Paula Deen Racism — Paula Deen, the 66-year-old daughter of the South, has been fired by the Food Network because she revealed in a lawsuit deposition that she used the word “nigger” in occasional conversation with black employees long ago and once after she was held up by gunpoint while working as a bank teller in southwest Georgia in the 1980s.
She and her brother are accused of racial and sexual harassment and are being sued for $1.2 million in federal court by Lisa Jackson, who managed their restaurant Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House.
Ms. Jackson is also upset that Ms. Deen once broached the idea of hiring only black waiters for her brother’s wedding.
What would Martin Luther King Jr. say? It would be something along the lines of forgive people their stupidity, don’t shake people down, don’t try to ruin anyone’s life, and if you don’t like working for someone, don’t.
Don’t forget what the difference is between the black experience in this country and that of the Italian/Jewish/Irish/Slavs, namely government. While the latter groups faced bigotry and prejudice, they were not subject on any wide scale to demeaning laws as to where they could go to bathroom, where they could sit on the bus and, they especially did not have to take their lives in their hands if they tried to vote.
And, really, maybe one should refrain from firing anyone on the basis of a leaked deposition before the trial.
Paula Deen Racism
