In today’s episode of Old Racist, New Redemption Arc, embattled celebrity chef Paula Deen appears to be on a campaign to rebrand her public image and rewrite the history of how she torpedoed her own career after admitting during a legal deposition that “of course” she has used the N-word.
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While promoting her new documentary, Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, which premiered last Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, Deen said at the PEOPLE/EW and Shutterstock studio that she’s aiming to reveal the “truth” about the controversy that tanked her career, ruined her image, and ended her 11-year run on the Food Network.
“I’m looking for the truth,” the 78-year-old said. “The truth, if you watch the film, you will find it out.”
The film, directed by Billy Corben, chronicles Deen’s journey from the catering business she started in her kitchen with $200 to the sworn deposition testimony that led to her downfall.
Here’s a little background on that for folks who are unfamiliar with Deen’s story, via PEOPLE:
The deposition was part of a lawsuit filed by Lisa Jackson, a former manager of one of Paula’s restaurants, Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House. Jackson accused Deen’s brother Bubba Hiers, who ran the restaurant, of sexual harassment and using racially offensive language.
A federal judge in Georgia dismissed the lawsuit after a settlement was reached, but the controversy cost Deen numerous business deals.
Jackson issued a statement following the settlement. “The Paula Deen I have known for more than eight years is a woman of compassion and kindness and will never tolerate discrimination or racism of any kind toward anyone,” the statement read in part.
In the documentary, Deen maintains that when she admitted to having used the racial slur, she was referring to the aftermath of a 1987 incident, when she was held at gunpoint while working at a bank.
“I thought Billy did a great job of telling the whole story and putting it together,” Deen says. “It was very understandable.”
Deen’s former attorney, Bill Glass, is also riding the whiteplaining racism train along with his former client. Glass claims that if people paid attention to the “context” in which Deen said she used the racial slur in the past, then they would find it excusable.
“If anybody brings any sense to her comments and heard her answer and understood the context, they should not take any issue with it,” Glass said.
Yeah — so, about that…
On page 23 of the deposition transcript, which was published at the time by CNN, Deen was asked if she had ever used the N-word in the past, to which she responded, Of course,” as if it’s so normal for old white people to use the slur that asking one if she has is just plain silly. (I mean, you wouldn’t ask you wouldn’t ask the Big, Bad Wolf if it ever threatened a pig with breath-induced property damage, would you?) Then, later, she was asked about the context under which she used the slur. She still didn’t seem to be 100% sure what context she used it in, but said it “probably” happened this one time when she (allegedly) got robbed by a Black dude.
“Well, it was probably when a Black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head,” she said, adding that she “didn’t feel real favorable towards him.”
Deen explained that she didn’t call the alleged bank robber the N-word to his face, but she used it when she recalled the story to her husband later.
What neither Deen nor Glass seems to understand is that having had an encounter with a single criminal who happened to be Black doesn’t justify racism directed at all Black people. Just about every known race massacre in U.S. history began because a white mob decided all Black people were responsible for what one Black person was falsely accused of. Even if the accused had been guilty, it wouldn’t excuse blanket racism against everyone who looks like them.
So, if Deen got robbed by a Black man, then went home to her husband complaining about “nigg*rs,” that means she was already racist and already had that word in her heart and on her tongue. If anyone is expecting Black people to believe that’s “probably” the only time she has used it, you’re out of your caucasified mind.
Still, Deen, her former attorney, and others who are close to her insist in the documentary that she is not racist.
Do y’all remember last year, when Seinfeld star Michael Richards was on a book tour, Klansplaining that he’s “not racist” and has “nothing against Black people” despite his career ending because he called a Black man the N-word several times and implied that he should be lynched because that’s what happened to Black people “50 years ago” — all because he got heckled while doing standup? Well, this is giving that.
Look, whatever, I suppose people should watch the documentary and decide for themselves how they feel about Deen. As for me and my Black self — nah, you don’t get an N-word pass because you allegedly had an unpleasant experience with a Black person.
