Paula Deen

[Townhallsavoy]

Paula Deen admitted to using the "n" word back when the South was still segregated.  Ended up apologizing for it and Food Network has decided to fire her for it. 

[Snaggletiger]

Naggers?

[Snaggletiger]

I'm going to admit to gheyness here. (As if I haven't done so 1000X in the past) Back in April, we were at Baytowne in Sandestin.  Wine Festival spending the day getting tore up.  Paula Deen was putting on a seminar which we had no interest in going to, especially since it was about $200.00 a pop to go watch her cook.  Anywayz, late in the day, we're walking by the tent where she had her show and someone said she's going to come out and talk again, so we just walked in and sat down on the front row.  Sure enough, she came out again and while her husband and some others cooked up on stage, she stood with us out in the crowd just talking about anything and everything.  And honestly, she doesn't give a shit what she says.

She said they call my husband Santa Claus (He has a big white beard) because he only comes once a year.  She was sitting in a bunch of guy's laps, running her hands through their hair and talking dirty etc.  I went in there because Snagette said she'd like to see her for free.  I thought she was funny as hell and it sure wasn't anything she'd have done on Food Network.  Bottom line, it doesn't surprise me she said it. 

[WiregrassTiger]

I'm going to admit to gheyness here. (As if I haven't done so 1000X in the past) Back in April, we were at Baytowne in Sandestin.  Wine Festival spending the day getting tore up.  Paula Deen was putting on a seminar which we had no interest in going to, especially since it was about $200.00 a pop to go watch her cook.  Anywayz, late in the day, we're walking by the tent where she had her show and someone said she's going to come out and talk again, so we just walked in and sat down on the front row.  Sure enough, she came out again and while her husband and some others cooked up on stage, she stood with us out in the crowd just talking about anything and everything.  And honestly, she doesn't give a shoot what she says.

She said they call my husband Santa Claus (He has a big white beard) because he only comes once a year.  She was sitting in a bunch of guy's laps, running her hands through their hair and talking dirty etc.  I went in there because Snagette said she'd like to see her for free.  I thought she was funny as hell and it sure wasn't anything she'd have done on Food Network.  Bottom line, it doesn't surprise me she said it.

Did you bone her or did she debone you?

[AUChizad]

You guys really should stop defending this Democrat.

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/celebrities-political-affiliations-20122210/25628

[Kaos]

If you're going to fire anybody who ever said the word nig, everybody I've ever known in my life -- including all the black people -- would be unemployed. 

Firing her is inexcusable. 

[Pell City Tiger]

One could conduct a survey of 100 randomly selected people of each ethnic group and ask only 1 question; "Have you ever used a racial slur in conversation". If they're honest people, I'd wager that no less than 3/4 of them reply "Yes".

Honky, cracker, kike, black (yeah, I said it. You wanna fight about it?), wop, gook, chink, kraut, wet back, rag head; almost everyone has at one time or another used one of these words. When you break the sample group down to people in her age group, I'll bet the number of people replying in the affirmative increases to damn near 100%. Anyone that has told a really funny joke, quoted Richard Pryor, or attended a X Gate is guilty. As a people, we've become too thin skinned.

The thing that truly sunk her in this case, in my opinion, was the "alleged" Old South party she hosted where she (allegedly) made the black folk dress as slaves. She should have had better sense than that. Burn her for that, not for something she said that everybody else says.

[Townhallsavoy]

If you're going to fire anybody who ever said the word nig, everybody I've ever known in my life -- including all the black people -- would be unemployed. 

Firing her is inexcusable.

I heard a six year old say it once.  Blond hair and khaki shorts.  Devil white skin.  Fuck him. He'll never make a dime.

[Token]

I hear someone call someone else a black 5 days a week, I didnt realize it was still offensive.  None of those people have a job either, but I always thought it was because they couldn't stay out of jail. 

[Townhallsavoy]

I hear someone call someone else a black 5 days a week, I didnt realize it was still offensive.  None of those people have a job either, but I always thought it was because they couldn't stay out of jail.

Just logged that you typed out the "n" word instead of abbreviating it.  Expect your life to be henceforth ruined.

[Token]

Just logged that you typed out the "n" word instead of abbreviating it.  Expect your life to be henceforth ruined.

I voted democrat once, it's cool.

[AUChizad]

For the record, this isn't stemming from her saying it once in the 60s.

In 2013, she was harassing her employees on the basis of race, throwing the n-word around (as she said, "not in a mean way"), and even to the point where her employees were required to use separate bacthrooms.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/paula-deen-racial.php

HUNTER WALKER JUNE 19, 2013, 6:04 PM  79068
Updated at 7:28 p.m. ET

Last month, Food Network chef Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition as part of a discrimination suit she’s facing in which she discussed her desire to have a “very southern style wedding” for her brother modeled after a restaurant where the “whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men” clad in white jackets and black bow ties, according to a transcript of the deposition filed in federal court in Georgia. Deen also admitted to having used the N word and discussed the ways the word could be “not said in a mean way.”

Deen’s deposition in the lawsuit was first reported by the National Enquirer.

A copy of the deposition transcript is published below.

Deen, her brother Earl “Bubba” Hiers, her company, and the corporations that operate a pair of restaurants she owns in Savannah, Ga., are being sued by former employee Lisa Jackson. A complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia by Jackson’s attorney, Matthew Billips, last November alleged she was subjected to “violent, sexist, and racist behavior” during five years working for Deen’s various businesses.

According to the complaint, Jackson began working for Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, a restaurant run by Hiers, in early 2005 and left in August 2010 due to the inappropriate behavior she said she was subjected to in her time there. In the deposition, Deen said she owns half of the corporation that operates Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House. Jackson also said she did some other work for Deen’s company and a restaurant she runs. The complaint alleged “racially discriminatory attitudes pervade” Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House where Jackson claimed African-American employees were required to use separate bathrooms and entrances from white staffers. Jackson also said African-Americans were held to “different, more stringent, standards” than whites at the restaurant and that Hiers regularly made offensive racial remarks. In the complaint, Jackson is described as a “white female.” However the complaint noted she has biracial nieces, so “derogatory remarks regarding African Americans are even more personally offensive to Ms. Jackson than they would be to another white citizen.”

Along with the allegations of racism, Jackson’s complaint accuses Hiers of making inappropriate sexual comments and forcing her to look at pornography with him. The complaint also said Hiers violently shook employees on multiple occasions and came to work in an “almost constant state of intoxication.”

Jackson’s complaint also accuses Deen of racism and enabling Hiers’ behavior. According to the complaint, Deen and other managers at her companies ignored Jackson’s attempts to discuss Hiers’ behavior. As evidence that Deen “holds such racist views herself,” the complaint details an incident that occurred when Jackson was in charge of “food and serving arrangements” at Hier’s wedding in 2007. The complaint includes a comment Deen allegedly made when asked by Jackson what type of uniforms the servers should wear at the wedding.

“Well what I would really like is a bunch of little blacks 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,” the lawsuit claims Deen said. “Now that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

In her deposition, which was given last month, Deen denied many of the allegations against Hiers and addressed the alleged comment about his wedding. Deen said she remembered telling Jackson and another employee about a restaurant she went to with an exclusively African-American waitstaff that she wanted to emulate, but was worried about the potential reaction. Though Deen admitted to using the phrase “really southern plantation wedding” she denied having said the N word.

“I remember telling them about a restaurant that my husband and I had recently visited. And I’m wanting to think it was in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere, and it was so impressive,” Deen said. “The whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie. I mean, it was really impressive. And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that, I said, but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret.”

Deen said “that restaurant represented a certain era in America.” When pressed by Billips, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Deen said she was referring to the period immediately surrounding the Civil War. She also said she knew people might “read something into it” if she used exclusively African-American servers at the wedding.

Though she denied having used the N word when discussing the wedding waitstaff, Deen admitted to Billips that she used the term in the past.

“Yes, of course,” Deen replied when asked if she ever said the word.

Deen said she employed the term when telling her husband about an incident “when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.”

“I didn’t feel real favorable towards him,” Deen said of the alleged bank robber.

Deen also admitted she was “sure” that she’d used the word since that incident. Specifically, Deen said she “probably” used the word while “repeating” a “conversation between blacks.” She also said that her family, including Hiers, do not discriminate against any race and object to the N word “being used in any cruel or mean behavior.” Jackson’s attorney responded by asking Deen to explain how the N word might be used in a “non-mean way.”

“We hear a lot of things in the kitchen, things that they — that black people will say to each other,” Deen said. “If we are relaying something that was said, a problem that we’re discussing, that’s not said in a mean way.”

Billips also asked Deen whether she thought “jokes” containing the N word would be hurtful. Deen said she was unsure.

“That’s kind of hard. Most — most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target — I don’t know. I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know,” said Deen. “They usually target, though, a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don’t know — I just don’t know what to say. I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”

Though she said she does not tell “racial” jokes herself, Deen said she was “sure” members of her family have told jokes that contained the N word and that her husband “is constantly telling me jokes.” Billips asked whether Deen is “offended at all by those jokes.”

“No, because it’s my husband,” she said.

“Contrary to media reports, Ms. Deen does not condone or find the use of racial epithets acceptable,” Deen’s attorney, William Franklin, told the Associated Press in a statement. A spokeswoman for the Food Network issued a statement saying it will “continue to monitor the situation.”

Attorneys for Deen and Hiers did not respond to a request for comment from TPM. Billips declined to comment. In their filings in the lawuit, Deen and Hiers and the other defendants have denied Jackson’s allegations.

[DnATL]

[chinook]

frickin' old mommy part.

[RWS]

For the record, this isn't stemming from her saying it once in the 60s.

In 2013, she was harassing her employees on the basis of race, throwing the n-word around (as she said, "not in a mean way"), and even to the point where her employees were required to use separate bacthrooms.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/paula-deen-racial.php

The lawsuit was filed early last year.  I remember Fox News running a story about it, too.  If it stemmed from the lawsuit, they would have fired her last year.  Her firing is because of the content of the deposition where she admits to using the N bomb. 

[Buzz Killington]

So, when do the record producers fire every rapper ever?

[Godfather]

So, when do the record producers fire every rapper ever?

Nigga please

[GH2001]

You guys really should stop defending this Democrat.

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/celebrities-political-affiliations-20122210/25628

What does that matter?

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Her firing was way overblown and I don't care if she is BFF with Obama (which I've read she is sort of). That also kind of proves she isn't a racist in the true sense of the word, which people sometimes forget. That accusation is thrown around way too loosely. And doesn't mean what most people who say it think it means. If she truly just hated and discriminated against blacks purely based off the fact that they were black, I seriously doubt she would have been an Obama supporter or hired hundreds of blacks to work for her in her business.

[Saniflush]

What does that matter?

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Her firing was way overblown and I don't care if she is BFF with Obama (which I've read she is sort of). That also kind of proves she isn't a racist in the true sense of the word, which people sometimes forget. That accusation is thrown around way too loosely. And doesn't mean what most people who say it think it means. If she truly just hated and discriminated against blacks purely based off the fact that they were black, I seriously doubt she would have been an Obama supporter or hired hundreds of blacks to work for her in her business.

My great great grandfather had hired a lot of them to work in his.

[GH2001]

My great great grandfather had hired a lot of them to work in his.

W-2 and all?

Different times now. Not hiring them is viewed as more racist than hiring them with the advent of the civil rights act and affirmative action.