Monday, July 1, 2013

Paula Deen

The more this Paula Deen controversy snowballs, the more I am flabbergasted!  
Is there not one set of balls between all of the CEOs of all of the companies with which Mrs. Deen has contracts?  

I have wanted to post something for a while now about this, but wondered if I should or not.  Then I realized that if I didn't say something about how I felt, I would be just as bad as those who are taking action against her.  This is AMERICA, we are entitled to our opinion, and this is mine. 

It amazes me that these people have no backbone to stand up for someone they hired.  C'mon all you chicken shit companies.  What do you really think is going to happen?  There are products that all of those stores carry that I have problems with, but you can't stop shopping there.  After this, I wish I could stop patronizing stores that have dropped her, but the Paula Deen brand is so huge that it, make that was, everywhere and I don't know where I would shop.   

You see interview after interview with Black people - yes, I said Black - not African American, and for the most part, the interviewees just don't care.  In the world of black people, the "N" word is regularly used, but heaven forbid that an elderly white woman, who was raised in the south, growing up through the riots of desegregation, would have used the word at some point during her lifetime!  She didn't use it yesterday, she didn't use it last year, she didn't use it last decade.  As admitted in her deposition, it was at least 30 YEARS AGO!

Maybe we should be proud that so many people in so many companies have never used that word, and have never done anything that they should be ashamed of...until now. 

I wish Paula Deen all the best and hope this turns around for her and her family. 

Post Script:  Black vs African American.  I was polietly, but forcefully, 'informed' a long, long time ago by my friends (who happened to be black), that they were AMERICANS.  I was told that since neither they, nor their parents or grandparents immigrated from any other country their ties were to the USA.  I was told that their skin was closer to black than white, as my skin was closer to white than black.  (way closer, if youv'e ever seen my legs!)  If we couldn't all just be people, men and women, and must be distinquished by skin color, they (my friends along with their friends and family) preferred the term 'black.'  They did not understand all of the African dress that was popping up all over, worn by people who didn't know the history behind it.  What reaction would I get if I started wearing traditional Slovak dress, from when my grandparents came to this country?  I can only imagine the looks and the laughs.  Should I be calling myself a Slovak-American since both sets of my grandparents came through Ellis Island, from Europe?  I still have cousins living there.  My grandparents came here, legally, for a better life.  They acclimated to society, learned the language, got jobs, paid taxes, and while following the rules and the law, became AMERICAN CITIZENS, and were DAMN PROUD OF IT!  

OK, done for now.