You can read about it, and read Deen's deposition here.
I found it not one teensy eensy bit surprising at all.
In a way, I almost feel sorry for her.
Lemme esplain....no there is too much, lemme sum up. :)
Ok. Paula Deen is an icon. She is the unofficial queen of Southern cooking- an ambassador for her region, if you will. She comes off as that sweet old grandma type that invites you into her kitchen, makes you a sandwich, and a big old glass of sweet tea, and then sits and gabs with you on the front porch rockers while you eat. And this image that she was selling, along with her food and cookbooks, has made her a lot of money. But this was a brightly colored illustration of "Southern life." It was a dream that many Southerners want you to believe- that its a place of fireflies in the evening, of old white columned estates with ivy growing up the sides, of simple people who are generous and kind and maybe just a little sassy. How charming. How idyllic.
The problem is that like any sweeping generalization of an entire group of people, it is inaccurate. Sure there are fireflies and grand old estates, and there are people who embody that sweet stereotype of a Southern lady or gentleman. But there are other, less friendly stereotypes about Southerners too, and Paula Deen's slip-ups have served only to reaffirm those ideas for people who are not from that region.
I lived in Georgia for four years. I lived in a small town, near the Florida border. It's about 90 miles from Albany, where Paula Deen is from. There were some very good people there. However, there are also some people who are die-hard racists. They are unapologetic about their views too. This was a heck of a shock for me, having moved there from the Midwest. Don't get me wrong, there is racism in "America's Heartlands" too, but I had never encountered it in such an in-your-face fashion.
Let me give you some examples:
-My daughter came home from preschool one day, and asked me what a "toilet-n****r" was. I had to pick my chin up off of the floor. When I asked her where in the world she had heard such a thing, she told me a little girl at school had called another child that. Now, I grew up and went to preschool and up to high school in the Midwest, and I had never heard anyone utter the "n word" as an insult, let alone add "toilet" onto it. How appalling! And from a four year old!
-I started working at a restaurant, and was told by a black woman that worked there, "Don't bother talking to me. I hate white people." I was really taken aback by that, and I asked her why. She told me she had never met a nice one. Despite her initial misgivings about me, she eventually decided I was actually ok, and she told me more about the things she had been called growing up, and the things that white people had done to her. I was shocked at how many incidents she'd had to endure in just 20 something years.
-Even as a white woman, I was called a "Yankee" on several occasions. I was also told to "go back where I came from" simply because my accent was different.
And that's just a little sampling of things that I experienced in just four years.
And as of this point in my life, I have lived in six different states- spanning from the Midwest, to the South, to the West Coast to the Southwest. But only in Georgia have I had experiences like that.
So when Paula Deen says that she honestly never meant to hurt anyone, and that she didn't know that what she had done was wrong, I believe her. Why would she think there was anything wrong with the jokes and the use of derogatory racial slurs? Why would she not find the idea of a plantation wedding, complete with all black servants tending to the guests, anything but charming? To her, this is just a Gone With the Wind romance. What I am saying is that, while racism is everywhere, in the South, it is ever-present and acceptable in many circles. Paula Deen is exactly a stereotype of what the South is believed to be, and unfortunately in many ways, what it still is. That's a shame for her, because it has cost her her contracts with Food Network, and now with Smithfield Foods. But it isn't surprising that she has racist views. Not to me, anyway, and probably not to a lot of minorities who live in the South. This is why many of them "hate white people." Because they have dealt with people like Paula all of their lives. Sure the white lady seems nice, but then you find out she has been calling you the "bun that stayed in the oven too long." And she doesn't even think that is cruel, she thinks she's just being cute.
Paula Deen, in an interview from last year, illustrated this perfectly. She even referred to her great-grandfather's slaves as his "workers." It is clear that she does not even begin to grasp how offensive she can be.
So yeah, in a weird way, I do feel sorry for her. She is a product of her time and her place. And her views are on the way out. Her jokes are socially unacceptable in the rest of the country. She just didn't know that because she is surrounded by people who haven't figured it out yet.
Racism isn't part of the charm of the South. It is the thing that holds you back. It is the reason why Paula Deen couldn't hack it on a wider platform for long. The cracks began to show, the truth behind that smile started to come through. Those biscuits come with a side of gravy and bigotry. And for most of the nation, that sours our appetite.
