Larry Pope (r), CEO of Smithfield Foods
Like most folks in my circle, most of our bunch shrugged our shoulders at Paula Deen saying the n-word. Like most black folks, we just assume most white folks are saying it all the time. Even folks we know and like. But she got caught. God forbid you say that word and find yourself, as she is, being called a racist. She lost the sponsorship of, for example, Smithfield Foods, which anyone in North Carolina will tell you is as close to a modern-day antebellum plantation as it gets. They have no problem with running a racist institution, so long as one doesn't say the N-word.
Which gets to the core of the problem about America and racism. If you call someone by a racial epithet, to their face, in biting, hating anger, you're not a racist. You're prejudiced and a bigot, but that doesn't make you a racist.
You see, racism requires power. Racism = prejudice + power. You have to be in a position to do something about your bigotry, willing to do it, and then do it, knowingly or unknowingly. To be a racist, your bigotry must be paired with your willingness and ability to act.
So you see, SmithField Foods chief executive Larry Pope has never been recorded saying the N-word in his entire career under current reporting. Nor has he, as far as we know, joined the Ku Klux Klan or lynched anyone. But in 2010 he did lay off 4000 people in his industrial pig farms (all black or brown), in order to preserve the compensation of the top executives (all white, except 1). He said at the time he felt terrible about that. I'm sure, as he looked out from his office tower into that sea of black and brown already super poor former employees, I'm sure he thinks to himself how wrong it would be to call those folks a racial epithet in a legal deposition like Paula Deen did. That's why he fired her.
Final tally:
Minority factory workers: -4000
Old white ladies: -1