but I did happen to see a clip from the TV when she was supposedly apologizing on a morning show. And she was talking loony, some conspiracy theorizing babble about people out to get her and ruin her. As a foodie character.

    It's like the professor says. The N-word thing after an apology shouldn't hurt as much because foodie people who are bothered by a rare use of an N-word wouldn't be customers of a Paula Deen-like character/culture anyways, they would know she's not their type in the first place. Because she's very much authentic, of her age, time and culture. So really, there would be no boycotts of any consequence financially.  Because those who can't handle the use of the word would see it in her shtick and not like her already.

    But if you are a business person thinking of working with Paula, signing a contract with her, that crazy apology might give you pause, I think, more than the rare use of the N-word. When she started acting crazy over it, rather than just a simple apology. one would wonder whether one would want to do business with her.  That's what it seems to me is going on here.  It's not about the use of the word--because people who know her shtick would already know it comes from a past racist world and either not be able to stand watching her, or accept the whole package. But she can't handle the controversy well, she went loony, and that doesn't bode well for her being an easily marketed commodity, suggests she would be trouble one way or another. And there\'s plenty other fish in the sea.

    You know, this whole story very much reminds me of the Wagner and the Jews thing. It all depends upon how much the context works on each individual.  Whether they can handle grays in racism or see black and white. It's about trying to take the good parts of a culture and ignoring the bad, and not everyone is amenable to doing that. Some are just reminded too much of the bad parts, others can let it go and enjoy the good parts.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 4:57pm

    I think this is a very good analysis. I've been a fan of Paula Deen's, and I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but her "apology tour" has come off as so insincere to me that it really gives me pause. The problems she's having now are not about her using the N-word when she was held up at gun point. It's about

    1. her acknowledging under oath that she's used the N-word since then but more recently denying that when she's not been under oath;
    2. her plans for a plantation-themed wedding;
    3. how she and her brother have allegedly treated black employees;
    4. her tone-deaf comments about how dark one of her black friends is;
    5. her comments about her great-grandfather committing suicide because his slaves were taken away from him; and
    6. how she's responded to questions about the prior points.

    Any one or two of these might not have as much traction, but when viewed as a group they become harder to dismiss.


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 7:47pm

    Thinking about this some more, for me I think the one that makes it the hardest to "get over" is the last one. She's apologized and apologized and cried for using the N-word when she was held up at gun point. When asked about the plantation-themed wedding, she cried and apologized about using the N-word when she was held up at gun point. When asked about stating on her deposition that she use the N-word more recently than that, she cried and apologized about using the N-word when she was held up at gun point. It comes across to me that a publicist has told her that the public is willing to forgive her for using the N-word 30 years ago when she was held up at gun point, so whenever she's asked about any of the other infractions, she returns to that 30 year old one as a means of avoiding the question.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:36am

    We all know that people as significant and famous as Paula Deen have and continue to say racially derogatory things in much less stressful situations than when a black man is holding a gun to your head.

    If that's the story is true, and it's kind of incredible when you really think about it, she is a pretty tough broad. With a gun to your head, I think most of us would be too scared to say anything at all - much less the most offensive thing you could possibly call the person holding the gun.


    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 10:41am

    1. She didn't use the word while the gun was pointed at her head. Per her testimony, she "probably" used it while "telling her husband" about the incident.
    2. My point was that it's not about the gun incident.

    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 11:09am

    Oh, okay, sorry - thanks for the correction. smiley


    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 11:29am

    It doesn't matter - if she had a gun pointed at her head, she was probably in trauma about it, so just leave her alone. I remember my mom being rather shaken by an encounter with an exhibitionist when I was little - took away her normal composure - and that's certainly not as unnerving as a threat of death. Does everything have to be explained in half syllables these days?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 1:26pm

    See #2. (I hope that was brief enough for you.)


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 1:34pm

    Her own damn fault. Next time she'll stick to acceptable phrases like "ho's and bitches". She should be more sensitive about hurting someone's feelings.

    Anyway, someone out there want to talk about PRISM?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 2:59pm

    Are you attempting to distract and confuse with a non sequitur? By now I recognize it as your way of admitting that you were wrong. We're all wrong sometimes, even me. wink


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 3:23pm

    It is true that it comes down to the context that works on each individual.

    I grew up in the South and the community I lived in was sharply divided by those whites who used that word and those who refused to use it or associate with those who did. My family was in the latter camp and we all got to experience the consequences of our refusal on a personal in your face basis. So I disagree with one aspect of the statement: "Because those who can't handle the use of the word would see it in her shtick and not like her already." Refraining from using that word is not about her shtick and there are lots of people who share her culinary tastes who see it the way I do.

    When she apologizes, she isn't apologizing to me. We have already had our fight and she lost.


    by moat on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 9:57pm

    Orion, for what it's worth, I don't often reply to your very frequent posts.  I used to post more often, but I wrote the kinds of things you often submit.  I stepped back and made a conscious effort at observing what made a thoughtful post as opposed to one that took other ideas, but must importantly, but frankly you just seem to need constant patting and reasssurance.    

    Pat, Pat I am amazed at the number of stuff you get published here, most of which really is in need of editorial assistance, including spelling.  

    Please accept this 


    by CVille Dem on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 7:00pm

    I consider myself in collaboration with Michael, and I am also well aware of how much I've published that could have used an editorial hand.  We live and improve and grow through experience and we also learn, my friend, that sometimes what one person believe needs editorial help is, in fact, better than you might think.  Esthetics are like that.  Look around.  We are all learning and maturing as writers.  Let's chill out.  And, CVille, we all go way back.  Don't be a stranger! Be a neighbor.

     


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 7:58pm

    No offense intended, but between you, Genghis, and Orion, there are too many Michaels, especially if CVille Dem hasn't been following that closely. wink


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 8:07pm

    Indeed.  And I am extremely hard to offend.

    I would only suggest this:

    I am nuts and an aspirant.

    Wolraich is measured and working on his second book.

    Powell brings a totally new perspective, especially regarding pop culture.

    Nobody knows style.  I just read the most hilarious rejection letter ever sent to Gertrude Stein and... I agreed with it!  I still love Gertrude Stein.

    When I look at this virtual community my most fervent hope is that we resist the temptation to eat our own.

     


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 06/30/2013 - 8:51pm

    It's good to remember that you need to look at different perspectives. Not everything is dead serious and there is overlap. I think a big reason why gay marriage went over the hill has to do with Macklemore's song "Same Love."

    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:58am

    I tried writing a response to this and I don't know if it's my computer or what but I'm having serious problems formatting. Is anyone else having issues? It kept turning out one big mob of text, which isn't really fun to read.

    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:18am

    Yes and Yes for the last 6 months.  I can not paste or make paragraphs with my enter key. I figured that my computer software is incompatible with this site now.


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:26am

    I just posted my response to Dem with a whole, entire new comment. It was kind of stressful trying to read what I had written before. LOL

    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:59am

    Orion, for what it's worth, I don't often reply to your very frequent posts.  I used to post more often, but I wrote the kinds of things you often submit.  I stepped back and made a conscious effort at observing what made a thoughtful post as opposed to one that took other ideas, but must importantly, but frankly you just seem to need constant patting and reasssurance.  

    I wrote a really long response to this that I just took down. It made about as much sense as the comment I was responding to. I don't know what "constant patting and reassurance" means - I realize there is a tendency in political blogs to be always in argument mode and I think that may have produced this comment. Most of what I post is re posts from another blog, which I host and which updates daily. I'm trying to slow down what I post from there but it'll still be there. I mean, if you don't like what I post, you can really just ignore it. That is an amazing power you have at your disposal.


    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 1:00pm

    I am a foodie.  I just think this court case came at a bad time for her.  We are all fed up with Southern Politics and disrespect for the President and minorities.  I think this is the canary in the mine for the backlash that is coming.  I also think that is why retailers are dropping her products, because they are afraid of that backlash too.  Her products sell well and her ratings on her show was good.  I agree with Orion on this that she has become somewhat of a whipping post and there is all kinds of racism under the radar.  This represents something more then just the n word.  It is the rejection of a cruel mean inhumane ideology that is the politics of the old south that the GOP embraces. 


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 8:20am

    I agree with Orion on this that she has become somewhat of a whipping post and there is all kinds of racism under the radar.

    Both you and Michael Wolraich are correct. Like I said in this post, I had an editor at a rap magazine who was really conservative. I also have a very conservative friend who seemed to make racist comments socially, without thinking about the impact - he actually said I "opened his eyes" when I got upset about it. I think that on race, we tend to be really dishonest towards ourselves about our true feelings.

    Racism in this country is still hardcore among people who still have it - it is a part of some people's view of the world the way that breathing oxygen or walking is. Modern GOP rhetoric is almost like retooled pre-Civil Rights stuff - you hear guys like Brit Hume saying that Republicans would actually win if they just were a stronger All White Party:

     


    by Orion on Mon, 07/01/2013 - 3:16pm

    Lisa Jackson, the white woman who filed the Paula Deen lawsuit says her complaint was about Deen's treatment of people Deen felt were inferior. It was not about the word"nigger".


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 07/02/2013 - 5:20pm

    Thanks for that comment. That certainly explains alot. In my experience, racism is subtle like Michael Wolraich said. You can kind of feel it instead of hear and see it. It's really strange - alot of people with racial prejudice seem conflicted - like they really don't want to be racist but the unspoken prejudice they were socialized with is just too damn strong to beat.


    by Orion on Tue, 07/02/2013 - 8:15pm

    Hey guys, so there is a good article in the New Yorker about all of this. Really recommended - if I had read it first this article would be very different, what I'd read and heard previously didn't really express why people were so mad at Ms. Deen. A really stand out part of the story:

    The controversy stems from a suit brought by a former employee, who claims, among other things, that Deen presided over a culture of racial and sexual impropriety, particularly at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, the Savannah restaurant Deen set up for her brother, Bubba Hiers: pornography in the workplace, racial insults, nostalgia for the antebellum South. (In planning Bubba’s wedding, the employee asserts in the complaint, Deen allegedly said, “I want a true southern plantation-style wedding.… Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n-----s 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.”) In other words, we now have “Kitchen Confidential: Georgia Edition,” with an inverted power structure and markedly un-Vassar politics.


    by Orion on Tue, 07/02/2013 - 10:24pm

    I read the link.  I still feel the same way.  I also read on HuffPo that the case could be dismissed based on the recent Supreme Court Ruling.  I will change my mind when the court gives the former employee 1.9 mil that she is asking for. 


    by trkingmomoe on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 3:25am

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