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You know things have gone “south” (if you’ll pardon the expression) when a stick of butter goes on TV to announce it’s disassociating itself from you. That’s right, butter wants a cease-and-desist order issued against Paula Deen so she can never ever use butter again in one of her recipes. It was bad enough Deen got diabetes and started hawking sugar-free recipes, but now she’s gone and admitted using the “N-word” in the past, and butter just can’t take it anymore.
“Let her use margarine,” was the way butter put it when CNN’s Anderson Cooper (or is it Cooper Anderson? Who the hell has two last names anyway?) interviewed it.
In case you’ve been stuffing your face with macaroni and cheese and missed it, Deen was deposed in connection with a former employee’s sexual-harassment suit filed against her and her brother “Bubba.” The employee claimed her workers used racist language. Under oath, Deen admitted using the “N-word,” but only when under duress or making a joke (I think Paula is still telling those “Little Black Sambo” jokes). One time she used the epithet when a gun was pointed at her during a robbery back in 1986. What she meant to say was, “I need a strong black man to help in my kitchen, are you interested?” As far as the jokes go, everybody knows you need a Jew, some blacks or a stray gay to make a joke really funny.
Deen wants you to know just because her confederate bean soup is a menu favorite doesn’t mean she is yearning for the days of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. However, she admits she wanted to stage a Southern plantation-type wedding for her brother, complete with “slaves” dressed in formal clothes while waiting on the guests and presumably Aunt Jemima cooking in the kitchen. Deen admits to a fondness for that time before the Civil War when the world was young and Thomas Mitchell’s character in “Gone with the Wind” ran Tara. But frankly, my dear, I personally don’t give a damn. Deen didn’t follow through on her plantation-style celebration because she thought the mean ol’ media (obviously populated with Yankee spies) would use the occasion to criticize her. Well, as far as Deen is concerned, they can take her biscuits and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
Deen also admitted to saying she would not stand by and let a piece of (slang for the female private parts) destroy her empire. If butter could blush, it would’ve over that one, but, of course, it can’t as the Geico commercial says, “It’s a stick of butter.”
When confronted with the fact her brother “Bubba” often watched porn at the workplace and showed it to the employees, Deen professed a lack of concern. Now if he had hung a picture of Gen. William Sherman on the wall next to the menu, Deen would’ve really been ticked. She also was not very interested in knowing employers told sexist and racist jokes at Uncle Bubba’s (that’s the name of the restaurant, You thought it would be Le Bec Jefferson Davis?). Deen claims she’s never met a man who didn’t tell one. Since she’s been on the “Today Show,” that doesn’t speak well for Matt Lauer and Al Roker, does it?
Speaking of the “Today Show,” the grits really hit the fan when Deen originally bailed on her TV appearance. She was scheduled to be interviewed by Matt Lauer. Instead Deen opted for issuing a videotaped apology of sorts where an interviewer wouldn’t be questioning her. She was promptly dropped by The Food Network, where she made her claim to fame. Deen’s mistake was not scheduling an appearance on “Fox & Friends” where she likely would’ve gotten a warm reception as another victim of the politically incorrect crowd. Hell, they would’ve even allowed her to make her famous baked Vidalia onions with morel butter. Did Julia Childs ever have to put up with this crap?
Deen blamed her Southern heritage. If Paula is going down, honey, she is bringing the entire South down with her. Nevermind she unfairly stereotypes the entire South as a bunch of rednecks, just save her food empire and she’ll throw in an extra pad of butter with that corn bread. I am a product of my times, Paula Deen seems to be saying. Deen was born in Albany, Ga. in 1947. The initial landmark Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress in ’64, followed by additional legislation in ’68. Deen was 17 back then and has had 49 years to shake off her infatuation with plantations. In the interim, she has made millions and been exposed to successful African-Americans (one made it into the White House, Paula, and he’s not from Kenya). She has not continued to be stuck in the backwoods of ’40s Albany, Ga.
Let’s be fair. Many white folks up north have used the “N-word,” black rappers also have helped to keep that word alive in their songs and youths toss the “N-word” around so casually it makes you want to cry. We can’t just sit back and point buttery fingers at Paula Deen.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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