So, listen. By now, I’m sure you’ve already heard the news:
Celebrity chef Paula Deen has admitted to using the N-word and telling insensitive racial jokes during a May 17 deposition that was videotaped — and also confessed to her brother’s cocaine, pornography and alcohol addictions!
Gah, I can’t stand this woman.
Paula, 66, admitted to using the N-word and wanting black waiters to play the role of slaves at a wedding party she was putting together, a new bombshell report from the National Enquirer claims.
“The personal disclosures uncovered have stunned Paula’s family and could mark the collapse of her entire empire,” a source told the tabloid.[source
To be fair, Paula – of course – “does not condone use of the N-word” (because, duh, destruction of her empire!):
USA TODAY asked Deen’s rep for comment, and her lawyer, Bill Franklin, issued a statement: “Contrary to media reports. Ms. Deen does not condone or find the use of racial epithets acceptable. She is looking forward to her day in court.”
and – gasp – she even has “acceptable” excuses:
[…]according to the deposition, one exchange went like this:
Lawyer: “Have you ever used the N-word yourself?”
Paula: “Yes, of course.”Lawyer: “Okay. In what context?”
Paula: “Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.”(Sidenote — Paula was held up at gunpoint during a bank robbery in 1986.)
It’s really nice to try to garner sympathy for your racism in a court case for, um… racism, with a sympathetic dog-whistling-ass story about how the evil Black man who held you up in a bank robbery ruined it for everyone else, and he’s the real reason why you use the N-word with impunity as opposed to you using critical thinking and realizing that bad people come in all races… but I’m not here for it.
To be honest, I’ve never been here for Paula, but I can be fair when it’s necessary. It ain’t necessary right now.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if her lawyer engineered that response to garner sympathy. The case is going down in Georgia, which – no shade, my family’s from Selma… civil rights Selma, at that – isn’t known for its tolerance… if her lawyers believed she would be asked about her racism in a racist environment, then telling other people who are likely to be racists… you get the picture.
Those of us who remember when the original lawsuit dropped, will recall the reports which all said the following:
A shocking racial slur against President Barack Obama is just one of the many explosive allegations in a bombshell lawsuit against celebrity chef Paula Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in Georgia on behalf of Lisa Jackson, a past employee of Paula Deen Enterprises.
Among the stunning allegations in the lawsuit: “In the presence of Ms. Jackson and Uncle Bubba’s restaurant manager and a vendor, Bubba Hiers stated they should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico so he could n***er-rig it.”
The lawsuit also claims that Deen herself used the N word in front of employees.
According to the court documents, Jackson states that she was appointed by Deen to handle the catering and staff for Bubba’s wedding in 2007, and she asked Deen what the servers should wear: “Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n***ers 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,” Jackson alleges Deen told her. “Now, that would be a true Southern wedding wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”
The documents state that Jackson became the General Manager of Bubba’s Oyster and Seafood House in Savannah, Georgia, which is co-owned by Deen and Bubba, after the previous GM, who was male, was fired for having sexual relations with the servers. Deen allegedly said in a meeting in which Jackson was present, “If you think I have worked this hard to lose everything because of a piece of p**y, you better think again, and now I’m going to do something I have never done I am going to put a woman in a man’s job.”
Jackson was given six months to turn the restaurant from a failure into a success and she did so, by doubling the profits of the restaurant, but she alleges she was sexually harassed by Deen’s brother, who, amongst other accusations, routinely viewed pornography on a computer in a small office he shared with Jackson. “Bubba Hiers is a frequent customer of pornography web sites and would download and view such sites at work. In the small office he shared with Jackson, it was impossible for her to avoid the pornography,” the lawsuit states. [[source]
You can read the full case brought against her and her brother here.
Listen. That woman’s a scumbag. A well-marketed, business-savvy scumbag, but a scumbag nonetheless.
…and twitter – oh, how I love you, twitter – had quite a ball exploiting the situation. And lots of news outlets had a ball exploiting the clever, well-crafted tweets ridiculing Paula and her apparent ability to be a racist scumbag with impunity. (That’s an entirely different rant for an entirely different day, though.)
What do you think? Raise your hand if you’re genuinely surprised by all this… and keep them high, so that I know who to sell this bridge out in Brooklyn.