Paula Deen racist?

[roomthreeseventeen]

Paula Deen video apology

 

[disney junky]

I'm not really sure I understand what you meant by the words in bold. I believe racists or ignorant individuals need to be called out. I don't care if you are a celebrity, athlete, politician, hair stylist, garbage collector, or my next door neighbor; if you make ignorant comments and someone overhears them, I hope those individuals are put in the spotlight so everyone can see what they are really like.

I don't consider anything Paula Deen says important because she isn't in a position to make any decisions that would affect me, ie, leader, as in government official or president or CEO of a corporation with which I would do business. But before I changed the channel this morning, I had to see somber faced Matt Lauer acting like we'd just been attacked by North Korea all because Paula Deen wasn't coming on to be grilled by him over something she said years ago. It's irrelevant but the media makes it relevant.

I dare say we have all at some time said something ignorant and later regretted it. Calling out everyone who ever made an inappropriate comment seems to me extreme because ignorance can be defined as anyone sees fit. Political correctness has contributed to that.

 

[wvjules]

Yeah, okay, I never said they weren't a big deal. I said they were nowhere near as common.

Actually you said they didn't exist.

Black on white hate crime isn't really a thing. There is no history of it in this country.

I absoutely believe Chris and Channon were tortured and murdered because they were white. I'm actually shocked at how little coverage this horrific crime received in the media. Flame suit on - I really believe it is because of fear of backlash of a hate crime on whites by black assailants. If this case were the other way around then it would have been all over the media. <---Flame suit off I watched every one of those original trials and each time I could't believe how much suffering these two young people (especially Channon) endured before they were murdered.

As for back OT with Paula. I don't care how long ago she was born. Calling someone the N-word is not acceptable in today's society. I also don't care where she was raised. I have some relatives that still use the N word and I cringe every time. It makes me emarassed for them and ashamed.

 

[chobie]

Actually you said they didn't exist.

I absoutely believe Chris and Channon were tortured and murdered because they were white. I'm actually shocked at how little coverage this horrific crime received in the media. Flame suit on - I really believe it is because of fear of backlash of a hate crime on whites by black assailants. If this case were the other way around then it would have been all over the media. <---Flame suit off I watched every one of those original trials and each time I could't believe how much suffering these two young people (especially Channon) endured before they were murdered.

As for back OT with Paula. I don't care how long ago she was born. Calling someone the N-word is not acceptable in today's society. I also don't care where she was raised. I have some relatives that still use the N word and I cringe every time. It makes me emarassed for them and ashamed.

She said its "not a thing," not that it doesn't exist. I took that to mean it's only isolated incidents and not on the scale that hate crimes against black people historically were ( e.g, lynchings, cross burnings, etc).

 

[minkydog]

She's older and from Georgia, of course she's likely to spout out racial slurs -

Oh no, you didn't just go there. Racism isn't just an "older and from Georgia" problem. To even make a blanket statement like that is just ignorant. I'm older and I'm from Georgia but I have never used that kind of language. My sisters and brother are older and they're all from Alabama. Care to guess how many of them are racists? That's right. NONE. I daresay there are just about as many racists in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, and California as there are in Georgia.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

Food Network has announced it will not renew Paula Deen's contract which ends next week.

 

[kwelch10377]

Food Network has announced it will not renew Paula Deen's contract which ends next week.

I was just coming to post this.

I really don't think it has much to do with this whole thing. I read some rumors before this even happened that they were not going to renew her contract. I just don't think she fits in with what the Food Network is now.

 

[TinkerBelled]

Another double standard that comes to mind is that black pride and white pride are viewed separately. You can be proud of what you are without hating anyone else but the perception that comes with the later is that you are a racist. That doesn't even make sense.

Seriously, you don't think this makes sense?

First, the point of the thing: black pride was an idea created in the face of two hundred years or more of the most grinding prejudice you can imagine. It was a way to create cultural and political power where there was none. Even if "white pride" didn't feel like gloating over two hundred years of social, economic, legal, and cultural privilege, it would be unnecessary in the face of all that privilege.

Second, context. Most people who espouse white pride today and in the past do/did so not only at the expense of people who aren't white, but with the explicit rallying cry of "purifying the race." That the term has been tarnished is their fault most of all. If at any point in the past, I don't know, 150 years, people had used the term "white pride" merely to celebrate a culture rather than to espouse virulently racist ideology, we might have a different idea of that term. I'm terribly sorry that racists have sullied white pride for you, but they have.

Third, we celebrate plenty of white nationalities in America. Irish- and Italian-Americans have public holidays with parades. Plenty of people fly the flags of their heritage outside their homes or have them tattooed on their backs. And we don't bat an eye. Why can't it be that way with black people? Well, because the entire point of mass transatlantic slavery was to separate black people from their specific identity. Most African-Americans have little to no idea where their ancestors came from. They literally can't wear a tshirt with their national flag. Thus, black pride is in part a response to the de-nationalization of the black experience. Most white immigrants and their descendants, on the other hand, choose to celebrate their culture through national pride, which almost no one has a problem with.

I've absolutely never understood people who make such equivocal arguments. It seems willfully blind to history and to the ways it's shaped our culture today. That doesn't even make sense.

 

[Zandy595]

What did it say after that story? Did she say she felt smug that she had that lady put in jail? Or did she say she was ashamed at those actions or surprised granddaddy could actually have that much power to have someone who spanked her thrown in jail? I'd really like to know what her next thought was because that'd make a difference in what I thought of her, I'm sure.

Well, I think you should have included all her thoughts when you told that story. She may have not felt bad when she did it as a little girl but as her got wiser she knew better and obviously felt badly--

I seriously doubt she felt smug. Geez...let's just hang her in the town square.

I think the DIS is full of the most judgmental people I have ever been around. They'll point fingers and say "Don't judge, don't judge" but first chance they get, they will only hear/read what they want, there is no listening and really hearing. Twist and turn things into more and worse than was said. OK, you dislike her, maybe always have disliked her--fine. But I cannot believe that anyone who reads the deposition cannot see that this is all in her past.

I'm out. I do not think any of it was right but I also understand she wasn't going around last month saying these things. It is no wonder she turned the Today Show down. People will hear and believe what they want.

She said in the book...'All these years it should have been ME sitting in that jail..." That means she knows it was wrong and feel bad for her actions. Yet, even though she said this, what she REALLY meant but her publisher would not allow her to say was "I felt smug." Give me a break!!

In case you forgot, you were the first one to use the word "smug".

 

[GigglyFigment]

Oh no, you didn't just go there. Racism isn't just an "older and from Georgia" problem. To even make a blanket statement like that is just ignorant. I'm older and I'm from Georgia but I have never used that kind of language. My sisters and brother are older and they're all from Alabama. Care to guess how many of them are racists? That's right. NONE. I daresay there are just about as many racists in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, and California as there are in Georgia.

It isn't an ignorant blanket statement. I'm from the South and I'm not racist.

When she was a child, black people used a different water fountain, a different bathroom, etc. They weren't allowed places where white people could go. She grew up in a home with a black servant whose child she treated as a plaything, not a person. She clearly never stopped thinking of them in that way.

Racism in general is not an "older and from Georgia" problem. It's everywhere. However, in the case of Paula Deen, location and time IS a factor. Just as with every generation, there are people who raised with different values and beliefs that never change even the majority of society evolves past those values and beliefs.

The South does have a history of treating black people like subhuman things that are owned and controlled and it seems that her family passed that onto her - and then she passed it onto her children. There are other situations across the country where racism is passed on, but this is about a white southern woman with a family history and to say that location and age has nothing to do with it is silly.

She's done other controversial things in the past - like continuing to cook horribly unhealthy versions of southern foods while diabetic and not changing anything until she could make more money out of it. She was raised in a way that it is easy for her to treat those she feels as being beneath her as things for her amusement or to further increase her bank account. Some people "wake up" and realize the way they were raised in some ways was not right, some never do and apparently Paula Deen is the latter, not the former.

And as to her being devastated? I'm sure she is. She's lost her contract and she's been hurt in a way that she will never fully recover. I'm sure she wants everyone's money and now she'll just have to settle for the money from like-minded folks. She used slurs and yes, that wedding idea was horribly racist and of course she knew it - if she wasn't the idea wouldn't have exited her brain via her lips with the added note about how people would be all over her if she did what she thought would be "shirley temple like" complete with the jolly slave slant. Never mind that she could have achieved a similar result with a variety of skintones, but in her mind they had to be black.

 

[Buckalew11]

In case you forgot, you were the first one to use the word "smug".

Oh I did not forget. You could insert any word with equal meaning in there. The word "smug" isn't the important thing. The fact that you were insinuating that she did that as a child and may have wanted to say something similar to being smug but wasn't allowed to because of her people/publishers is just absurd to me.

 

[Tomader]

Racism is alive everywhere. It's in the black community as well as the white. The N word needs to stop being used by blacks. I think it's terrible how they use it so freely. I personally could careless what Paula Deen says or does. People of ALL races make comments about others.

 

[Luv'sTink]

No offense, but one example in a 300 year history? Are you kidding?

Are you? Google.

And remember 30 years ago we didn't have the Internet where billions if people find out about something at the same time and its all over the place.

Was there internet two years ago? Yes, I think there was and how widely was this reported, how much outrage did this gather?

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/08/black_teenagers_mob_race_riot_wisonsin_state_fair.php


I remember having to actually look up the story after someone asked me if I had seen it, because there was nothing on my local station about it.

 

[java]

So what happens to son Bobbys show not my Mommas meals! She makes a cameo every episode. Will they cancel that one? I actually like a couple of his lighter version recipes. I hope he stays. And Jamies new show just started. I don't know if she is a racist or not.

I have said plenty of stupid things but the N word isn't one of them.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

The Food Network has decided that Paula Deen's contract will not be renewed when the existing one ends next month.

 

[chobie]

Are you? Google.

Was there internet two years ago? Yes, I think there was and how widely was this reported, how much outrage did this gather?

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/08/black_teenagers_mob_race_riot_wisonsin_state_fair.php

Well not as much outrage as there was over "Hymie town" which is still being brought up 30 years later.

 

[happygirl]

It's a shame she lost her job. I will miss her shows.

 

[chobie]

Well not as much outrage as there was over "Hymie town" which is still being brought up 30 years later.

And that was the only thing I was talking about. Jessie said that years before the Internet, yet google "Hymie town" and see what comes up.

 

[LSmith]

For your information to all black people it is not FINE. It is used, I'm told, in the hip hop world like the negative word for a female is because, guess what, it's for SHOCK. And that word is NOT acceptable, either, by decent people. Just because "hip hop" crossed over with it and made ignoramuses millionaires does not make it acceptable behavior.

I'm sure no one dragged your daddy out of bed and called him a honky or a redneck and made laws to make him part of a person. I'm sure that never happened to your daddy. But hey, it's just a WORD.

I distinctly remember Oprah saying on her show that she and Gayle call each other the N word as a joke all of the time. She seemed to think that it was ok as long as you were black. Personally, I object strongly to the word, period.

Tons of people have called my non-white police officer husband racists names but he refuses to take it personally. Always has been like this even as a child. He has taught our children, "consider the source and give them pity".

The Chinese people came to Canada and were treated as slaves to build the railroads, etc. My husband's grandfather came to Toronto in the 50's and worked as a doctor and ended up not getting paid for a year plus work while two of his children starved to death in China because he didn't have any money to send home and the conditions in China were so severe. Slavery here, slavery there. He almost starved himself.

Lots of slavery happened in lots of races and continues to this day in all of the third world countries.

 

[Jen77]

I think Food Network went a bit too far in letting her go. She was so popular with the fans, I hope this comes back to bite Food Network in the backside. To hold her feet to the fire for something that happened over 30 years ago in her home is insane. Paula did the right thing she owned it and apologized.