Is Paula Deen becoming for the Southern good ol’ girls what
Chick-Fil-A became for the right wing political sub-branch of Christianity? Will our Facebook posts that we’re cooking
with butter become a euphemism for our white superiority? We can’t say aloud that we advocate white supremacy, but we can say “We love Paula Deen” or join an "I support Paula Deen" Facebook group?
Although I’ve never once watched her show (or hardly any
other cooking show), and although the unrest of my ever-questioning mind has made me a cultural
misfit in the South (except for my accent and my aversion to cold temperatures),
I admit to feeling a little sorry for Paula Deen. Why?
Because I am a Southerner, and I think I understand her naivete. She is my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, my coworker,
and my student. She exhibits like most other
Southerners an empty understanding about racism and oppression. Most will argue passionately that we are not
racist, and we believe it. We are
church-going Christian people who have been taught to be kind to everyone, and
we would never directly mistreat a black person. Yet we are blind to the undercurrent of racism that we have innocently inherited from our families and surrounding
culture, and blind to how obvious it is to our black acquaintances.
*Perhaps like so many other white Southerners, Paula Deen had never
been challenged to examine the gap between what she would say among other white
acquaintances and what she would say in front of someone black. Perhaps she never questioned why she felt
uncomfortable walking alone past a black man but not a white one, or why she
avoided stopping for gas or food on the “black side” of town. Maybe she never questioned her surface justification
for the horror of thinking of a child or grandchild dating or marrying a black
person. Maybe she never considered the harm
of laughing at her coworker’s (or brother's) racist jokes.
Maybe Paula Deen never really thought about the cousin with the
rebel flag on his truck, or the neighbor with the “It's called the White House - Let’s
keep it that way” or the “You have your X, I have mine” bumper sticker. Maybe she never wondered why 150 years after
the Civil War, so many Southern good ole’ boys are still obsessed with the
Confederacy.
It’s all just a part of our Southern heritage, we say. And indeed it is, but is it a part for which we need to be proud, a part we should defend and protect? Could we preserve the endearing parts of our culture - the bluegrass music, the Moonpies and RC Cola, the way we can stretch one syllable into three - and let the undesirable parts go?
It’s all just a part of our Southern heritage, we say. And indeed it is, but is it a part for which we need to be proud, a part we should defend and protect? Could we preserve the endearing parts of our culture - the bluegrass music, the Moonpies and RC Cola, the way we can stretch one syllable into three - and let the undesirable parts go?
None of us, Paula Deen included, chooses our culture of
origin, and none of us sees above our culture if we live our entire lives
inside it. Wanting to be good people, we
convince ourselves that racism is a thing of the past, enclosing ourselves in a
stagnate culture of denial, showing our Southern pride by announcing that we’re
cooking with butter in honor of Paula, because, let's face it, we can’t eat all our meals at
Chick-Fil-A.
*In paragraphs 3 and 4, the blogger does not intend to say that Paula Deen actually had these experiences - just that these are likely experiences for any woman of the South.
Photo credit: thrillist
Photo credit: thrillist
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