Why Is Paula Dean Getting Slammed For Using the N Word 30 years ago?

I mean come on, she didn't say it in even in the 21st century. Nor in the 1990s. We're talking about the 1980s.

We live in an era today where the "n word" is so loathed that if an older television show (like "In The Heat of the Night") from the late 1980s has it that in reruns they edit the word out.

But back in the 1980s it was far, far, far more commonly used by nearly everyone in every context possible.

So why are they busting her chops for something said three decades ago?

She's rich and white....and Southern. Thus, she is one step below the ultimate top of the totem pole, rich, white Southern males.
Any more questions?

Dude, really? Even you are not so dense that you don't know the answer to that. And I know you're not too chickenshit to say it.

I really don't see why people hold mere words said THIRTY YEARS AGO against someone. Hell, the Democrats made Robert Byrd their majority leader after he had been a KKK member.

Ah, I guess Byrd obtained forgiveness for getting in Congress and voting for every possible govt. transfer of wealth to minorities he could.

It's her attitude.

It wasn't like, "I used the N-word back in the day. It was wrong. But I've seen the error of my ways."

It was more like, "Yeah, I used the N-word. What of it?"

OMG, who the fuck cares?

I never heard of this sad bitch until this story broke, and I hope I never hear about her again after it fades away.

How can you not have heard of her?

I don't watch any of her crap and I've heard of her long before this.

Do you pay attention to anything other then models, Wordforge, bad drivers on the highway, and that chick you work with?

Sometimes I wonder just how checked out of life you really are.....

Tell me who she is and I might care.

If she's on some TV talking head show, don't bother, I won't care.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Dean

celebrity chef and author.

If any of you had a woman that enjoyed cooking you might be more familiar with her.

Yeah, this is blown all out of proportion.

Give her a spanking and a speech, and leave it alone.
You don't gotta destroy the poor bitch.
Especially not with your boner in your hand.

Imus said racial shit on air and came back fer fuck sakes.
And I don't mean the stupid "nappy headed hos", debacle, I mean constantly while I was growing up like it was nothing.
No one batted an eye.
Not even the stupid FCC.

Granted, he was a shock-jock, so that was his job, but come on.

Oh "we're more enlightened now"?
Bullshit.
Scan the band on your TV, people are still morons.
If anything, its gotten worse.

So where's this righteousness coming from?

Yeah, this country can take back black people's voting rights, but don't used THE WORD!

We can talk about fucking but don't say "fuck".

We can drop a bomb on kids, but don't write "faggot", on the bomb.

People are fuckin' stupid.

I'm guessing the restaurant buffet is suggestive of Paula Dean cuisine?

I have no words... which is good, because I threw up in my mouth a little.

I think that's what this is really about.

People are disgusted by her cooking, and the whole deal a while back where she kept her own diabetes a secret, and kept shoveling that food at people.

That didn't bring her down like some people thought it should, so that's why they're blowing this "n-word", thing out of any sort of rational perspective.

Like how people wanted OJ to go to jail over every little jaywalking offense after getting off scott free for wife decapitation.

I have to admit that I'm a little puzzled by all this as well. From what I understand, she was sued for discrimination by a WHITE employee, who claimed that she wanted an all black staff at an event (which is more disturbing to me because it seemed to indicate she wanted to make an illusion of slave labor), and was asked under oath if she'd ever used the N word. She admitted to doing it in the 80's ( i thought i heard it was in the 60's which would make it almost 50 years ago) and stated that she wasn't proud of it. By the time Food Network fired her, she had already apologized...

I don't understand why she's being scrutinized for something so long ago and she apologized for it.

Personally, I have no reason to think she's insincere in her apology, especially since she admitted to it when most people would've denied it. I think most people who I speak to feel the same way, but are more disturbed by the "black servant" thing.

More likely it's more about what Diacanu said. I had been under the impression that this was something she'd said a bit more recently, but thirty fucking years ago?

The N-word thing seems to be bullshit. She admits to saying before and that the last time was when a black man held a gun to her head in the 1980's. Hardly shocking.

The weird thing she said, though, was wanting to put on a wedding with an antebellum theme where the wait staff would be black and dress up like slaves.

That one suggests perhaps she remains out of touch with what is considered racist in America. But even that is only one speculative event that occurred, I don't know when.

It wasn't all that long ago according to the lawsuit and she apparently tried to defend the use by saying that it was only certain types of blacks she used that word for. She's also rumored to treat the staff in her restaurants like shit. Don't think of her as a Klan-type racist, she's an ignorant tool who isn't business savvy enough to know that there are times when you should just do a full on apology with no qualifiers. (One of her apologies was pretty rambling an incoherent if you listen to it.)

Offhand I'd say her food has done far more damage to more people than her words have.

Just how much power should we give to a word? Notice that even in a thread specifically addressing the issue no one dare type its name?

N-word please.

Thanks, Jessica Williams.

Her script-writers and I (and probably about a million other people who wouldn't touch that deep-fat-fry-everything-and-then-slather-it-with-butter "cuisine") thought it at the same time. Jessica just got to say it on the air.

I read the transcript of the testimony, to me it seems the opposite.

Here's a copy and paste from a portion of the transcript:

Sounds to me she said she used it a long time ago, and today she doesn't approve of it.

Horrible!

Let's say you're right, what of it?

Well, I was thinking that someone posted a thread with it in the title and was warned for it sometime in the last few years.

I could be wrong though. Or it might've been another board.

Wasn't Face warned for spamming it in thread titles?



Well let's just blame him anyway......

Well everybody knows it's not appropriate in a thread title.

Count me in the "I've never heard of her before and don't care crowd".

My better half watches tons of good cooking shows, but not shite like Hell's Kitchen or whatever other reality crap that passess for cooking these days.

I've heard of chefs like Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson ( ) and Rachel Allen ( ).

Never heard of Paul Dean. And who gives a fuck!

You're Canadian. No one cares.

Just looked her up. You call that shit cooking? You poor dumb bastard.

That's right, what of it? How is it anyone's fucking business to begin with?


NIGGER!


There, I said a bad word. Oooooh, the horror! Fuck you if you're offended. It's a stupid word that harms no one, and it only continues to prove how butthurt people choose to become over something so inconsequential.

Let's put things in perspective:

I say a bad word in front of you. You become offended and want to destroy my life.

WRONG!!!!

I point a gun at you and say I'm going to kill you because you're not like me.

NOW you have a reason to be upset!