Food Network! Lawd hab mercy. Say it ain't so

Yes, I am jumping into the Paula Deen/Food Network/Twitter fray. I say let the woman keep her show. I don't watch her but apparently someone does. My take on the whole thing is if outrage is warranted, it's because of the nature of the discrimination LAWSUIT lodged against her and her brother. Now am I okay with her using racial slurs? No. But I am a big girl and have been on this Earth for more than a hot minute and I am no rookie to racial slurs in my life (be it the giving or receiving end). I am not shocked and surprised that she has used them. Just like I am not shocked and surprised that any number of people I encounter on a daily basis do or have (the cashier at CVS; the bank teller I've used; the cop who told me to move it along). What I'm saying is: She's a White, Southern woman in her 60s who is a COOK (not a CHEF as much as folks want to label her that) who makes her living making food that causes heart attacks and peddles cookware and cookbooks. I have no interest in partaking in anything that would ban her from her doing livelihood based on words she said in the past.

I even offered an addition to #paulasbestdishes on Twitter: HOT BURNING CROSS BUNS. Good, right? Her public embarrassment is enough. I am sure. She will be doing damage control and hiring more publicists. She is just a bigoted person who cooks and got lucky. Period. Stop putting people on pedestals and then finding out they have clay feet. They use the bathroom and sweat just like the rest of us. And use racial slurs. I could care less that Miss Deen ain't what others held her up to be. I am concerned about the quiet, insidious racists who hold public office, who sit on a judicial bench when a park bench is the only bench they should sit on or who hide behind badges and destroy people's lives.

I've used bigoted over racist here. Bigoted means to have a prejudice based on a personal bias against anything (food, people, dogs, etc.). Being racist takes it wa-a-a-y over the line and means that one has power to use one's bias to totally control how another ethnic group will live, work, thrive or wither. The two are used interchangeably and mostly incorrectly. Basically all racists are bigots but not all bigots are racists.

Which brings me back to Miss Deen. What I find disturbing are the particulars of the lawsuit brought by one of Deen's former employees. A White female named Lisa Jackson, I believe, said blacks were made to use separate bathrooms and separate entrances while working for Miss Deen and her family in their restaurants. Plus, there are allegations of sexual harrassment against Miss Deen's brother.

These are the things that are chat worthy. These allegations possibly speak to racist behavior because Deen et al. held power over their staff and seemed not afraid to use it. Bigoted and racist. Umm.

The Twitter parody of her cooking was hysterical and merciless but was just an appetizer for the probable unearthing of some rather unsavory alleged goings-on in her business establishments.

For the hilarious tweets check out #paulasbestdishes on Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook: Havens for haters?

I really am trying to keep my blog about my books and others’ books dealing with the beauty and ordinary-ness of interracial/multicultural characters and relationships. But ignorant, ratchet-assed folk won’t let me. They just won’t let me. I think the books that I and my colleagues write are needed. Woefully so because there seems, no, there is, a ton of hatred out there still about these unions and people of pigment period. Let’s face it, kiddies, just because Mr. Obama is president, we all are NOT getting along in the USA. Look how the man who occupies the highest office in this land has been disrespected since he took the seat. Recall the cretin who yelled out “You lie!” during a State of the Union address? If I had been the so-called "lying" President the guy would now be counting grains of sand on a deserted beach somewhere. I don’t know if the melding of different gene pools scares the simpletons due to the fact that their simple behinds would become extinct, or, and this dumbness is my favorite,  "that the people in a couple should match.”  Phew! Whatever. God help us all. I have two cases to highlight which people’s response to here in the States has been nothing but crazed.

It may not have been the founder of Facebook’s intent and it may not have been the founder of Twitter’s intent but these social media sites have become the havens for dullards and bigots which I have to say are one and the same. These two sites imploded recently over two things: a Cheerios commercial with a racially mixed family (Black father, White mother, and their daughter) and a little 11-year-old boy who happens to be of Mexican descent with a killer voice who sang the national anthem at a basketball game. The negative reactions to these images and performances were jaw-dropping. The nonsense about the Cheerios commercial ran the gamut from “it’s a conspiracy against Black families” to “it’s a conspiracy against White families.” Which is it? Can’t be both at the same time, idiots. Mountains of filth were spewed about the little girl's mongrel looks. Yeah, the reaction is bigoted but a tad funny because it’s a COMMERCIAL! They are actors. You dolts are hatin’ on ACTORS! It really shows the depth of their hatred and intelligence. Now on to the winner of the Exceptionally-Ratchet award. Viewers of the basketball game (I believe it was between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs, I think it was a home game for the Spurs), took to FB and Twitter to decry that a beaner was singing the anthem of their United States. So sickening. The kid is a US citizen, born and raised here, not that it makes a difference ‘cuz it doesn’t. Venom unleashed on children.

I’m saddened but not surprised. The gross, vile sleeping monster of American racism raised its ugly head and blinked with Barack Obama’s election in 2008. It woke up fully when he got re-elected, said “WTF!” and has been rapping its talons on the tabletop ever since. It has nothing new to add to the conversation; it just has found new quicker, cowardly ways of conveying it.