Paula Deen Is Getting Railroaded

Make no mistake, my spirited defense of Paula Deen has nothing to do with accepting racial or ethnic or sexual pejoratives as appropriate. They obviously are not. Period. My problem is with the questions she was asked and the knee-jerk responses her probably honest replies have generated.

Last month, when questioned under oath by an attorney she was asked if she had used the N-word. “Yes, of course,” Deen replied, and then added, “It's been a very long time.”

Her answer should have been, “Hell, yes!” Could any white or black person over age sixty deny saying the word, nigger? Get real. While in elementary school every one of the kids I knew recited the very same counting rhyme to choose a person to be "it" for games. Please note that the rhyme below is 100 percent accurate.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch a nigger by the toe.
If he hollers, make him pay
Fifty dollars every day.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

In high school we were required to read Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and were also required to discuss in class his use of the term “nigger Jim” and his liberal use of that heavily freighted word throughout the book. In college English Lit we were required to read Joseph Conrad's, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus': A Tale of the Sea. Think none of us in that class ever said “nigger” aloud during those discussions? And what about reciting your favorite rap lyrics while driving alone in your car? Think the nigger word never appears in those lyrics? Or maybe you've never listened to and discussed with your friends Richard Prior's great records, like That Nigger's Crazy and Bicentennial Nigger, or his stand-up routines in which he used the nigger word countless times. And what about the famous hip-hop, gansta rappers NWA? Don't tell me white persons never said their name: Niggaz Wit Attitudes. Please, please, please don't bullshit a bullshitter.

Deen should have told the lawyer she could not respond to such an obvious and open-ended trap without clarification or without being able to provide context in her answer. How was the word used and when it was used could be of tremendous importance. When she said that it had been “a very long time” did she mean five years or fifty-five years? Context in her case is critical. But not to the attorney who asked the question or to people calling for her head.

I personally do not know if Deen is a closet racist, overt racist, repentant racist, recovering racist, or never was a racist in the first place. And if she is of the repentant variety why is she being persecuted for past sins? Who out there can cast the first stone? Step forward, please. What I do know is she has been shamelessly railroaded.

What most white people have to come to grips with is we all, almost without exception, have been adversely affected by racism. Whether we fell under its pernicious influence or struggled against it throughout our lives is a critical question. It's also a question Deen was never asked and thus was never able to answer.

As an old white guy, I have said the word, nigger, many times in 70 plus years of life in a great many contexts. But never once did I use it to disparage a black person. Never once in my presence have I tolerated its use as a pejorative. I actively detest racial pejoratives in ordinary conversation. But, if I had been asked the same questions as Deen, I might have responded the same way even though the contexts in which the usage occurred were innocent. Should I be condemned for my use of the word?

Paula Deen has been.