Celebrity chef Paula Deen, seen here in a January 2012 photo, admitted that she used a racial slur years ago. / Peter Kramer/NBC/AP
In this Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 photo, celebrity chef Paula Deen poses for a portrait in New York. / Carlo Allegri/Associated Press
Now that I have your attention, is it safe to come out? Are we done with the Diva from Down South, and can someone explain to me why there was such shock and awe that a Southern cook of a certain age spoke about black people in a way that wasnít so loving?
The furor over what Deen said in a deposition missed the entire point that the lawsuit filed against her alleged discrimination and mistreatment. Are we keeping up with that as much as how many times or how long she might have used a racial slur?
Itís like trying to remember the emperorís name when heís naked: There is a bigger issue.
Actually, there are two:
First, I hope the CEOs of all those companies that ran from Deen will pay just as much attention to other legal issues that have a bigger effect on minorities.
While we were deciding what to do with our Paula Deen knife sets or looking for the address of the Food Network, the U.S. Supreme Court nearly dismantled the remedy to ensure voting rights in the South. And the court did it less than a year after officials in several states across America tried to keep people from voting. (I bet Karl Rove is still counting votes in Ohio, today.) And a lower court is trying to dismantle affirmative action, which is the opposite of the privileged action that white Americans lived with for nearly 400 years.
I hope those CEOs who want people of all colors to buy their products and watch their channels and give them our money will keep their eye on the ball, and the ball isnít Paula Deen.
Second, and this is important to me: I hope that everyone who was so exercised over Paula Deen using a racial slur will now stop purchasing rap songs in which artists like Lil Wayne and J. Cole use the same slur and pretend it is a term of endearment.
It is just stupid. It is as stupid as the girls who dance barely dressed in the videos peddled by these so-called rap and hip-hop stars, girls who think being video vixens makes them important.
No, it just makes them objects ó sometimes of ridicule.
The lessons for all of us from the Paula Deen fiasco are threefold:
If you donít want to hear racial slurs, donít talk to people raised on them. They donít mean any harm. Itís what theyíre used to. And they should be left alone, very alone, with their beautiful pasts.
If you want to hold corporations accountable, donít let them get away with firing Paula Deen as an excuse for actually helping minorities. Ballantine Books not selling Paula Deen books will not send one black child to college or ensure that a 90-year-old woman can vote without being put through the wringer.
And, if we really think that racial slurs are so horrible, they shouldnít be allowed anywhere, by anyone.
Stupidity by any other name is still stupidity. And that word, said by anyone, is still that word.