Paula Deen: Begging forgiveness
 

Who thinks that possibly political correctness has gotten out of hand when a television celebrity has to go public, obviously shaken to her core, and BEG FORGIVENESS for something she apparently said awhile ago?

I've always been a firm believer in kindness to all and taught my children to be nice to everyone.......and they do have friends of all ethnic backgrounds and races.......as do their children. They are color blind.

However, public humiliation is now right up there with bullying in the schools.

Without going into detail, both hubby and I sat there with our mouths hanging open........thinking the same thing about reverse discrimination when the other side has called "others" names and nothing at all is said...........just listen to some of these rappers......

In doing genealogy, I learned that ALL groups have been called names, including the ethnic groups my husband and I come from.........

Paula Deen has made a "mess" of her apology. The last thing you want to do is get on the tube when you are emotional and distraught and make matters worse. To be honest, I don't follow her on her cooking program----never seen it. If she had consulted with a professional in crisis management, things might have turned out a bit different.

post edited.....duplicate

Agree (with original poster). I'd like to say more but it might not be politically correct:duck:.

Our generation is, or at least was, for the most part, racist! It would have been easier for Paula to say, Like most of my friends and family, I was, but I am trying to be more accepting of all people. Trying to lie to in an attempt to alter the TRUTH about your own past is silly.

I was a bigot in the 50's and 60's, entered the Army in 1966 and started questioning my own beliefs. By the 80's I recognized how wrong I was and changed my views and began to voice my opinion about this terible social issue. I now will not tolerate bigotry from friends nor family.

Ayup. I "hear you".

orI can totally relate to your first paragraph.

However, not all families were racist back in the 1950's into say 1962, etc.
My parents were both factory workers (from the World War Two era) who worked along side folks from all races and ethnic backgrounds.....and called many their friends. I still remember helping my mom wrap Christmas presents for some........

I went to a public school and had friends of all races......in Newark, N.J.
This would be circa the 1950's to 1962.

Hubby, however, went to an all Polish Catholic School and didn't experience the type of diversity that I did.......even though we lived around the corner from each other in a predominately German neighborhood.

His family reacted quite strongly during the Newark riots of the '60s...

When I was planning my 1965 wedding, I so wanted to invite a fellow secretary who was the loveliest young mom from North Carolina, two young beautiful boys (pre schoolers) whom she'd share stories of each morning before work began...........but at the time, there was an "unspoken" thing......and I knew that I shouldn't invite her. I still regret it.

Many moons later, my daughter invited her Boston friends to her Vermont wedding, without nary a thought as to if she would offend any family member.......and the guests were lovely folks.

The younger generation today have made the entire world a smaller place.

However, that said..............I still say there is reverse discrimination when "stuff" is done to us......

P.S.
Again, a good decade or more ago, we were visiting in Cincinnati Ohio where our son had been recruited out of grad school into Proctor and Gamble Corporation.....
Knowing there had been recent riots, a week prior.......we gingerly made our way around, getting lost in the inner city, etc.........before we ultimately found our destination............it brought back memories of our youth and the riots in Newark, N.J............so there are two sides to every story.......there is good and not so good in all types of people. No one type of person should be elevated to a pedestal. I prefer to take each one individually.........when our daughter used to work in Boston teaching English, she was befriended by a nice young married Jamaican man and his wife.........they would walk with her from the "T" (train) through the "combat zone" which anyone knows who knows Boston.......and I felt that she was safer. They are the ones she invited her her wedding in Vermont.........with their beautiful baby. They are still friends. When we were just up there, our grand daughter had a beautiful friend from Haiti visiting the home..........nice little girl. Again, my kids are all color blind.

In my opinion one cannot look at how they lived, in the time they lived, doing and believing what were the acceptable norm of the day.....then look back and measure and define yesterday by today's standards.

The standards of today (of our children) are very, VERY much different than those of their parents or grand parents. That in no way shape or form means what was allowed back then was wrong or incorrect.

And just because our standards have changed to something different does not neccesarily mean the change was indeed for the better.....it simply means it has changed.



btk

Yes, I did see several versions of her "apology". I thought it was pitiful.
She must have been desperate. I am such a stickler for freedom of speech. I know not to hurt people's feelings and always taught my own brood to be kind to everyone........however, she was a product of a different "south" than it is today........maybe she said more than I have heard about....but still.

A p.s. to my earlier post about the riots of the 60's in Newark, N.J. and then the riots in Cincinnati, Ohio........

Hubby, who had been brought up in a somewhat racist type background, totally changed his perspective when he was stationed in Fort Knox Kentucky in the 1960's.....he developed friendships he might not have had in his old neighborhood.....or Polish Catholic School........or hearing his uncles, etc. on the block.

He also was shocked to find out that NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD loved J.F.K.......surely not at Fort Knox Kentucky........whereas in our little isolated Catholic neighborhood......."Camelot" and all it stood for was definitely on a pedestal. He was a "drill sergeant in tanks.....and then went back summer after summer.....with Army Reserves.

But prior to him going into the Army, they were all "packing guns" for protection in Newark, enroute to work each day......."downtown".
I had an incident while parked outside waiting after work for him....a man with his hand in a brown paper bag came up to my open window as the car idled......to me it looked like a gun in the bag.......to me it seemed like an attempted robbery.......I pulled out of that parking space so fast....I never even looked to see if a car was coming.......kept driving around the corner until he came out of work. Those were different times.

I can understand Paula Deen's different times.

We all mature as we experience other facets of life and other areas ......

But, truthfully, I was never ever racist..........and that said, I still feel that Paula Deen's apology was too drastic. My best friend in first grade was a little black girl.......my daughter's best friend in first grade, ditto....and now our grand daughter's , etc........we have Indian and Asian friends whom we love dearly as well...........nuff said.

I still feel sorry for Paula Deen.............bad enough she had to take all the yummy calories and carbs out of her southern cooking (when she was diagnosed as diabetic)........(said tongue in cheek)........

Being of a liberal bent, I do believe in political correctness. I do believe that someone should never be called a derogatory name because of their race, religion, sexual preference. If it will hurt someone and I know it, I will not use a word or phrase around that person. Period.

However, that is today. My parents were both born and raised as bigots. My father was a Southerner. My mother was German. By the time I was born in 1950 neither of them would dream of using the words they did of their youth. Dad learned that the color of a man's skin had nothing to do with his intellect or courage. My mother learned that a person's religion did not make that person better or worse. They both learned this in WWII. While my father would occasionally slip and use the N word, he made sure his kids never did. Both of my parents worked hard to teach my brother and me to judge a person by their words and actions, not anything else.

I lived all over the world as a child. More than once, my brother and I were the minority in class. I still remember living in the Congo and actually have kids come up and touch me just to make sure I wasn't a ghost -- some had never seen a white person before. There were two nations that I saw and heard bigotry used in everyday language and behavior in my travels (up to and including a lynching in the late 50s) -- England and the USA.

There is no excuse for bigotry and perpetualizing any thing by words or deeds that denigrates another because of their differences.

However, Ms. Deen made her derogatory comments many years ago, at a time when the use of those words was acceptable. She does not use them today (I can't comment on how she feels today, I'm not in her skin) and that is what should matter. If she still uses or thinks those words, then shame on her. If not, it was an act of the past and should be treated as such -- something that was accepted at the time and something that we, as a nation, and, hopefully, individually, regret today. She does not deserve the issue made of her admission that she did in fact use those words in the past. If she did in fact treat her restaurant employees as alleged, she does pretty much deserve all the negative publicity and the results thereof.

Again, in all fairness to Paula Deen (from the south), again I can see all sides of everyone's story.....and put it into perspective.

We were raised in a city close to New York City.........

At age nineteen, I still remember sitting in my eye doctor's office and picking up a magazine......EBONY. I was really surprised to see the advertisements were not like the ones I normally saw in my parents magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Look, Life, Time, etc.......

Then, shortly after the Newark, New Jersey riots.......right about when our baby daughter was born , I went back into the city to shop.........it had totally changed...........and the manikins in Bambergers windows or the other big department store windows were no longer all lily white.

Prior to that........we had been SHOCKED when in 1965 we drove to Miami Beach Florida on our honeymoon (aged twenty) and while stopping each night in a different southern state.....or just stopping at rest areas while traveling south.........we saw the "White Bathrooms" and the other bathrooms...........ditto for the water fountains.......so they were still there in 1965.

Not sure what state Paula Deen was raised in...........

Let's be real here. We're all from an era when those words were acceptable. She is is a product of her time and public humiliation because of the past is absurd.

great post.

Paula Deen is groveling. I am not familiar with her show, but groveling always seems so....cringeworthy. Just fess up that you were a product of the times you grew up in, that you've grown up and evolved now, and move on. With a little dignity please.

Never liked her anyway

I so agree: Being real and honest is what Paula tried to portray when interviewed. Its like the movie line YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH. It also reminds me of a belief in drug and other addictions: The first step to healing is being open and honest.

Have you read the deposition? It certainly changed my mind about the situation. Can't support Paula after reading that.

Her racist remarks are not recent and its entirely possible for someone to change. What she said in the past is highly offensive, but I'm willing to cut her some slack considering she is from the South and her age. If its past history, let it stay in the past..

Her recipes hurt a lot more black people than her use of the n word.

She used the "N" word in the privacy of her home, with her husband.....so what...It's nobody's business what goes on behind closed doors.

How come black people can use it when talking to other blacks, and they can call white people racist names, but nobody seems to concerned about that.

It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other, what Paula Dean thinks or says.:mornincoffee:

"Flame suit on"

Could you copy and paste or send a hyperlink to the deposition???
Thanks.

Redwitch I love your post.

I was raised in the military, attended 26 different schools before graduating from high school. We lived with every type of race. My Mother and Father taught us to be tolerant, we were never allowed to use the N word or we would be punished.

Fast forward, my first husband is Iranian and we have a mixed gorgeous daughter. During the Iranian crisis, parents in my child's preschool shunned us and would not allow their children to play with our child. My ex worked in a high security job and is an American citizen, he was called towel head and many other demeaning names. It was a tough time for our family.

Now my child is grown and married to a half Mexican and Filipino young man, their children are so beautiful. We call them combo children, they attend schools that are a melting pot of races, it's wonderful to see this openness.

My current husband is 100% Russian, 2nd generation. He was persecuted during the 50's, the cold war. Why do people persecute others? I think it's all about fear.

I've had the opportunity to travel the world and experience all types of cultures. I'm so grateful that I was taught to keep an open mind by my parents. When our family gets together the cuisine includes Persian food, Mexican, Filipino, Cuban and Russian food. To be honest we find the Russian food tasteless per the Russian husband. Plus to hear the various languages spoken in our homes is intriguing.

What does this have to do with Ms Dean? Maybe nothing, but it's my experience.

Beautiful post which exhibits the "melting pot" of our wonderful country.
I can only imagine how beautiful your child and grandchildren are with the blending of the backgrounds as you described.

Our best friends were from Budapest Hungary (strawberry blonde, green eyed lady) and India (black hair, dark eyed gent) who produced the most beautiful children........now grown. We enjoyed all of our differences and similarities, our ethnic foods (Hungarian, Indian, Italian, Ukrainian, Polish) amidst the local Vermonters who had been in town for generations from England, Ireland and French Canada.....Quebec. Vive le difference.

Farm raised and city raised alike..........we all got along and respected each other.

Ditto, our kids when a Filipino doctor from the Phillipines and his family moved into the neighborhood......our son actually thought we live in a multi cultural neighborhood. It was mostly old time Vermonters.

People are accepting of all types as long as they feel safe and secure and respected as well.........we've seen it in action.

In doing the genealogy these past twelve years, I learned a lot about the melting pot from Europe, etc. into our cities with the new wave of immigrants back at the turn of the century and prior, in the 1800's....and also the ones who came earlier to settle this big country, also in our tree, from Germany and elsewhere........so I was really surprised when I remembered that our daughter had been told in college that the "melting pot is just a myth".........a myth? I had all kinds of friends while growing up as a child in N.J. I think my own mom was ahead of her time in her tolerance........and that rubbed off on me...........however, the next generation had everyone on a pedestal, even the criminal types....and something, to me anyway, is wrong with that picture.

So this P.C. thing is not really new........it's been around awhile.......at least from the late 1980's/early 1990's.......

We didn't call it P.C. when we were young.......we just accepted our friends on a one to one personal basis. You know who is kind and who is not.
You know who you can trust and who you should not. It doesn't matter what color they are. Maybe I'm strange, but I never felt the need to call anyone names. I find it hurtful.....and would think others would find it hurtful.

But, anyone from immigrant grandparents would remember that they had stories of being called names.........and I don't recall any p.c. cops defending them back in the early days.............

We'd get on a bus in N.J. in the later 1950's after the Hungarian Revolution......and a bunch of factory workers with their lunch pails in their hands would board the bus also.......and people would mutter under their breath....."Green Horns", etc., etc. "Hunkies"......these were BLONDE, BLUE EYED WHITE SKINNED MEN, FATHERS, ETC.

Discrimination and name calling goes across the board..........
The Italians were called wops, dagos, guineas, and worse......
Ditto for the Irish.....shanty Irish, lace curtain irish, drunken Irish.....
I had a wonderful Irish stepfather.......after my Italian dad died.......
Could he ever tell some stories of the Scottish and Irish in his background......
Plus he would tell these stories in his alternating Scottish and Irish brogue.....

There was no politically correct league back in those days.

Out of curiosity, what is the ethnic or racial breakdown in THE VILLAGES?

P.S. When my Hungarian friend came from Budapest Hungary after the Revolution with her Grandmother and Mom, they settled in West Liberty Ohio and were befriended by an entire community of Mennonites. To this day, the surviving aunt and uncle of my departed friend, still recall the kindness of those Mennonite families to displaced people from Hungary, a communist country at the time.......

It is easier to be kind than it is to be hurtful with racial or ethnic name calling.........however, it goes both ways.

p.s. Our son has traveled the world many times over......including Europe and all of Asia except Korea. He's been to New Zealand and Australia, China, Cambodia, Viet Nam twice, Japan, etc....Singapore, Thailand,......South America, etc.....etc....

I was thinking of him yesterday when we were watching a repeat of Anthony Bourdain in Viet Nam eating all that noodle soup and driving the mopeds.....exactly as our son had described it when he traveled first with his wife and then the second time with his doctor friend to deliver some collected scholarship money to a girl on a boat raft school.....can't quite picture that. The doc's grandparents were still in Viet Nam so they had dinner with them...........

I've been wondering if any guys who were in the Viet Nam War have been able to put aside bad feelings towards the Vietnamese people or Cambodians? This younger generation does seem to see the entire world as one big brotherhood of men.

But I remember not that long ago at our post office, another generation of men, could not bear to see any of our Japanese automobiles........and would come over and remark on their days during WWII......which I can also understand. It really upset them that any of us would even think of buying a Japanese car.

Its time for Paula Dean to "move on"......and I could care less about her "words" before and/or after. All Celebs are pretty much scripted anyway including apoligies.

I was never a big fan or I should say follower of deep butter cooking and regardless of what social media wants, it looks like the advertisers are droping her like a lead ballon. Her latest actions (and moreso the attempt at recovery), have been a disaster. Move on and enjoy your millions!

Obviously, very few people still cook like Paula Dean's heyday.....even herself.

However, maybe it is me........but when I first saw her humiliating public apology, I kind of related it to back to the Salem Witch Trial days when people would be put in the stocks or else be made to wear a "red letter" or confess their "crime"........it's like where is freedom of speech?

It may not be right or sensitive or kind........but we still supposedly have freedom of thought and speech. NO?

The movies today, the television today compared to those days of our youth, are so foul, that they should be looked into. I think Hollywood is corrupting more values than is Paula Deen. Neither my husband nor I will turn into serial killers by watching the shows we watch............but not every parent is home supervising their kids nowadays.......or making sure the babysitter doesn't turn on the t.v. Just saying.

Worse language and violence is depicted every day into our living rooms.........than she can ever utter, or has uttered.

Shame on Food Network
 

This has gotten way out of hand. Does anyone care what she said 20+ years ago? I am far more concerned about the lyrics of some of the musicians on the radio talking about killing cops and people, I concerned about the rapper who stomped all over the American flag while making his video. Why is it ok for a black person to call,another black,person the "N" word when someone else does it it is a racial slur? Why is it that Chris Brown can beat up His girlfriend and people still buy his records and he has suffered no backlash? Give Paula Dean a break. I think I would call a person who was robbing me every name I could think of. Her life was in danger and she was afraid. This should never have been taken this far.....in fact, it should never have been mentioned by anyone. Food Network needs to do the right thing and put her show back on. By the way, I don't really care for her or her show but she has gotten a bad rap on this one.

political correctness (barf) or PC (barf) is a concept allowing one to NOT do or say what is right OR waters down a wrong to the point where it is acceptable for a myriad of ridiculous excuses.

A coward's defense and or position!!

btk

The black people call each other "N" word all the time but dont you do it --- believe me i know this for a fact

well coming from a southern back ground i only heard the n word once in the house....no not from my aunt but from my mammy, who used the word while talking about her nephew who was no good///yep my mammy was black, and i loved her for everything she taught me.....In 75 i chose a black peds doctor for our daughter who was going to be a premie...that was because he was so use to having premies in distress and very rarely lost a baby...my husband and i both worked in the same hospital and trust me coworkers and some doctors did not speak to us because of that choice....our daughter was born with a apgar of 2 her doctor got her thru a rough time.. she was a failure to thrive untill 2 years old ....It wasn't untill she was three when we were at the doctors office that she asked the doctor why she was different than every once else...he waited and thought and told her she was not different because she was blond and blue eyes, she was different because, she was so small he named her peanut, lite color on the outside, same color as everyone else on the inside...

I have been to deans resturant many times talked with her, her sons her brother bubba...met most of her staff and i will say that most in her kitchens staff are black, i think her PR people handled it badly...will i stop gong to her resturants...no the food is great... i have most of her cook books signed by her and the boys, from attending private parties...will i think she will take a hit from this yes...only time will tell

Bravo, Bravo Golfingnut.

That might be the most honest heartfelt post I've EVER read on TOTV. I admire your courage.

I'm hopeful that's how Paula feels. Should have said under oath: "Yes that's a word I've used - but I was wrong and I show that now in my actions and my beliefs".

I wonder if the woman bringing the lawsuit would've, if she was an unknown restuarant owner that wasn't a world famous multi-millionaire???

Paula Deen is an entertainer and a cook, not a monument to justice.

Sorry I don't know how to link something. If you google it, you'll find it.

Some seem to think this is all about 20, or so, years ago. If you read the transcript and "listen" to what she is saying, you may get a different opinion. Everything she says goes from bad to worse, and it appears pretty obvious to me she still thinks of black people as inferior. She's entitled to her opinion, but this is about harrassment and discrimination, which she is not entitled to in her place of business.

Thank you.

Knee Jerk Reactions
 

I am tired of knee jerk reactions to news reports. Paula Deen admitted to saying something a long time ago and is being vilified for it. Wendy Williams attacks her viciously, on the record, and she should be called to task for that. Paula Deen's network cancels her, and gladly many people have let them know they are going to stop watching that network if they do this. Remember the Duke lacrosse team that was punished immediately before all the info was in and later proved innocent. The media gets a story, runs with it, and before it has been properly researched someone has their life turned upside down. I don't think this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they guaranteed freedom of the press.

Paula listened to the piper ... All she needs to do now is pay them.

It's easy to write off our racism—that is, those of us who were—by explaining (or excusing?) it as a product of the times, as pointed out by Golfingnut and DianeM. But while "separate but not equal," "white and colored water fountains," "poll taxes," and "lynchings" were more part of the times back then than now, it doesn't mean that back then—on a personal level—every individual and every family manifested racist attitudes, as pointed out by senior citizen.

My parents certainly did not reflect the times in this regard, and I was raised in an atmosphere that was the antithesis of racism. And I have no recollection that in doing/being so, my parents were out to make a social statement or that they were bucking what was contemporary at the time; rather, this is the way they chose to live—strictly on a personal level—and the values with which they raised me. 'Nuff said....


And to go back to the topic, I completely agree; Paula Deen's life is none of my business!