Paula Deen Admits to Racial Slurs, (Possibly) Slaughters Career

[ulthar]

It must be horrible to realize you're denied access to something solely due to the color of your skin.

Oh, good grief.  Melodrama like this does not help solve any real world problems.

Using a word or not is denying NOTHING due to the color of my skin.  To equate racism and slavery and such with the use of a word is, in a word, ridiculous.

Hanging someone by their neck simply because they are black (or other) is completely different.  THAT'S racism.

Let's get off the moral equivalence train and exercise some common sense.

[tracy]

I heard that word a lot as I grew up but we were taught to never be racist....in fact,our Dad was the only full member of the black American Legion in our home town. As I learn more about this case I think it is probably some sort of blackmail gone sour. I just don't think it's fair to use something someone said many years ago as a reason to destroy them. Like no one else has said something they shouldn't have. Only one perfect person ever walked this Earth and and it wasn't Paula Deen.

[indianasmith]

Here is an interesting perspective on this whole mess:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352546/guilty-being-southern-lee-habeeb

[Leah]

This is how I honestly see Deen's monstrosities.


This is how you don't make southern food, and I hope that, if this story is true, destroys Deen's career. I hate her with a passion.

[Mofo Rising]

It must be horrible to realize you're denied access to something solely due to the color of your skin.

Oh, good grief.  Melodrama like this does not help solve any real world problems.

Using a word or not is denying NOTHING due to the color of my skin.  To equate racism and slavery and such with the use of a word is, in a word, ridiculous.

Hanging someone by their neck simply because they are black (or other) is completely different.  THAT'S racism.

Let's get off the moral equivalence train and exercise some common sense.

C'mon, ulthar, we're old debate pals. Surely you can recognize the use of exaggeration to effect. For instance, in this case I was using the inherent ridiculousness of my statements about a very minor social inequality to call attention to a much, much larger social inequality. It's all the better to me because there is nothing factually incorrect in my hyperbolic statement.

"To equate racism and slavery and such with the use of a word is, in a word, ridiculous." I agree. I didn't do that.

Nobody in this thread is arguing moral equivalence in that fashion. It's a great thing that the hatred and denigration that was racism in the first half of the 20th century is now socially reprehensible. There are some wingnuts out there, but you just can't say that s**t in public without opprobrium. I'm glad that, in America at least, we are done with accepting those hateful bigots.

But just because that bizarro racism is gone does not mean that the much more troublesome racism of unexamined social assumptions is gone. We've moved beyond public lynchings, but that doesn't mean that racism has gone away. It was naught but eight years ago during Hurricane Katrina that black people were described in the popular press as looting while white people, doing the exact same thing, were foraging. It was this attitude that I was trying to call attention to through my "too clever by half" statement.

The other thing, this is not a matter of Paula Deen's private statements. The initial lawsuit involves a pervasively racist mentality in the workplace of her brother. Deen is well within her rights to be racist in private, but there are quite a few laws against that attitude when it extends to the workplace. Deen's deposition was made public, which is one of those side-effects of lawsuits. It's not that she made a few racist jokes, it's that it was pervasive in the workplace. (And her plantation-themed idea for a weddding is basically crazy-pants.)

I don't care a whit about Paula Deen. I've never seen her show or read her cookbooks. I will say I am in dismay that her racism is hurting her style of cooking. All of that looks delicious, and I would be happy to eat any of it at any of her restaurants.

[indianasmith]

This is how I honestly see Deen's monstrosities.


This is how you don't make southern food, and I hope that, if this story is true, destroys Deen's career. I hate her with a passion.

So you hate her personality, her food, or diabeetus?

[Leah]

This is how I honestly see Deen's monstrosities.


This is how you don't make southern food, and I hope that, if this story is true, destroys Deen's career. I hate her with a passion.

So you hate her personality, her food, or diabeetus?

I hate how see makes Southern food. I actually wanted, for a long time, to use diabeetus, because mispronunciation.

[indianasmith]

I never watch the food channel, so I can't speak as to her recipes.  However, if it involves large amounts of bacon grease and butter, it sounds Southern to me!!

[Leah]

I never watch the food channel, so I can't speak as to her recipes.  However, if it involves large amounts of bacon grease and butter, it sounds Southern to me!!

There's this:

Doughnut sandwich, this is making Wilford Brimley go nuts with Diabeetus.

Also, Bacon grease and butter is not southern, it's part of southern.

[major jay]

That looks good. Now I'm hungry.

[Javakoala]

While I don't agree with being racist, I don't think Paula Deen's situation really has anything to with racism. She used a word, unwisely, but it was just a F**KING WORD!!!! If she banned blacks from working on her show, her restaurant, and so on, then, yeah, let's roast her over an open fire.

But a word? And her products are GONE from every store that I ever saw carry them. Food Network brushed her off like a lint ball on a suit sleeve. She's now the point of jokes connected with racism. I'm sure the restaurant she is connected with has seen a huge drop in customers.

Sure, she's filthy rich, but she now has no future as anything other than a stay-at-home mom, cooking for her family. Not that I'm bad mouthing stay-at-home moms; I'm just saying this woman ran an empire built around cooking. Now, that is gone. Because of a word.

What the hell happened to this country? Okay, yes, let's keep people safe from discrimination because that is a step forward. But destroying someone over a WORD? That isn't helpful, progressive or justified. It smacks of fascism.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have no love for Paula Deen. I have no hate for her, either. The woman barely rates a blip on my personal radar because I just don't care. But situation is just a blown-up version of nonsense that goes on most places, and in this "enlightened" country more than we realize.

I've seen people quit jobs because they made the "mistake" of not jumping on the glad-hand bandwagon for someone's crusade. "Oh, you don't want to wear our rainbow ribbon for LGBT Month? So, you HATE people who live an alternative lifestyle! Hater!! Hater in the house!!!" And, like Paula Deen, nothing they say can be used to defend themselves. Kind of like being asked, "So, tell me, do you still beat your children?"

Okay, rant over. Who wants pecan pie?

[Pacman000]

Me! Me! I want pecan pie!

(Sorry, if this doesn't add anything to the conversation, besides, hopefully, some levity.)

[Umaril Has Returned]

What the hell happened to this country? Okay, yes, let's keep people safe from discrimination because that is a step forward. But destroying someone over a WORD? That isn't helpful, progressive or justified. It smacks of fascism.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have no love for Paula Deen. I have no hate for her, either. The woman barely rates a blip on my personal radar because I just don't care. But situation is just a blown-up version of nonsense that goes on most places, and in this "enlightened" country more than we realize.

I've seen people quit jobs because they made the "mistake" of not jumping on the glad-hand bandwagon for someone's crusade. "Oh, you don't want to wear our rainbow ribbon for LGBT Month? So, you HATE people who live an alternative lifestyle! Hater!! Hater in the house!!!" And, like Paula Deen, nothing they say can be used to defend themselves. Kind of like being asked, "So, tell me, do you still beat your children?"

Well spoken, regardless of who wants pecan pie  

You speak truthfully. America's Left and their supporters say things that are, on average, far worse than their conservative rivals. AND get away with it with little or no punishment while the Right always gets slammed into the wall.

Tis newest move to assassinate Deen's career shows the trend of excuse and dismissal of things based on political alignment, and how excessive punishment for one's words is being forced onto the public by the loud minority in the name of "tolerance."   Again, all the while they commit two wrongs in the name of a right.

And again, I'd like to hear the uproar on the Left if it was John McCain or any other right winger hwo made that speech about Obama being "light-skinned, and articulate."