A proudly native Texan co-worker asked me yesterday, “Why can’t people forgive Paula Deen? She said she was sorry for her racist remarks. She’s a good friend of Oprah Winfrey. She never meant to hurt anyone. Why are people so angry?” Another version of the question surfaced in the Daily Beast, Why Has Paula Deen Been Vilified, While Alec Baldwin’s Been Given a Pass?
My explanation of all the elements of this situation became too complicated for a brief conversation in an office. I’m going to try to give a longer, better answer here. Follow me below the squiggle.
I must preface my remarks with the reminder that, as a person disabled from birth, I have had ample experience in being considered an outsider in American society. Since my ancestors were either northern abolitionists or not yet arrived in America during the years of the Confederacy, my friend thought I was exotic enough to consider the question from an outsider’s point of view, but I see myself as an outsider’s outsider.
To put it bluntly, context matters. Recently the LGBT community has had a series of civil rights victories: they can serve openly in the military, and the federal government now considers their marriages to be legally valid. Statutes barring their marriages in California have been overturned. Their community is on an upswing--a joyful, optimistic celebration at the end of a long, dark struggle. Alec Baldwin has been an ally in that struggle. I’m not condoning his foul-mouthed epithets, but he did remove them quickly from his Twitter feed, and almost as quickly issued an apology. Given his past support, and the joyful mood of the LGBT community, people are inclined to cut him some slack.
Paula Deen’s remarks come in a different context. The black community has just been dealt a body blow by the Supreme Court. Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act--the act that so many fought for, and bled for, and even died for, half a century ago--was set aside by the court. Many individual states (including Texas) are now focused on implementing laws that will increase difficulties for voters of color. At the same time, the country is riveted by a trial focusing on interracial violence in which a white man killed a black teenager.
In this atmosphere, we hear that Paula Deen says “of course” she has used the n----- word. That phrase “of course” implies that she thinks it’s no big deal, that there’s no problem. Her public apology for using the n----- word only comes after her sponsors have dumped her and after she loses her Food Network show. Then she is remorseful and weeping. Then she claims special circumstances for the “of course” she used earlier. Then she says that “the kids” on her show use the word all the time. In the current atmosphere of the country, this is too little, too late. Voting rights, Trayvon Martin, and then Paula Deen... it’s too much.
Paula Deen has made a fortune by popularizing a certain cooking style which is linked to the traditions of the old south. Her public persona is inextricably linked to her southern roots. Unfortunately, her original offhand acknowledgement of using a word that is an insult to blacks, and her tardy, tearful apology that came only after her show had been cancelled and her sponsors had pulled away, are also reminders of the traditions of the old south--the ugly traditions that count some people as having less worth than others.
When I first moved to Texas and started teaching, some of the white folks would reminisce about the good old days in Austin, when it was so small that there was just one high school, so “everybody knew each other.” I would quietly observe that I understood that in those days there had been two high schools in town--L.C. Anderson for the black kids and Austin High for the white kids. This usually brought a blank stare, a moment of silence, and then, “oh, of course, if you count them.” That generation of Texans is thinning now, but they are the core of today’s conservative voters, and they are the people who don’t understand why Paula Deen’s apologies have not been accepted.