I believe that Paula Deen provided a great service to America last week when her deposition came out. As a celebrity, the media got to frame the racism conversation around a media personality at precisely the time we awaited the Supreme Court decisions on Affirmative Action and the Voting Rights Act. Readers of the Kos front page know that SCOTUS punted on Affirmative Action.
So, we have another opportunity to talk about race, really talk. For starters, it is not about the N-word. The N-word is merely a symptom of the disease that is racism. The people infected with it use the word to claim superiority. It is a disease. It is a blight that wrecks America, socially, culturally, and economically, and it must be cured.
I was pleased to see a lot of coverage not talking simply about the fact that Ms. Deen used the N-word, but how casual she was about having done so.
There are stories of her saying that she didn't use it in ways that were hurtful, as if such instances could exist. They have also focused on her plans for a Plantation style wedding for her brother with middle-aged black men serving in white jackets and gloves with black bow-ties. Plans that were abandoned because the media would have twisted it into something sinister. I am grateful to her because she displayed utter disregard to the fact that it actually was something sinister.
Plantations were not genteel and noble places. Slaves were not "members of the family" among those people who "only" owned a couple. The only "States Right" that the South wanted to protect when they seceded was their right to own other people. If you believe, as the Declaration of Independence states, "that all men are created equal," you must decry all efforts made to protect the institution of slavery, and modern efforts to glorify that part of our past.
Forgive the pun, but we cannot whitewash racism away, either. We cannot put a fresh coat of paint on a cracked wall and think that the crack does not exist. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said that the way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race. This is similar to the advice, "Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be granted unto you." If I did not accurately quote it forgive me. The point is that the act must come first. Saying you are not racist is not acting as if you are not racist and many people still do.
WARNING: RACIST WORDS AHEAD!!!!!!
The movie "Blazing Saddles" was on AMC recently. They censored out every utterance of the N-word. The whole point of the movie is to mock those who would use it. A woman tells the black sheriff, "Up yours, Nigger," specifically to express her contempt. The line, and the subsequent scene does not work without "nigger." The town starts to accept him after he saves them from Mongo.
Later in the film, the town is warned of an impending attack and they prepare to leave. Their now tolerated black sheriff convinces them to wait until he has a plan. He returns with railroad workers who will help as long as they get to join the society. The response is "We'll take the Niggers and the Chinks, but we don't want the Irish."
I used to think that this line was ironic for its reverse racism. The truth is that the irony lies in the racism. Twenty years from now, Niggers and Chinks will still look like Niggers and Chinks, but the Irish will be indistinguishable from whites. Irish, Italian, and Jewish were race categories on census forms at one time.
Racism did not end with the election of a black President. It does not live merely in words. Let us commit to ending the phrase, "If I've offended anybody," and simply apologize.
When Justice Alito was undergoing his confirmation hearings, many Democrats pointed out the racial effects of some of his rulings. His wife, in tears, cried out that her husband was not a racist. I thank Paula Deen for demonstrating that one need not be a racist to hold racist sentiments. She may genuinely feel affection for her black employees, but she still sees them as black, and she doesn't think that's a problem.