Paula Deen is a famous chef and owner of a successful restaurant. She has put out 14 cookbooks and is very well known for it. Now however she is getting slandered for using the 'N-word' approximately 30 years ago.
Paula Deen and her son's Jamie and Bobby own and run the restaurant The Lady & Sons where some of the former employees claim to have had to listen to racial slurs and jokes from the owners. One employee even claims that she was sexually harassed by Paula's brother Earl Heirs. You can see the lawsuit here: Lawsuit
Paula Deen seems to be having a lot of racial secrets coming out about her past and her restaurant with the white staff allowed to use the front restrooms and the black staff having to use the back restrooms. There is also talk of her planning a
"true Southern wedding" with an all-black waitstaff wearing white shirts and black pants. Deen is alleged to have said, "You know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around."Now the thing you must understand is that Paula Deen was born January 19, 1947, and in the 1940's and 50's when she grew up blacks did not have the same civil rights as whites. Employers could legally refuse to consider black applicants for jobs. Landlords could refuse to rent houses to black people. Blacks and whites lived in separate neighborhoods. Often, blacks were barred from registering to vote. This is how she was raised, to be taught by society that blacks where not equal. As she got older however, and time and society changed she may not have changed as much as it did. A lot of older people in America are used to the old ways that they grew up. They still hold onto the old beliefs but they do try to change.
Knowing this, you really can't blame her for what she said so long ago. Many, MANY people even now say that word a lot and often. Some people mean it and some just say it to piss people off. Others still say it jokingly. If a famous black person admitted to calling someone or saying "Cracker" they would probably not get as much attention as she is now.
Her past does not, however, give her the right to treat staff so poorly. Now none of these accusations have been found to be true or not but if they are then she is wrong in doing so. As a business owner and someone who is looked up upon she should know better then to let her old fashioned ways get in the way of business and being a role model. She claims that she doesn't care about your skin color, only what is in your heart. If these racial claims about how she runs her business prove to be false accusations then she shouldn't be blamed for anything more.
Paula Deen is an older southern woman who grew up when slavery was still a thing and blacks didn't exactly have any rights. Is it any wonder that someone who grew up in this era has said the N-word a few times more then what she is willing to admit to? When she gets slandered so much for admitting to saying it once? It would be like judging someone who survived Pearl Harbor for calling a Japanese person a "Buddhahead" or some other slurred term.
People need to let it go. Forgive Paula Deen, she is just acting in the way she was raised to act.
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