I Is What I Is

Poor Paula Deen. That truck that ran over her backed up and did it again and again. The biggest surprise to me was that she did not have a business manager somewhere to advise, “Now, Paula. I know this ain't a big deal to you but you may have to eat some crow.” If there was such a person she must have said something like, “Now, Jimbo. I think I know these down home folks better than you. I is what I is.” We all know what happened from there.

I am amazed. Paula Deen is more than a person, she is a brand. She should have had better business sense than to assume that logic and reason would win out over emotional accusations of covert racism. My personal opinion is that there are very few of us who are free from some measure of covert racism. The thing about racism is not that you have it but that you have it and know it and try your darnedest to overcome it. That you know it is not just politically incorrect but also humanly incorrect. Then you can do something about it. I suppose I just don't understand those who condemn Paula (yes, we are on a first name basis) for having used the forbidden pejorative in her past. I personally don't know anyone who hasn't used that word. Yes, I know a few racists but I know more people who are aware of racism and do their best to avoid the practice of it.

I read several columnists who weighed in on Paula's problem and I found much more intractable criticism from Caucasian writers than from African-American writers. The African-American writers seemed satisfied with Paula's explanation and profession of transgression. They know all to well the tendencies of white folks and are somewhat suspicious of claims that one has never wandered across the line. Some Caucasian writers just piled on and offered no hope for redemption since she was from the South and obviously held Jim Crow latencies.

I don't want to seem that I am trying to diminish Paula's deeds. The worst thing is that she seemed somewhat insensitive to the impact of her actions. She just didn't believe that it would blow up in her face since she apologized and lived a good life. She is guilty of very bad judgment but I don't doubt her sincerity on this subject. And while we are there there is the question about her sincerity in taking up the diabetic cause some two years after she found out she was diabetic herself. She is accused of using the disease to promote herself, a diabetes drug she endorsed and a cooking show hosted by one of her sons. What about that? Well, get a grip, folks. As I said, Paula Deen is not just a name, it is a brand. Of course she used whatever advantages she had available to promote her brand. That is the way businesses are promoted. I am not going to take time to try to think of other examples but she is certainly not the first to use a physical problem to promote her brand.

If we are going to talk about racism then forget about Paula Deen. She is not going to move the needle on the practice of racism in this country. As I said, I know a few racists and I know there are lots more where they came from. But it is not even those who shout the n word out loud that are the biggest problem. Rather, it is the ones who try to convince others that racism does not exist. Who go about saying, “oh, we're not the country we used to be” and we aren't. Lots of things have gotten better for minorities since my childhood but racism still exists in an institutionalized way that serves to keep some people who were at a disadvantage. The economics of racism are clear when we look at the statistics of wealth, imprisonment and opportunity in this country. We have not reached the mountaintop just yet. This is a fact that the Supreme Court seems to have missed. As a matter of fact the Court seems to have missed a few key decisions that expose an ivory tower mindset on some matters concerning protection of the downtrodden. The Court seems to think we have moved into a post-racist kind of society where, even though inequities exist, they aren't due to racism. I long for the common sense decisions of Justice O'Connor. Even though she was a Reagan appointee she managed her swing vote pretty much for the common person. Her replacement as the swing vote, Justice Kennedy, does not seem to have the same sensibility Justice O'Connor had. He seems to lack an awareness of what life is like in the trenches. With the recent rulings concerning the Voting Rights Act he seemed to think that there are no attempts to keep minorities from the voting places any more which should have been painfully obvious both before and after his ruling. Affirmative Action is under the knife even thought it has done more to bring minorities economic parity than any other single act of Congress. The values of affirmative action are not immediately seen but take a generation or two to become apparent. In the absence of such action great suffering can happen in a generation or two. Justice Kennedy exhibited this same tendency in the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates for the corruption of unlimited money in our political campaigns. He expounded that it would allow the voters to judge for themselves the value of that expenditure of money. A fallacy so profound since it ignores the fact that more money buys more time less money does the opposite.

The thing about racism is that it is a moving target. The ways that we effect racism change in response to the efforts to minimize it because some parties will always gain an advantage if certain people are denied equal access to our political process.

My take? Let up on Paula. She is guilty of nothing more than being disingenuous. If that were a crime there is not a person alive that could withstand judgment. But, if you're after racism then get serious. Look inside, deeply.