Hello you!
Oh, that's the wrong Paula. But I'd ask the same (sort of) question featured in that image to the other, not-so-cute Paula. The one all over today's news-buzz. Seriously, Ms. Deen, are you high?
What is up with this "I grew up in another time and place" crap? I was born in segregated Birmingham and that messed up situation is something I never "absorbed". In fact, it was like living in a Twilight Zone episode. If there is a generation who should totally shun racism and any of its weapons or words, it should be us -- those raised in the Southern sinkhole of Jim Crow, Paula D. and me.
But what do I know. I'm an ex-dancer and an adjunct English instructor without the proper apologetic credentials or modest underwear.
Today, CNN is featuring the Paula Deen drama in tandem with the latest on Mr. Snowden, Mandela's precarious health and the George Zimmerman trial. But it is the "little" stories of Paula and George that are fusing in my head. And I don't mean the stories of Paula Abdul and Boy George (I wish). Fat Paula and fearful George represent the new reactive mentality, prompted by the election of a brilliant, dark President (who is someone I support even as I throw dishes across the room when I consider Gitmo, First Amendment violations and considerable support given to the horrible oil companies).
Chauncey De Vega's blog says it just right. This is what I am thinking, and Chauncey says it better than I can:
"Food celebrity Paula Deen’s admission in a recent anti-discrimination lawsuit that she routinely uses racial slurs such as “nigger”, and how she yearns for a return to Jim and Jane Crow America, is an almost perfect moment where she broke the metaphorical fourth wall of racism in the Age of Obama.
In her deposition she explained how:
[W]hen asked if she wanted black men to play the role of slaves at a wedding she explained she got the idea from a restaurant her husband and her had dined at saying, “The whole entire waiter staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie.
“I mean, it was really impressive. That restaurant represented a certain era in America…after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War…It was not only black men, it was black women…I would say they were slaves.”
Such images remain potent in American popular culture. And
for some white folks of a certain age, as well as those possessed of a conservative, Right-wing
political orientation, such images embody “real America”, and a "simpler" time before
black and brown folks "forgot their place", the gays and lesbians came out of the
closet, and women embraced feminism."
Hooyah, Mr. De Vega. There it is.
Now, imagine my joy (read this as sarcasm please) when I drive up to Alabama this week to visit Mom and get to hear the bigots spew "reverse racism" nonsense in defense of that Crisco-dripping-kitchen-hag, Paula. And, similarly, their defense of George, the man who uses his Second Amendment rights because he can't handle a verbal battle or (if this is what happened) a manly little fist-fight.
So. What I know is this: their time is up. With or without them, we are moving on.
Depending on what state you live in.
Signing off with kisses and so many cheers for the Miami Heat's NBA victory. Gotta love that.
Your Joyce
