How Paula Deen Reminds Us That Race Still Matters

On this week’s episode of “I Honestly Can’t Say I’m Shocked,” Paula Deen admitted to using a racial epithet to describe a certain segment of African Americans. The popular chef, also known as the self-appointed face of Southern cooking, is being sued by a former employee. In court depositions from this case, Paula Deen admitted using derogatory terms to describe African-Americans. She also provided her thoughts—unsolicited thoughts—about hiring Black men to dress up in jackets and bow-ties for a plantation-styled wedding. According to the deposition transcript, she acknowledged how much she would have loved to have middle aged-Black male servers at this plantation wedding, reminiscent of a time in American history which she herself described as the Civil War era, “… an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.”  (cue Redd Foxx as Fred Sanford here: “I’m having the big one, Elizabeth!”)

Deen goes on to say that of course it was not only Black men but also Black women who were waiting on white people, and then declared how much she loved the look of those servants who she would say were slaves, and their professionalism. There is so much wrong with this trajectory of thinking I barely know where to start.

And here is why race still matters. You see in order to even have a degree of professionalism for someone to admire, you need to have a profession. A profession in which you were hired to do a job and received compensation for said job. And that was not the case for kidnapped Africans and others who were FORCED into a system of race-based slavocracy unto death. In the words attributed to Miss Deen, she apparently admired the look and professionalism of slaves and worried about the backlash she might get for her admiration. Apparently, her overriding concern was being taken to task for admiring the professionalism of slaves. Never mind the complete and utter glossing over of the forced race-based servitude until death of kidnapped human beings during a period of American history at the time of the Civil War, which she reduces to something that sounds like wait staff at a restaurant. Her words do not recall in any way the fact that slaves did not have rights. Slaves did not have freedom.  There were acts of rebellion and resistance for a reason! So I feel pretty confident in saying American slaves did not look professional because they had a choice in the matter. They did it because they were forced to wait on capable people hand and foot because they (or their family members) would likely have been sold farther south, tortured, or killed if they resisted. As I read the words ascribed to her, it felt to me as though she was perfectly comfortable romanticizing an era in American history that we should be ashamed of.  

Whenever there is a tremendous loss of life in a singular event, those events receive a certain amount of deference and respect. Yet in this case, the event of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade/Middle Passage and American slavery gets reduced to a time in our history where black people just waited on white people. Miss Deen is not the first nor will she be the last to remind us that race still matters. There, I said it. Race still matters. Even though we have a president of African descent, even though we have African American billionaires, celebrities, athletes, and leaders of industry, even though African Americans are voters, own cars and homes, pay taxes, obtain terminal degrees, are doctors and scientists, inventors and investors, raise families and attend PTA meetings, race still matters.

Obviously, the descendants of slaves have made tremendous strides in this country. But just a review of the past few weeks indicates just how much race still matters. Race still matters when a man is on trial for firing a gun into the chest of an unarmed Black teen-aged boy whose race may have been the reason he confronted him in the first place. Race still matters when a school in the mid-West bans little Black girls from wearing Afro-puffs. Race still matters when the company that makes Cheerios took all kinds of heat for daring to portray an interracial couple and their biracial daughter in a commercial, and race still matters when a documentary entitled “Dark Girls” reminds us that people still actually think it is a compliment to be told: “you’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl.”   

Paula Deen’s comments remind us that in spite of the many, many advances we have made as a people who carry this peculiar link to American slavery, we are still often viewed and treated as though we are less than fully human. We may have a Black president, but that fact certainly didn’t shield me from the expression of disdain I received from an airport security employee when I asked him to at least change his gloves if he must rake his fingers through my hair. Or from the mood killer that is being on a date and getting pulled over by the police for no good reason. It hurts. And it is a hurt that needs a safe space in which to be talked about. This country is in desperate need of a conversation about race across all institutions. Raise your hand if you’ve ever read a slave narrative as requiredreading or had the Voting Rights Act explained to you in grade school or high school. Or wondered who among your ancestors suffered a beating similar to the beating Mel Gibson’s Jesus suffered for more than thirty minutes of The Passion of the Christ. It is only recently that my father is sharing his own experiences of racism. Like the time he was a little boy and was visiting his southern relatives and drank out of a “white’s only” water fountain and was viciously slapped across his face for not knowing his place. Until we fully come to terms with the history that established this country, the good and the bad, and continue to ignore race the way we sweep dust bunnies under our beds, hoping they will go away without any action on our part, the reminders that race matters will just keep coming.  

Follow Kimberly Peeler-Ringer on twitter @kpringer