True Colors Shining Through

Oh, Paula.

You are utterly full of shit.

For some reason, that bothers me more than the likely possibility that the celebrity chef and former Food Network star is a racist.

When I first heard about her current troubles, I wasn’t shocked at all. In fact, I’d be more surprised if Deen, a 66-year-old Southerner, didn’t cherish some idiotic outdated prejudices.

But her current stance of half-apology, half-Southern fried pride is not working for me.

When she started bawling and playing the victim during Monday’s Today Show interview, giving the performance of a lifetime while proclaiming, “I am not an actor,” I felt weirdly offended.

Like, with all due respect, Ms. Deen, fuck you.

During the introduction for the Today Show interview, Deen was quoted from her May 17 discrimination lawsuit deposition acknowledging that she’s used the n-word on several occasions.

When asked, “Have you ever used the n-word yourself?” Deen’s reply was, “Yes, of course,” as if to say, that’s a silly question—doesn’t everybody use it every day?

Deen said in her deposition that she used the slur after being robbed by a black guy while working at a bank in 1987, but when asked, she admitted having used the n-word on other occasions, saying “I'm sure I have, but it's been a very long time.”

Deen also admitted to telling the sort of “off-color jokes” involving the n-word that, of course, “we have all told.”

To her credit, she was very candid during the recent deposition, admitting to repeated use of the king mother of racial epithets.

But during her TV interview Monday, Deen lied to Matt Lauer, saying she only used the n-word once in her entire life—twenty six years ago, when she recounted the bank robbery story to her presumably racist husband.

When Lauer asked if she ever used the word at other times, which she admitted in her deposition, Deen shook her head “no” emphatically, like a lying three-year-old who has the evidence of guilt all over her face or written in permanent marker on the walls.

So after being surprisingly truthful in her deposition, she goes on national TV and lies to millions of us while putting on a whole poor-me performance as if she’s the victim?

“There is someone evil out there who stole what I have because they wanted it,” Deen whined to Lauer.

She even complained about the language used by young blacks in her kitchens as a way to deflect or justify her own foul mouth (even though black cooks calling each other “nigga” is a little different from their boss, an old white Southern lady—who, according to her deposition, prefers “really Southern plantation style” weddings with “little niggers” serving food in bow ties—using the same word to talk about her employees).

And Deen is sort of a big deal. Jay-Z once wrote, “I’m not a businessman—I’m a business, man!”

Well, the same applies to Paula Deen.

She’s one of these walking brands like Oprah or Martha Stewart, which means she has people. And when her original Today Show interview was cancelled last Friday, even though Deen was already in her New York hotel room the day before, I’m sure it was because her people pulled the plug for business reasons—trying to weigh whether it was best to apologize or not, and if so, in what format, etc.

But one thing’s for sure, Deen didn’t skip it because she was “exhausted,” as Lauer said Monday had been her excuse, and she definitely didn’t take the extra time to hire some PR wizards to help her strategically design her apology, as evidenced by Monday’s subsequent shitshow.

Actually, what ultimately piqued my interest was when Deen cancelled on the Today Show and pissed off the staff. Lauer was visibly bitter on the air last Friday, having to explain why they suddenly had no guest—his dick waving in the wind.

Then Deen released an awkward videotaped apology on YouTube that was quickly taken down, but not before I’d enjoyed a screening. In it, a seemingly unrehearsed and disheveled Deen rambles briefly in an awkward way that ultimately carried over to her Today Show interview.

My favorite part was when the Southern sweetheart unwittingly sabotaged what should have been a carefully crafted apology toward the end of the interview with Lauer, becoming emotionally unhinged and basically admitting she's a lost generation backwoods bumpkin who cherishes some of the South’s nastier old traditions.

“I is what I is and I’m not changing,” croaked a tearful, defiant, bloated Deen.

Then, just for good measure, she got all Biblical on our asses.

It’s hard to say why (except that it’s the go-to move for any phony-baloney Jesus Freak/cult leader/politician who’s caught sinning whilst declaring everyone else evil), but maybe she knew that the interview was a total disaster and this was her last ditch effort to get anyone’s sympathy—lock up the Christian vote, so to speak.

“If there is anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back, please pick up that stone… and throw it so hard that it kills me.”

She used that one twice in a row while sobbing pathetically. Think of an undeserving rich woman losing a lottery ticket down the drain and you’ll understand the kind of tears that were shed. I’ve never felt less sympathy for a crying grandmother.

Lady, you’re still fabulously wealthy, stop crying like a penniless baby.

As my grandmother used to say, “Cut the crap!”

As of Monday, only the Food Network and Virginia-based pork producer Smithfield Foods had dumped Deen on the heels of her secret folksy racist persona becoming public knowledge, but now, a dozen of her valued “partners” have told the famous chef to take a hike.

But unlike how Deen’s apology tour trainwreck has caused her former business partners to head for the hills, her ignorant fans—who believe in an America where we can call black people niggers while they serve us food—have flocked to support her.

For what it’s worth, I imagine these folks have prized year-old Chik-Fil-A leftovers in their freezers—trophies from an early battle in the great American Culture War, when the fast food company publicly supported “traditional marriage” as a way of sticking it to gay people just to be assholes, and subsequently experienced a Southern sales bonanza last summer.

In fact, so many rabid lunatics from Red America are so passionate about defending the n-word as a thing that people say, an unprecedented second “Paula Deen Cruise” had to be added for 2014.

Yep, that's right: Paula Deen has a cruise. It’s a thing, apparently. Eight days on a boat in the beautiful Caribbean with a bunch of fat bigots.

Praise Jesus.

I love the irony. Conservative “family values” type people mourn the death of traditional America, saying political correctness has ruined everything because slobs like Paula Deen have seemingly lost the freedom to call black folks niggers.

And yet, Deen’s former employee who brought the discrimination lawsuit is the one who’s evil?

What would Jesus do, y’all? Keep it real and own his mistakes, or lie while throwing everyone else under the bus to protect some profits?

One thing’s for sure: this is a clear-cut case of political correctness run amuck because culture warrior Bill O’Reilly declared that racism in America was destroyed by the unifying powers of 9/11—despite logic, Paula Deen, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, and millions of unintelligent Obama-haters.

Some people would like to think racism isn’t a thing anymore. How convenient. I wonder what Paula Deen would like..

“What I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties. You know, in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around. Now, that would be a true Southern wedding, wouldn’t it?”

Deen’s love of the n-word is no bueno but it pales in comparison to the kind of racism being practiced by Donald Trump and millions of like-minded “birthers” who have continuously charged President Obama of being nothing more than a fraudulent Muslim monkey who snuck into Harvard, and therefore the presidency, via affirmative action.

Bill Maher says these people, along with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia—who played a critical role Tuesday in striking down the part of LBJ’s Voting Rights Act that polices the racist South and prevents them from inventing modern Jim Crow era tricks to disenfranchise black voters—are the real racists.

“Just the fact that (Scalia) talks about black people voting as an entitlement, that is so much more racist than anything Paula Deen ever said," Maher said Friday, keeping it pretty real, as usual, on HBO’s ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’.

Maher thinks all the negative attention Deen’s received is overblown compared to “real racism.”

“We have replaced having a conversation about race with, 'Oh, OK, liberals feel good about themselves if they make the bad person go away,'” Maher said.

“Who’s the bad person? The one we caught saying that one word. Donald Trump is a worse racist, but he gets to keep his show because he never said the word. Sarah Palin is a worse racist—she said Obama was shucking and jiving his way to victory. Newt Gingrich said he was the food stamp president. This is real racism.”

Within minutes of the Voting Rights Act being gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court last week, Southern states began changing their election laws to make it harder for minorities to vote.