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WTF Paula Dean?!


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I'd actually never seen Paula Dean prior to seeing these videos.  I had no idea what she looked like and I have never seen her cooking show.  My reaction to her use of the N-word was that people are over reacting.  It just seems inconsistent to hold Paula to a higher standard regarding the use of the N-word in her private life than we hold a comedian or rapper who uses the word in front of thousands.

 

I don't use the N-word or any profanity much today but as a teen and young adult I used the n-word all the time.  Is was part of the way me and I peer spoke.

 

However after seeing this video I can see how and why she would the n-word.  Paul is clearly unsophisticated when it comes to speaking to the public.  I don't suspect she is not very bright either.  She apparently does not have a publicist who knows very much either. 

 

This interview with the times is very telling.  Ever after viewing it I don't believe Paula is a bad person, just not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOOtHsYeEqg

 

Here is a video Paula published a couple of days ago,
"After spending all day soul searching and trying to figure out how to deal with what I did, I recorded a video trying to do the right thing.  In the end, I felt that I needed to just be myself, say I am sorry and beg for forgiveness.

What I said was wrong and hurtful. I know that and will do everything that I can do make it right. I am not about hate, and I will devote myself to showing my family, friends and fans how to live a life helping others, lifting us all up, and spreading love."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkwbyNKC9Kg

 

I think the ratings driven media feeding frenzy has exacerbated the problem.  I doubt many of us could meet the standard Paula was expected to make -- but none of use are losing our livelihoods and careers over it.

 

 

 

 

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It's ironic that black Americans have acquired power in one area, using the impact of words to hold white America hostage.    

 

Reaching back into their African ancestry, taking a page out of our witch doctor playbook,  black Americans  have invoked their mojos and rendered certain utterances taboo. We have muffled the media by making these words or phrases off-limits, and have shackled public figures with the chains of political correctness.  As a result,  it is risky and career-threatening for a white person to call a black man  a "boy",  or to refer to Blacks as "you people" or call them "colored" or "negroes" and above all "NIGGERS". Atonement can take many forms, y'all.

 

Mexicans refer to the debilating diarrhea that incapacitates the influx of foreign tourists to their land as "Montezuma's Revenge", a punishment meted out by the ghost of this great magnanimous leader who was brought down by the cruel invading Spanish conquistadors.

 

Words are weapons. Shit happens. Payback is as bitch. Life is funny.  

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Interesting you should phrase it that way Cynique I was talking to someone about this situation and they were perfectly happy about Paula's predicament referring to it as payback.  They did not give a crap about the specifics of the situation -- indeed neither of us knew the specifics.

In fact I STILL do not know specifically what Paula said and when she said it to get her into so much trouble.

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did she just say "i have a young man in my life...and he's black as that board...Come out here...we can't see you standing against that dark board...welcome to the south!"
 
I am from the south and that does NOT represent US!
 
Also, isn't he the limo driver? Of course she trusts him with her life!
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Itisme -- welcome to the boards.  I spend a lot of time in the south -- all of my family is in the south.  Paula is representative of low class, less-than-average intelligence, still-not-over-the-civil-war, folks.  Fortunately they make up a small percentage of the southern population.

 

Also I don't think Paula she is a bad person with bad intentions.  She is just... Paula.

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I think Paula Deen has some racial prejudices like most people of her generation.
But based on the limited amount that I know of her, I don't think she's a racist.
 

 

Actually I don't think it's Black people who are making this a big deal.
The media is making it a big deal by constantly showing her crying and pleading and apologizing....essentially making HER look like a victim.

Her corporate sponsors are the ones dropping her, not Black people.

I heard either Barbara Walters or Anderson Cooper earlier today asking the question
"When is enough enough....how many times does she have to say she's sorry before she's forgiven?"

I'm thinking to myself.....uh...exactly who is beating up on this woman?
I haven't heard about Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton holding any rallies or telling people to boycott her products.

No one is persecuting this woman, she's just losing money.....but the media seems to be portraying her as a victim of political correctness.

I predict in a few years this will be all but forgotten and she'll be back to making money just like Dog the Bounty Hunter, Mel Gibson, and that guy who played Kramer on Senfield.....all of whom used the word "nigger".

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Speaking of the South..................


My mother is from the South and when I was a kid the family used to go down south quite frequently and to be honest, it seemed to me that the Whites down South were friendlier and less racist that the ones up in the North.
I'm talking about the 70s and early 80s time period.

I saw Blacks and Whites working together, partying together, sitting on the porches and in parlors talking to eachother.
I didn't see that up in Michigan!
I saw more confederate flags flying in Indiana and Ohio that I did anywhere in the South.
The first time I drove to Chicago I saw more segregation there than ANYWHERE North, South, East, or West....lol.
 

Infact, even today....I when I travel I see more Confederate stickers on the bumpers of trucks and hear more Country music playing in places like Nebraska,  Wisconsin and Minnesota than I do in Georgia or the Carolinas!

The only problem I had with and still have with the South is why they insist on calling cockroaches "water bugs".....lol.

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Pioneer your assessment of the relative friendliness of the south mirrors my own.  The NY City I grew up in was very segregated as well.  I just did not know white people my age until I got into a specialized high school far from my neighborhood.  I doubt very many white kids went to my zoned high school (Earl "The Goat" Manigault who Kareem said was the great BBall player ever actually went there), which many thought of as a prison preparatory.

 

Me and a girlfriend were chased out of a white neighborhood in Brooklyn -- just for walking through.

 

Country music is Black music too.

I hear the word Nigger used every single day in my neighborhood.  Young people use the word all the time, as did my peers and I at the same age 40 years prior.

 

Fat Joe when asked about the use of "nigger" in rap said when Don King asked Al Shaprton if he knew Fat Joe, while introducing the two, Al Shapton replied (I paraphase), How am I not going know the "realest nigger" in New York city rap!  Al has led campaigns against the use of the word.

 

People are often hypocrites which it comes to the use of the word when and how they use it or when and how they perceived it is acceptable to use.

 

I also agree the Paula Dean fiasco is created by the media to generate money.  Paula is getting all this grief because she was not sophisticated or bright enough, like to know what not to say in public.

Actual people use this language and feel this way.  You can't kill people for being dumb, young, or parochial.

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Paula Deen is a millionaire many times over, and yet everybody wants to label her unsophisticated and inocuous. Puleeze. This woman didn't get to where she got by being dumb and naive. She is a shrewd business woman who parlayed her good ol southern gal persona into a fortune, and she's still playing the "some of my best friends are black" card. Now she's being lynched on the tree of public opinion for the benefit of black folks who are increasingly empathizing with her plight. Good for us. To forgive is divine.  Thank ya, Jesus.  :rolleyes:

 

The media, media, the media. The media is "doing what it do":reporting the news, revealing how Corporate America is bending over backwards to show niggers that it ain't racist, and is politically correct. You black people want respect? You got respect. Now whatcha gonna do with it? Don't blame us white folks if Trayvon Martin's "precious" girlfriend who can't read cursive writing gives her impression of a sista with attitude for the benefit of a jury made up of George Zimmerman's peers. If Zimmerman goes free, don't blame the white business world. We punished ol Paula for saying nigger. If Trayvon paid the price for wearing a hoodie and calling his assailant a racial epithet, well, that's how it goes... Maybe Skittles will add licorice to its flavors in honor of Trayvon. :(

 

And the beat goes on as America stumbles forth in the year of our lord 2013. :huh:

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Cynique, sure Paula is loaded, but she is absolutely unsophisticated when it comes to communicatiing in public.

Just because someone has generated at lot of money does not make them sophisticated or smart.

Paula's interview with the NY Times made that plain.

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Well, Troy, Paula Deen made her living communicating in public on her very successful TV cooking show. She's is in a vulnerable position right now and losing her aplomb because her image has been tarnished. She is suffering the consequences of the privileges she took for granted as a southern woman steeped in old traditions of her cullture It's even possible that she may be putting on an act to gain public sympathy.

Her fried chickens have come home to roost and she has been singled out and made an example of for the "sophisticated" indifference she showed not only about using the word nigger but about the other biased behavior that her white accuser is suing her for. Is this fair? Probably not. But, then, life isn't fair.

Paula is gaining public sympathy, playing to her audience, scoring a coup d'tat by calling on Jesse Jackson for help, and once this all blows over, she'll be back in business.

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Troy

I say "n*gga" quite frequently, almost on a daily basis...lol.

Although I pronounce it with the "a" on the end instead of the "er".
I admit it's a habit that I grew up with.

But just like I believe in double standards for men and women, I believe in double standards for Blacks and Whites.

Women can call eachother bitch all day long but a man dare not say it.
As far as i'm concerned I can call my bruthaz a "nigga" all day long but I better not catch a White person doing it.

I've actually had to tell a few on several occasions to not say it around me even in jest or in reference.
I don't want them to get comfortable saying it around me.


Black people have intuition when it comes to racism and we tend to know if somebody is using it casually and in an endearing way or if someone is trying to be slick and seeing if they can use it around you and get away with it.
If you say it and then look at me to check my reaction, then obviously you know you said something you shouldn't have.
 

My father told me that if they get used to telling racist jokes around you pretty soon they'll be calling you a n*gger and kicking you in the ass.
I was a kid when he told me that and I'd laugh thinking he was joking or exaggerating.
But like many things that my Pops told me that turned out to be as true as the grass was green....when I started working I'd see White dudes start off telling racist jokes and silly negroes would laugh at them and before long they're saying things like "what's up dawwg" with a sly grin on thier face, slapping them on the back and kicking them in the butt!

As far as Fat Joe,
I don't mind Black and Brown Latinos using the word.
But White ones like Pit Bull and Ricky Martin wouldn't get a pass from me.

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