Racism, Paula Deen, and the Supreme Court

Professor Hess talks about the need to be actively anti-racist in her book and this is a sentiment that resonates with me.  And I was thinking about that this past week with the whole Paula Deen ‘scandal’ and the decisions by the Supreme Court that gutted affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act.  I haven’t seen a lot of people tie the two together, but think about it, the Supreme Court is effectively saying that, ‘no, race isn’t a problem in the country anymore.  We don’t need this crazy old provision to ensure access to silly things like job, education or the ability to participate in democracy.  We’re a post-racial society now!’  And then the next story says something to the effect of ‘Paula Deen was fired from the Food Network because of admitted use of the ‘N-word’.’ 

But remember kids, we don’t think racially anymore.  Really? 

Now, I’ll not try an pretend that I know if Paula Deen is a racist or not, but I do know that in the south, that term is still used and even if it was 20 years ago, she should have known then that it was wrong.  Though if she didn’t use the word, there has been recent footage of her suggesting that a black employee was as dark as the black backdrop he was standing against, and needed to move so that the people could see the assistant, and that suggests some kind of ingrained lack o awareness and insensitivity that is almost as bad as saying the n-word.  She may not be a racist, but damn, some of the stuff she has done (on film!) has been quite racially insensitive.

And so where are we today?  Well, we have people who grew up hearing the word and have realized, ‘wow, that’s hateful and wrong’ and are teaching their kids differently.  Unfortunately, we also people who don’t understand why it’s so offensive to refer to any group of people by a racial slur, or worse, actively wonder why ‘they can say it, so why can’t we?’ 

Why do you want to say it?  Also, have you ever heard of the concept of empowerment/disempowerment?  If they take ownership of a term, it might be less hurtful when an idiot like you says it. 

I have only ever known one person who I feel used the word without understanding it was mean, and that was my grandmother, who immediately after starting a story with, ‘you know, we had a ‘n-word’ family that lived down the street from us.’ And then followed it up with, ‘I just don’t know why people were so mean to them.  They were just like us.  We are were just poor and trying to get along.  It just wasn’t right.’  I’ll also mention that she was in her mid 80’s and in the early stages of alzheimers, but I actually believe that at that point in her life she didn’t understand it was not a good term because of the alzheimers.  I don’t condone it, but a story like that is probably that one case I can think of.

But in spite of these attitudes, and in spite of the persistence of stereotypes in society, we’re told that the protections of the law are no longer needed, that we all truly have equal opportunity now, cause it’s a post racial society!

It bothers me.  It bothers me to watch people try and defend this racism and prejudice.  We have to stand up to this kind of quiet hate. 

But then sometimes I get discouraged and I think that perhaps Avenue Q had it right.. 

Oh, I will give the Supreme Court their due for doing the right thing regarding DOMA.