I knew it would not be long before he did something that I could not even fathom accepting. Steve Harvey plans on allowing Paula Deen to mentor 100 Black Youth in the culinary arts:

Harvey is allowing Deen and her team to teach culinary skills to boys from the Steve Harvey Mentoring Camp. Each year 100 fatherless boys attend Harvey’s camp in Dallas during Father’s Day weekend. During their stay the boys are taught principles of manhood and introduced to positive male role models. [1]

I would say that Steve Harvey is working the “racial redemption” angle by allowing Deen to even be around impressionable youth at this moment. Regardless of how anyone feels, Harvey “don’t give a damn” [2]. In all fairness, Steve Harvey is dead fast in his irrational decision making.

I don’t care how he slices this situation up, this so called mentoring is not the best move (at all).

Steve Harvey Pulled a Coon Move

Many of us just have to come to terms with the fact that Steve Harvey will keep doing whatever he believes whether it is stupid or not. Having Paula Deen mentoring anybody’s inner city kids in ANYTHING is a seeming lack of principles and integrity. Responding with an “I don’t give a damn” statement is just another example of him being willingly stupid. Not only is that, but Harvey’s level of stupidity smothered in Paula Deen’s own flavorful denial of responsibility. Once again, Steve Harvey is going to do whatever he figures to be the best decision (logic be damned).

Paula Deen is No Smarter than Steve Harvey

In no way am I implying that Paula Deen has no intellect. But, what I am saying is that Paula Deen seems to be way too ambitious in her efforts. I understand that Deen wants to reconcile with the rest of the Black people inAmerica. However, she should have eased her way into a situation like this (i.e. donations, etc.) instead of going full throttle into a land that is keen on forgiving the non-deserving. In short, Deen jumped the gun on this one.

She IS the woman that made this statement before all of this mess:

“Well 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,” Jackson alleges Deen told her. “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.”

So, how should we REALLY feel? Should we really feel that Paula “still loves us coloreds with her confederate heart”?

The Skinny on Steve Harvey’s Misjudgment

Steve Harvey wanted to make a positive change in both Paula Deen’s life and the connected learning opportunities for inner city children. Yet, he chose to have a known racist (featurally inferred) become a culinary mentor for those that Paula Deen. Steve Harvey could have simply found a Black cook or chef to perform the same duties with no problem. Then again, picking a Black person could mean less conversation, controversy, and show ratings.

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My first reaction to Paula Deen in fact was “damn..an honest white person.”

When a white person tells me that they never use the word now, nor have they used it in the past, I don’t believe them for a second. You see I’ve heard it coming from all sorts of so called friends, allies, acquaintances and lovers. Nigger rolled off their tongues as easily as it did some of the skin headed white supremacists that I’ve had the displeasure of meeting during my days as a television news reporter. Of course, those who considered themselves my friend, apologized profusely claiming not to know where “that” came from.

I know where it came from. We live in the United States of Amerikkka, a country stolen from the indigenous, built by blacks kidnapped from Africa, now lived in and ruled over by white euro-centric people who claim ignorance or amnesia. They just want all us brown and black people to get over it and stop reminding them of their thievery and on-going bigotry, now cloaked within their so called post racial first amendment rights to say and to do what they please, whenever they please.

Paula Deen didn’t slip up. She fessed up. Said “hell yeah, I said it! What?” White privilege in full view for those who still need a clue.

We’d be a lot further along in this country if more people would admit they have no problem calling me a nigger when I’m looking at them, rather than waiting for me to step out of earshot.

I’ve always felt that it is better to know your enemy than to be blindsided by someone claiming to be friend or ally. Been there, had it happen. Ain’t gonna let it happen again.

The word is not nearly as dangerous as it was back in the day. Times were when you heard it out loud, you were probably in a very precarious place, hopefully with a visible escape route. Most of the people yelling and screaming and cussing today about Paula Deen have never been in that kind of daily danger. They just heard us old people talk about it and feel they should be outraged too.

Today, it’s a part of the general lexicon used by the young to talk amongst themselves. It’s not that they don’t see color or are more post racial then we the elderly, it’s just that they grew up with it in a different context. The white kids learned it from black kids and black music. They even know the difference when the word is used by their peers or by their bigoted old grandfather. Ask your kids if you don’t believe me.

It doesn’t matter to them. It’s just another word. If you ask them, they would tell us that it is time to get over it, because it is probably not going away anytime soon.

My point is….Nigger is a word. I use when I write. I use it when I talk. And it didn’t break me or kill me back when it was a dangerous word and mattered.

The fact that some southern Kentucky fried white woman admits to using nigger as a regular part of her vocabulary is not gonna anger me nor make me sweat.

What pisses me off is that she built a cooking empire on the backs of all those bow tied, mammy kerchief wearing slaves who probably created the recipes upon which she makes millions.

Just another day in the United States of America from my point of view.

Make her pay for what she stole and I might get excited.

Yeah right…

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Also, on the heels of the George Zimmerman trial for the death of Trayvon Martin. We’ll also discuss our feelings on the trial and the potential outcome. Central to the discussion would be the mostly white all-female jury and its impact.

Lastly, we’ll discuss the implications of this week’s upcoming rulings from the Supreme Court. As it stands, said decisions related to Gay Marriage, Affirmative Action, and the Voting Rights Act can have a lasting impact — whether good or bad — on our society at large.

The post Madness & Reality Radio: Paula Deen, George Zimmerman, & Justice appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Anyway, as expected, America’s purveyor of butter, lasagna sandwiches, and deep-fried fare had a N*gger-gate moment and has incited the media and various social networking platforms to chorus: courtesy of an explosive deposition—(following a $1.2 million lawsuit filed against her last year by a former employee, for stressful work conditions fraught with errant sexual harassment and racial slurs)— in which Paula Deen basically admits that she and her p.o.s. brother, Bubba Hiers, are racists, and that she allowed sexist, inappropriate, and racially charged language and behavior  in her place of business.

After the National Enquirer broke the story and it was picked up by the national media, the reaction was immediate. Never a crowd to pass up a chance to upend a particularly hateful moment, ‘Black Twitter’ skewered the Food Network star via a hashtag called #PaulasBestDishes, and then another one called #PaulaDeenApologyBingo . Quite frankly, watching her fumble her way through three apology videos—the first one she scrapped and the third features her making an appeal for forgiveness to Matt Lauer for bailing on an appearance at the last minute— was awkward and painful to watch: painful because both attempts strike me as being disingenuous and was akin to watching an 8-year-old being forced to eat their vegetables.

When a person has spent the bulk of their life wading, almost proudly,  in a sea of racist rhetoric with impunity, I imagine suddenly being held accountable for it, in an age where people aren’t standing for it anymore, can prove to be difficult to reconcile. When overt racists, particularly if they’re public figures, have to be dragged kicking and screaming by their PR people, to make amends after having believed in something for so long… I suppose it’s hard to know what kind of caca words to string together, to salvage your brand and hold tight to those large paychecks that’ll go down the bog pan, when sponsors and endorsement deals start waning.

Alas, I don’t feel bad for Paula Deen, nor do I abide any person who uses oppressive language to exert their perceived supremacy over marginalized communities.  Because hash-tag parodies aside, more often than not, people like Paula Deen will use their privilege to readily hurt people; and when the heat is on them, they’ll uphold themselves as the victim, much like Paula Deen admitted to doing as a little girl, when she physically assaulted and hurt the young daughter of a black woman who looked after her. Racially insensitive people like Paula Deen will employ excuses about it being “just a joke”, that they’re simply a product of their environment, or will go on some rant about political correctness and whinge, “well black people use that word too!” without any regard for context and power dynamics. Because, as many of us with any modicum of awareness have come to realize, white privilege balks at being challenged, it’s a system that can’t stand not controlling the discourse or being able to tone police… so those who uphold it will shut down and sulk  when silencing fails.

Paula Deen has been outed and served a little bit of Shug Avery pee, because she’s now been fired from the Food Network, much to the chagrin of her equally as ignorant fans . And while many people argue that her behavior is no surprise and is typical of a white, middle-aged person from the south, it still doesn’t mean that she should be absolved of bearing any responsibility for using her influence to ridicule black people for her own amusement or discomfit people under her employ. While she probably deeply regrets being exposed, I honestly don’t think she’s sorry. She apologized to her family, friends, team, and Matt Lauer… but never directly addressed the group of people (some of who bought into her brand) she insulted.

And since it is par for the course in these sorts of situations, some people rallied behind Paula by either trying to decontexualize and derail the conversation, or by engaging in a little racism themselves, staying true to the script.

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