Thread: The Food Network has fired Paula Deen

Will HBO fire Bill Maher?
Both used ugly epithets to describe other individuals.

Hey y'all, Paula Deen loses another major sponsor after admitting to using racial slur
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 2:04am

NATIONAL NEWS (CNN) — Paula Deen has lost another major sponsor. Smithfield Foods has terminated its contract with the celebrity chef after she admitted using a racial slur.

Her comments became public in a lawsuit deposition. Deen is being sued for sexual and racial harassment by a former general manager of one of her Georgia restaurants.

Smithfield issued a statement saying they "condemn the use of offensive and discriminatory language" of any kind. Deen became a spokesperson for Smithfield Foods, the country's largest producer of pork products, in 2006.

The Food Network decided not to renew Deen's contract after the comments came to light.

http://www.nbc33tv.com/news/hey-yall-paula-deen-loses


Kevin Sorbo: Paula Deen case highlights ‘hypocrisy of America’ ==> http://twitchy.com/2013/06/25/kevin-...sy-of-america/

Kevin Sorbo ✔ @ksorbs

And this is why I love the hypocrisy of America.....Oh, and thank God none of us have EVER been racist. Only... http://fb.me/37Jb5XvR9

7:54 PM - 24 Jun 2013

Smithfield Foods today joined Food Network in severing ties with chef Paula Deen, and QVC said in a statement that the network has no immediate plans for Deen to appear. There’s always Twitter, though, and this evening Deen tweeted her appreciation to supporters. While not condoning her words, actor Kevin Sorbo today pointed out what had many scratching their heads a few months back.


Remember when Matt Drudge was accused of being racist --- for pointing out Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in “Django Unchained”? http://twitchy.com/2012/12/12/drudge...d-infatuation/




I don't condone her saying that stuff but are we really willing to live in a world where we can lose our jobs over every little ignorant thing we said in private that we wish we hadn't decades ago that some enemy dug up? We can all sit here on our soapboxes about it but none of our hands are clean when it comes to ever saying something we wish we hadn't. Now if she was actually still saying racist things and discriminating based on race then that would be a different story.


Imagine that ? Bill Maher Defends Paula Deen http://eater.com/archives/2013/06/22...paula-deen.php

comments

I don't think it's going to hurt her. For one, the lawsuit filed by Ms. Jackson should have been against Bubba Hiers (read the complaint)-not her. That's where her real beef is. Not only that, if it weren't for Paula Deen "Smithfield" (which is now bought out by the Chinese) would have went under. Dawg the Bounty Hunter came back and so will she. Martha Stewart survived her bull also. The only reason Paula Deen got singled out is because she is a SWF--meaning Southern White Female and these stories are often used to stereotype the entire south. That's what's really going on here.

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Where is the outrage when rappers, with FAR more influence over impressionable children than Dean has, employ that despicable word?

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A slur against a man who held a gun to her head while robbing the bank she worked in....that's HIS tough luck.

Too bad if she hurt HIS feelings ....

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I read her deposition also. She specifically said that the idea of the 'southern wedding' (about which the attorney, not Paula, introduced the word "slave") would be misinterpreted. That's hardly being "tone deaf."
Her admission of using the N word was her recollection of the time when she worked in a bank and a black man held a gun to her head. She said it was likely she used the word when describing the incident to her husband.
And we're supposed to be a forgiving people. ?
And for something like this, she loses her career. ?
Let he who is w/o sin, and all that.

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Why is it that if you are espousing left leaning drivel you can say ANYTHING you want to but the minute any down home type say anything, even 30 years ago, that it can't be forgiven?

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What bothers me is that we all know we use these words. Everyone talks trash. So why is this woman being hung on the cross? Get mad? Yes. Don't watch her show. Yes if that's what you want. But to get her fired and ruin her career over something she said 30 years ago. That is just stupid when we all know we are guilty of the same damn thing. I don't know anyone of any color or any ethnicity that hasn't used disparaging words against others. Everyone needs to grow up.

SAVANNAH, GA (CNN) - Paula Deen's sons say their mother is no racist. Jamie and Bobby Deen spoke exclusively to CNN's "New Day."

They say their mother is not the picture being painted in the media. "The important thing here is for people to know that-that is not her heart. It is certainly not the home that we were raised in. We were raised in a family with love and of faith and a house where God lived," said Bobby Deen. "And neither one of our parents ever taught us to be bigoted towards any other person for any reason," And this is so saddening to me because our mother is one of the most compassionate, good-hearted empathetic people that you'd ever meet and these accusations are very hurtful to her and it's very sad and, frankly, I'm disgusted by the entire thing because it began as extortion and it has become character assassination."

Paula Deen admitted to using the n-word in the past during a lawsuit deposition. A former manager of one of her restaurants is suing for sexual and racial harassment.

The Food Network announced Friday it will not renew Deen's contract.

And Deen has lost an endorsement deal with Smithfield Foods.

http://www.wafb.com/story/22679902/p...edium=facebook

Paula Deen story dishes up some Southern food for thought
Celebrity chef doesn't seem to get that her actions speak louder than her words
Dahleen Glanton - June 25, 2013

Now we know that Paula Deen has used the N-word.

Was it a bad thing? Absolutely. Am I up in arms about it? Not really.

As a child of the Deep South, I am not surprised that some white people like to sit around with like-minded friends and make jokes about African-Americans. Certainly these folks are not in the majority, but they also are not an anomaly. The way they see it, using the N-word and cracking racial jokes are just a part of their Southern heritage. It's how they were raised. Their grandparents did it and their mamma and daddy did it sitting around the supper table, so poking fun at minorities comes naturally.

In other words, ignorance has been passed down through generations.

At least, that's what the 66-year-old Deen was suggesting in her deposition recently while defending herself in a discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee.

Maybe she did inherit bigotry. But that's her problem, not mine.

For all I care, she can knock herself out using the N-word in the privacy of her "bathroom/den combination," as she called it in her deposition.

What I do I care about, though, is whether she allowed that bigotry to be carried over into the workplace. A former employee at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, a restaurant Deen co-owns with her brother in Savannah, Ga., claims that she did.

The former general manager says in a lawsuit filed against Deen and her brother Bubba that racial slurs, racist jokes and the viewing of pornography were common there. The woman, who is white, also says black staff members were required to use the back entrance and were not allowed to use a restroom assigned to customers, while white employees could.

Jabari Asim, an associate professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College in Boston and editor of the NAACP magazine, "The Crisis," says he's afraid that the hoopla over Deen's admission that she has used the N-word in the past could overshadow the serious allegations in the lawsuit.

"There's no way to defend the reprehensible language she has used. And to use region and time as an excuse does not hold water," said Asim, author of the book "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why." "The real issue here is her behavior, not so much the language."

Southerners aren't the only ones to use racial slurs, but it is easier for some folks in Dixie to try to rationalize it.

While the nation moved forward, people like Deen and Bubba chose to remain stuck in a time warp, paralyzed by dreams of a grandiose bygone era spoiled by the Civil War. The South might have lost the war, but these folks have yet to surrender.

For the most part, Savannah is a progressive, racially mixed city, where cobblestone streets, whispering willow trees and large antebellum homes exude Southern charm. It is easy for some people who were born during the segregation era to imagine they're at Tara from "Gone With the Wind" in such a genteel city.

And when they need a good laugh, they just dig up old stereotypes from slavery.

With a hefty staff of African-Americans — some likely poor and uneducated Gullah-Geechees from the Lowcountry working in the kitchens of her down-home restaurants — I imagine there was never a shortage of comedic material for Bubba and his friends to use.

Many of my white friends in Chicago as well as in the South are appalled by such behavior. In their circles, people don't make racial jokes. And if someone tried, it most certainly would not be tolerated.

But Deen and Bubba live in a different world, one where, according to her deposition, every man she has come in contact with has a racial joke.

"Most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. … They usually target ... a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know," she said in the deposition. "I just don't know, what to say. I can't, myself, determine what offends another person."

Now we know that Paula Deen has used the N-word.

Was it a bad thing? Absolutely. Am I up in arms about it? Not really.

As a child of the Deep South, I am not surprised that some white people like to sit around with like-minded friends and make jokes about African-Americans. Certainly these folks are not in the majority, but they also are not an anomaly.

The way they see it, using the N-word and cracking racial jokes are just a part of their Southern heritage. It's how they were raised. Their grandparents did it and their mamma and daddy did it sitting around the supper table, so poking fun at minorities comes naturally.

In other words, ignorance has been passed down through generations.

At least, that's what the 66-year-old Deen was suggesting in her deposition recently while defending herself in a discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee.

Maybe she did inherit bigotry. But that's her problem, not mine.

For all I care, she can knock herself out using the N-word in the privacy of her "bathroom/den combination," as she called it in her deposition.

What I do I care about, though, is whether she allowed that bigotry to be carried over into the workplace. A former employee at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, a restaurant Deen co-owns with her brother in Savannah, Ga., claims that she did.

The former general manager says in a lawsuit filed against Deen and her brother Bubba that racial slurs, racist jokes and the viewing of pornography were common there. The woman, who is white, also says black staff members were required to use the back entrance and were not allowed to use a restroom assigned to customers, while white employees could.

Jabari Asim, an associate professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College in Boston and editor of the NAACP magazine, "The Crisis," says he's afraid that the hoopla over Deen's admission that she has used the N-word in the past could overshadow the serious allegations in the lawsuit.

"There's no way to defend the reprehensible language she has used. And to use region and time as an excuse does not hold water," said Asim, author of the book "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why." "The real issue here is her behavior, not so much the language."

Southerners aren't the only ones to use racial slurs, but it is easier for some folks in Dixie to try to rationalize it.

While the nation moved forward, people like Deen and Bubba chose to remain stuck in a time warp, paralyzed by dreams of a grandiose bygone era spoiled by the Civil War. The South might have lost the war, but these folks have yet to surrender.

For the most part, Savannah is a progressive, racially mixed city, where cobblestone streets, whispering willow trees and large antebellum homes exude Southern charm. It is easy for some people who were born during the segregation era to imagine they're at Tara from "Gone With the Wind" in such a genteel city.

And when they need a good laugh, they just dig up old stereotypes from slavery.

With a hefty staff of African-Americans — some likely poor and uneducated Gullah-Geechees from the Lowcountry working in the kitchens of her down-home restaurants — I imagine there was never a shortage of comedic material for Bubba and his friends to use.

Many of my white friends in Chicago as well as in the South are appalled by such behavior. In their circles, people don't make racial jokes. And if someone tried, it most certainly would not be tolerated.

But Deen and Bubba live in a different world, one where, according to her deposition, every man she has come in contact with has a racial joke.

"Most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. … They usually target ... a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know," she said in the deposition. "I just don't know, what to say. I can't, myself, determine what offends another person."

It reminded her of how things used to be in Savannah, back when her great-grandfather ran a big plantation with 30 slaves. At the end of the war, she said in an interview once, he was so distraught that he committed suicide.

At Bubba's, the lawsuit claims, blacks weren't allowed to hold jobs that would place them at the front of the restaurant and were relegated mostly to the kitchen.

That's the problem with being racially insensitive. How could anyone who sees African-Americans as fodder for their jokes possibly consider them qualified to be a manager or even a cashier?

Deen, who's been fired from the Food Network and also lost her ham endorsement deal with Smithfield Foods, says she wants to learn from this experience.

Now that she's become the butt of the joke on Twitter, she might have a better idea of what's offensive to others. And if she's smart, she's learned a moral lesson too.

The next time she goes into a restaurant and a waiter dressed like a slave shows up at her table, she should get up and leave.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...7.story?page=2

Many of my white friends in Chicago as well as in the South are appalled by such behavior. In their circles, people don't make racial jokes. And if someone tried, it most certainly would not be tolerated.

I call Bull---- right there. Biden, Clinton and Reid all made jokes publicly about then candidate Obama duing his first run for the POTUS

The next time she goes into a restaurant and a waiter dressed like a slave shows up at her table, she should get up and leave.

Would that make me MORE racist or LESS to refuse to allow someone to do their job based on their skin color ??

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Why stop with Paula Deen? If she is sooooo wrong let's destroy the livlihood of every person who has ever used a racial slur whether it was embedded in a JOKE or directed at an individual.

."I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

–Joe Biden, referring to Barack Obama at the beginning of the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Jan. 31, 2007

"You cannot go to work in a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.... I'm not joking."

--Joe Biden, in a private remark to an Indian-American man caught on C-SPAN, June, 2006

“Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they're proposing. [Romney] said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks write their own rules -- unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains."

--Joe Biden, speaking to a largely African-American audience in Danville, Va., Aug. 14, 2012

Can we fire Joe ???

Actress Stacey Dash attacked after tweeting that only God can judge Paula Deen
http://twitchy.com/2013/06/26/actres...ge-paula-deen/

An Open Letter to Paula Deen
Posted: 06/26/2013 9:17 am

Dear Paula Deen,

So it's been a tough week for you... believe me you I know something about tough weeks being a beginning food writer and lowly culinary historian. Of course honey, I'd kill for one of your worst days as I could rest myself on the lanai, the veranda, the portico (ok that was really tongue in cheek), the porch..whatever...as long as its breezy and mosquito-free. First Food Network now Smithfield. (Well not so mad about Smithfield -- not the most ethical place to shill for, eh, Paula?)

I am currently engaged in a project I began in 2011 called The Cooking Gene Project -- my goal to examine family and food history as the descendant of Africans, Europeans and Native Americans -- enslaved people and enslavers -- from Africa to America and from Slavery to Freedom. You and I are both human, we are both Americans, we are both quite "healthily" built, and yet none of these labels is more profound for me than the fact we are both Southern. Sweet tea runs in our blood, in fact is our blood... What I understand to be true, a lot of your critics don't... which is, as Southerners our ancestors co-created the food and hospitality and manners which you were born to 66 years ago and I, 36. In the words of scholar Mechal Sobel, this was "a world they made together," but beyond that, it is a world we make together. So I speak to you as a fellow Southerner, a cousin if you will, not as a combatant.

To be part of the national surprise towards you saying the word "nigger" in the past (I am a cultural and culinary historian and so therefore I am using the word within context...) is at best naïve and at worst, an attempt to hide the pervasiveness of racism, specifically anti-Black racism in certain currents of American culture -- not just Southern. Take for example the completely un-Christian and inhuman rage at Cheerios for their simple and very American ad showing a beautiful biracial girl talking to her white mother and pouring cereal on the chest of her Black father. That Cheerio's had to shut down the comments section says that the idea of inter-human relationships outside of one's color bracket is for many hiding behind a computer screen -- a sign of the apocalypse. So just like those old spaghetti sauce ads, yes, America, racism -- "it's in there" even when we were prefer it not be.

When you said, "of course," I wasn't flabbergasted, I was rather, relieved... In fact we Black Southerners have an underground saying, "better the Southern white man than the Northern one, because at least you know where he stands..." but Paula I knew what you meant, and I knew where you were coming from. I'm not defending that or saying its right -- because it's that word -- and the same racist venom that drove my grandparents into the Great Migration almost 70 years ago. I am not in agreement with esteemed journalist Bob Herbert who said "brothers shouldn't use it either.." I think women have a right to the word "b...." gay men have a right to the word "queer" or "f..." and it's up to people with oppressive histories to decide when and where the use of certain pejorative terms is appropriate. Power in language is not a one way street. Obviously I am not encouraging you to use the word further, but I am not going to hide behind ideals when the realities of our struggles with identity as a nation are clear. No sound bite can begin to peel back the layers of this issue.

Some have said you are not a racist. Sorry, I don't believe that... I am more of the Avenue Q type--everybody's -- you guessed it -- a little bit racist. This is nothing to be proud of no more than we are proud of our other sins and foibles. It's something we should work against. It takes a lifetime to unlearn taught prejudice or socially mandated racism or even get over strings of negative experiences we've had with groups outside of our own. We have a really lousy language -- and I don't just mean because we took a Spanish and Portuguese word (negro) and turned into the most recognizable racial slur on earth... in any language... because we have a million and one ways to hate, disdain, prejudge, discriminate and yet we hide behind a few paltry words like racism, bigotry, prejudice when we damn well know that we have thousands of words for cars -- because we LOVE cars... and food -- because we LOVE food -- and yet in this language you and I share, how we break down patterns of thought that lead to social discord like racism, are sorely lacking. We are a clever people at hiding our obsessions with downgrading the other.

Problem two... I want you to understand that I am probably more angry about the cloud of smoke this fiasco has created for other issues surrounding race and Southern food. To be real, you using the word "nigger" a few times in the past does nothing to destroy my world. It may make me sigh for a few minutes in resentment and resignation, but I'm not shocked or wounded. No victim here. Systemic racism in the world of Southern food and public discourse, not your past epithets, are what really piss me off. There is so much press and so much activity around Southern food and yet the diversity of people of color engaged in this art form and telling and teaching its history and giving it a future are often passed up or disregarded. Gentrification in our cities, the lack of attention to Southern food deserts often inhabited by the non-elites that aren't spoken about, the ignorance and ignoring of voices beyond a few token Black cooks/chefs or being called on to speak to our issues as an afterthought is what gets me mad. In the world of Southern food, we are lacking a diversity of voices and that does not just mean Black people -- or Black perspectives! We are surrounded by culinary injustice where some Southerners take credit for things that enslaved Africans and their descendants played key roles in innovating. Barbecue, in my lifetime, may go the way of the Blues and the banjo... a relic of our culture that whisps away. That tragedy rooted in the unwillingness to give African American barbecue masters and other cooks an equal chance at the platform is far more galling than you saying "nigger," in childhood ignorance or emotional rage or social whimsy.

Culinary injustice is what you get where you go to plantation museums and enslaved Blacks are not even talked about, but called servants. We are invisible. Visitors come from all over to marvel at the architecture and wallpaper and windowpanes but forget the fact that many of those houses were built by enslaved African Americans or that the food that those plantations were renowned for came from Black men and Black women truly slaving away in the detached kitchens. Imagine how I, a culinary historian and living history interpreter feel during some of these tours where my ancestors are literally annihilated and whisked away to the corners of those rooms, dying multiple deaths of anonymity and cultural amnesia. I'm so tired of reading about how "okra" is an "African word."(For land's sake ya know "apple" isn't a "European word..." its an English word that comes from German like okra comes from Igbo and Twi!) I am so tired of seeing people of African descent relegated to the tertiary status when even your pal Alton Brown has said, it was enslaved Black people cooking the food. Culinary injustice is the annihilation of our food voices -- past, present and foreseeable future -- and nobody will talk about that like they are talking about you and the "n word." For shame.

You see Paula, your grits may not be like mine, but one time I saw you make hoecakes on your show and I never heard tell of where them hoecakes really came from. Now not to compare apples and oranges but when I was a boy it was a great pleasure to hear Nathalie Dupree talk about how beaten biscuits and country captain and gumbo started. More often than not, she gave a nod to my ancestors. Don't forget that the Southern food you have been crowned the queen of was made into an art largely in the hands of enslaved cooks, some like the ones who prepared food on your ancestor's Georgia plantation. You, just like me cousin, stand squarely on what late playwright August Wilson called, "the self defining ground of the slave quarter." There and in the big house kitchen, Africa, Europe and Native America(s) melded and became a fluid genre of world cuisine known as Southern food. Your barbecue is my West African babbake, your fried chicken, your red rice, your hoecake, your watermelon, your black eyed peas, your crowder peas, your muskmelon, your tomatoes, your peanuts, your hot peppers, your Brunswick stew and okra soup, benne, jambalaya, hoppin' john, gumbo, stewed greens and fat meat -- have inextricable ties to the plantation South and its often Black Majority coming from strong roots in West and Central Africa.

Don't be fooled by the claims that Black people don't watch you. We've been watching you. We all have opinions about you. You were at one point sort of like our Bill Clinton. (You know the "first Black president?") When G. Garvin and the Neely's and the elusive B Smith (who they LOVED to put on late on Saturday nights or early Sunday mornings!) were few and far between, you were our sorta soul mama, the white lady with the gadonkadonk and the sass and the signifying who gave us a taste of the Old Country-which is for us -- the former Confederacy and just beyond. Furthermore, as a male who practices an "alternative lifestyle" (and by the way I am using that phrase in bitter sarcastic irony), it goes without saying that many of my brothers have been you for Halloween, and you are right up there with Dolly Parton, Dixie Carter and Tallullah Bankhead of old as one of the muses of the Southern gay male imagination. We don't despise you, we don't even think you made America fat. We think you are a businesswoman who has made some mistakes, has character flaws like everybody else and in fact is now a scapegoat. I find it hard to be significantly angry at you when during the last election the re-disenfranchisement of the Negro -- like something from the time of W.E.B. Du Bois was a national cause celebre. Hell, today the voting rights act was gutted and I'm sure many think this is a serious win for "democracy." If I want to be furious about something racial -- well America -- get real -- we've had a good 12 years of really really rich material that the national media has set aside to talk about Paula Deen. Yes Paula, in light of all these things, you are "the ultimate, consummate racist, and the one who made us fat, and the reason why American food sucks and..." you don't believe that any more than I do.

A fellow Georgian of yours once said that one day the "sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would sit down at the table of brotherhood." Well no better time than now. Paula, I don't have to tell you redemption is yours to choose, to have and to embrace. As a Jew, I extend the invitation to do teshuvah -- which means to repent -- but better -- to return to a better state, a state of shalem-wholeness and shalom-peace. You used food to rescue your life, your family and your destiny. I admire that. I know that I have not always made good choices and to be honest none of us are perfect. This is an opportunity to grow and renew.

If there is anything The Cooking Gene has taught me -- its about the art of reconciliation. We aren't happy with you right now. Then again some of the things you have said or have been accused of saying aren't surprising. In so many ways, that's the more unfortunate aspect. We are resigned to believe and understand that our neighbor is to be suspected before respected. It doesn't have to be this way, and it doesn't have to go on forever. As a species we cannot conduct ourselves in this manner. As creations of the Living G-d, we are commanded to be better. You and I are both the descendants of people who lived, fought, died, suffered so that we could be better in our own time. I'm disappointed but I'm not heartless. And better yet, praise G-d I ain't hopeless.

If you aren't busy on September 7, and I surely doubt that you are not busy -- I would like to invite you to a gathering at a historic antebellum North Carolina plantation. We are doing a fundraiser dinner for Historic Stagville, a North Carolina Historic Site. One of the largest in fact, much larger than the one owned by your great-grandfather's in Georgia. 30,000 acres once upon a time with 900 enslaved African Americans working the land over time. They grew tobacco, corn, wheat and cotton. I want you to walk the grounds with me, go into the cabins, and most of all I want you to help me cook. Everything is being prepared using locally sourced food, half of which we hope will come from North Carolina's African American farmers who so desperately need our support. Everything will be cooked according to 19th century methods. So September 7, 2013, if you're brave enough, let's bake bread and break bread together at Historic Stagville. This isn't publicity this is opportunity. Leave the cameras at home. Don't worry, it's cool, nobody will harm you if you're willing to walk to the Mourner's Bench. Better yet, I'll be there right with you.

God Bless,
Culinary Historian, Food Writer and Living History Interpreter
Michael W. Twitty

This will probably get me in hot water but here's goes...

Micheal Jackson was accused of sexual abuse with children. After his first allegation, he released his greatest hits album and it became one of the best selling multi-discs collections of all time.

Tiger Woods had numerous affairs with his wife and claimed sex addiction. He still plays golf, still has sponsors, still wins, and is still respected by the sports world.

Anthony Wiener "accidentally" posted inappropriate pictures of his "area" on Twitter. He is now a candidate for the mayor of New York.

Britney Spears had a psychotic break and shaved her head and went through three failed marriages/engagements. She's still making music and performing.

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J performed a racist song together. Its still available for download and album purchase on Amazon.

The point here is, all of these people were allowed to go on doing what they were doing. Sure sales took a hit, but they recovered. Sure there was backlash, but they were back at it.

Did Academy Sports, Amazon, Twitter, Itunes, ESPN, or anyone else completely drop their representative, fire them from their show, and ban the sale of their product? Last I checked, I could still buy a Britney Spears cd, a Micheal Jackson cd or a Brad Paisley cd. These people got a slap on the wrist and yet you're going to ruin the life of a 66 year old chef because of remarks she made. Yes the remarks are terrible. But how is it that Walmart and other retailers will still make money off an accused sex offender but not Paula Deen?

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J performed a racist song together. Its still available for download and album purchase on Amazon.

Accidental Racist Lyrics

To the man who waited on me
At the Starbucks down on Main
I hope you understand
When I put on that t-shirt
The only thing I meant to say
Is I’m a Skynyrd fan

The red flag on my chest is somehow like the elephant
In the corner of the South
And I just walked him right in the room

Just a proud rebel son
With an old can of worms
Looking like I’ve got a lot to learn
But from my point of view

I’m just a white man
Coming to you from the Southland
Trying to understand what it’s like not to be
I’m proud of where I’m from
But not everything we’ve done
And it ain’t like you and me to rewrite history
Our generation didn’t start this nation
We’re still picking up the pieces
Walking over eggshells
Fighting over yesterday
And caught between southern pride
And southern blame

They called it Reconstruction
Fixed the buildings, dried some tears
We’re still sifting’ through the rubble
After 150 years
I’ll try to put myself in your shoes
And that’s a good place to begin
It ain’t like I can walk a mile
In someone else’s skin

‘Cause I’m just a white man
Living in the Southland
Just like you, I’m more than what you see
I’m proud of where I’m from
And not everything we’ve done
And it ain’t like you and me to rewrite history
Our generation didn’t start this nation
And we’re still paying for the mistakes
Than a bunch of folks made
Long before we came
Caught somewhere between southern pride
And southern blame

[LL Cool J]
Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood
What the world is really like when you’re living in the hood
Just because my pants are saggin’ doesn’t mean I’m up to no good
You should try to get to know me, I really wish you would
Now my chains are gold, but I’m still misunderstood
I wasn’t there when Sherman’s March turned the south into firewood
I want you to get paid, but be a slave I never could
Feel like a new-fangled Django dogging invisible white hoods
So when I see that white cowboy hat, I’m thinking it’s not all good
I guess we’re both guilty of judging the cover, not the book
I’d love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air
But I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn’t here

I’m just a white man
(If you don’t judge my do-rag)
Coming to you from the southland
(I won’t judge your red flag)
Trying to understand what it’s like not to be
I’m proud of where I’m from
(If you forget my gold chains)
But not everything we’ve done
(I’ll forget the iron chains)
It ain’t like you and me can rewrite history
(Can’t rewrite history, baby)
Oh, Dixieland
(The relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixing’)
I hope you understand what this is all about
(Quite frankly, I’m a black Yankee, but I’ve been thinking about this lately)
I’m a son of the New South
(The past is the past, you feel me)
And I just want to make things right
(Let bygones be bygones)
Where all that’s left is southern pride
(RIP Robert E. Lee, but I’ve gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me, know what I mean)

..We had a discussion the other day at lunch about Pault Deen. Some were willing to forgive; others felt she should be held accountable. I think this aritlce is the most reasonable one I have seen. It's all about Grace - and forgiveness - and a good argument for both!


Saying Grace: Paula Deen, Progressives, and Race
June 26, 2013 By Maria Dixon

I am sure that it had to be hard for them. After all, it was clear that they were going to have to explain to their African American professor why going to Brixton was so uncomfortable. I had seen that look many times before. The search for the right words; the really right words that would convince both the teacher and their peers that their reactions were normal. I felt for them in that moment–knowing that they were facing a fear worse than being in Brixton–the fear of being perceived as a racist. They knew that if they said the wrong thing; used the wrong metaphor; emphasized the wrong syllable they would be marked forever, with the scarlet R that would make them outcasts–at least in our study abroad program. I wish I could have told them it was ok. I wish I could have told them to ‘be you’ and we will talk it out, interrogate it, and leave you to work it out. But I knew that if this ‘so-called’ group of ‘cool and informed college kids’ heard anything that sounded like an excuse based on race, these two students would be forever ostracized.

Now according to the party line, I was supposed to jump down these two students throats and explain to them the facts of historical racism and how they had been cultivated to fear anything with a skin color deeper than olive. I was supposed to hold up my fist, label them hate mongers; Fox Television disciples; and cast them into the utter darkness of a C- (these days anything below a B is considered the kiss of death amongst our grade sensitive co-eds). But I didn’t and I won’t.

When it comes to discussing race, progressives have little tolerance for intolerance–past or present. We throw labels around as easily as the Pharisees threw stones at adulterous women. How dare someone not have OUR enlightened view on the world! How dare they not have been born with the innate view of justice, righteousness, and soul that we have!

So when Paula Deen’s transcript was leaked to the press last week, the script was already in place. The media would report that she used the “N” word–everybody would gasp–then the outrage would begin. She would be crucified by the New York Times, Facebook pundits, and of course, her fellow chefs. She would be tried by the court of public opinion who would judge her entire life’s work and character by the use of the “N” word in a private conversation. RACIST! we would yell. She would cry. Her business would be destroyed and progressives would declare victory.

Yet, here is the reality: Deen told the truth about her past. Knowing everything: her empire, her contracts, and sponsorships were at stake–she told the truth. She was more honest under oath than at least 3 US Presidents, several dozen Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, and Non-Denominational preachers and countless business leaders. Unlike the Pope, Joe Paterno, or Donald Trump, she acknowledged she hadn’t always gotten it right but that she and her company was committed to doing it better and were doing better.

Let’s get this straight. I am not condoning anyone calling me or anyone who looks like me by any racial slur. But neither am I going to kill someone’s career because they admit that they have in anger, fear, or IN THE PAST have used one. Here it is in a nutshell–Paula Deen has used the N word. She has either told or listened to racial jokes. She has probably said stuff and joked about stuff that went over the line. So here is the dilemma my oh so righteous progressive friends–any one who hasn’t–please step right up and throw the first stone. But before you reach down to pick it up, you better check YouTube; your best friend’s IPHONE; your high school squeeze’s slam book; or your grandma’s video tapes before you do.

Progressives Christians love to talk about grace except when they have to extend it to someone who has offended their political reality. The grace that we proclaim that washes us clean and entitled us to a new life is for everybody as long as they have not offended our politics. A cursory look at the progressive schizophrenic (and hypocritical) view of who deserves grace bears this out. Anthony Weiner shows his weiner to someone other than his wife–Grace abounds. My beloved Bill Clinton gets a handy j in the oval office–Grace abounds. Barney Frank shacks up with a male prostitute–Grace Abounds. President Obama–doesn’t close Gitmo; listens to our conversations; and uses drones to kill civilians–Grace Abounds. A woman uses the N word AND admits it knowing that a great portion of her clientele is African American (I’d say Paula probably has used it more than that)–our verdict: Off with her head, her show, and her ham.

What really angers me is the fact that most of the people really tripping about Deen’s past are from the North. That’s not to say that Southern African Americans are passive about the use of racial slurs but we are also aware of the reality that mindsets don’t all change at the same pace and that if we judged every white southerner over the age of 50 by what they said in the past, we could never buy a car; house, or eat in a Waffle House ever again. Perhaps the reason that much of the civil rights establishment, the men and women who got their heads beat in on the regular, have not condemned Paula Deen is because they know the complexity of the human heart on matters of race. Moreover, they are also aware that someone’s past doesn’t predict their present. Perhaps they remembered that the same George Wallace that stood in the door at the University of Alabama saying that Blacks would never be welcomed, returned in 1985 to the campus to crown and kiss that year’s Black Homecoming Queen, my sorority sister Deidra Chestang at a time when our campus was threatening to boil over in racial turmoil. That kiss silenced the bigots that day and his words begged all of us to embrace a new South. Though we lost that game to Vanderbilt, that kiss symbolized the magnificent change that God’s grace can make in a man’s heart. Many African Americans are standing by Deen, especially those that through the years she has launched into business because they are judging her actions as well as her words.

The South, which houses the largest concentration of African American wealth, politicians, PhD’s, doctors, lawyers, and yes, even the most Division I head coaches in the 8 time BCS juggernaut SEC– is no longer the black and white film of Eyes on the Prize. It ain’t perfect. God knows it isn’t. Racism still exists in the South–as it does in the North, as it does in the East, as it does in the West. It still exists because people are not perfect. It exists because fear is far more comfortable than love. Yet a whole region of people should not be condemn because of its past and neither should a person.

The students struggled with their words–but in the end they learned. More importantly for all of us, their classmates were willing to love them through the process of naming their fear; embracing their root; and challenging them to find a new way of being. At the end of a very tense yet powerful discussion, one student said, “ well all we can say to this moment is–AMEN.” Indeed, Amen.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mariadi...ives-and-race/