Paula Deen In The Stew

Yesterday I saw a video of Paula Deen making this rather vague apology to anyone she might have hurt.  She was clearly upset about it.  She seemed sincere.  I had no idea what she was talking about based solely on her video.

The TV media folks cleared it up somewhat by saying that apparently Paula had made use of the "N" word 20 years ago (or thereabouts) and may have also used other racial slurs.  Really?  Paula Deen?  A woman who grew up in Georgia sixty years ago when the schools were still segregated?  That woman might have used the "N-word" back in the day?  She might not have known any better and repeated the same old garbage that her parents said and their parents before them?  Huh.  I am shocked.

Apparently this "news" is all being brought up once again thanks to a former employee, Lisa Jackson, back when Paula was first getting her start in the restaurant business.  Jackson claims that she witnessed numerous acts of violence, discrimination, and racism during the five years that she worked there.  That didn't stop her from penning the following letter to Paula three months before she quit:

On Friday, CNN's sister network, HLN, obtained a letter to Deen written by Jackson, the plaintiff, three months before she quit her job at the restaurant. It read, in part, "When I came to work for this company, I felt hopeless. I needed something, some opportunity that could provide me hope as an individual, as a woman, to make it on my own. At 15, homeless, without parents and with a young child, my life was headed in a direction no one could ever assume positive. ... Since then I have become the independent woman I have always wanted to be. I have been given opportunities that I never thought possible, all because of you and Bubba."

If you want to read more about Paula's back story (very interesting stuff) you can do so here.  It is also where I found the letter quote above.

Given the letter, it seems to me that Miss Jackson wasn't really all that unhappy about her restaurant job or Paula Deen.  She is just another Greedy Grabber looking to cash in on a good thing.  In so doing, she has dug around and pulled out the magic word: Racist.  You call anyone a Racist in today's world and you can sink their ship.  All we know is that Paula Deen grew up in a time when Racism was rampant and she admits that Back Then she used words that she would never use now.

When you know better, you do better.

That isn't enough for The Food Network.  Apparently, you can still be fired for the sins of a lifetime ago.  I am sure that they are letting Paula go to make sure that they are standing on what will be the Politically Correct side of this thing.

All I can say to that is that if we are all about to be judged for things that we did twenty years ago, that is really going to suck rotten eggs.  This life is all about learning from your mistakes.  If we all can't move beyond every stupid thing we've ever done, can't apologize, then we are all just stuck.