Read Paula Deen's Depo: She Loves the Look & Professionalism of Slaves

By Laura Beck  |  June 20, 2013 | 12:45am
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The deposition from the lawsuit against Paula Deen for being the racist worst (paraphrasing) is now public — and it ain’t pretty.

As we now know, butter’s head bitch Paula Deen, gave a videotaped deposition as part of a discrimination lawsuit she’s facing from Lisa Jackson, the former general manager of her Savannah restaurant. Jackson says that “racially discriminatory attitudes pervade” Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, the restaurant Deen owns with her brother, and that she was subjected to “violent, sexist, and racist behavior” during five years working for Deen’s various businesses.

For her part in the deposition, Deen did say she talked about her brother’s dream barbie plantation wedding based on a restaurant she went to that “represented a certain era in America.” Yes, she’s talking about the period immediately surrounding the Civil War. However, she also said she knew people might “read something into it” if she used exclusively black servers at the wedding, and she just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of it all. Such a hassle to have people think you’re racist when you’re just trying to celebrate “the look and professionalism” of slaves!

Though she denied having used the N word when discussing the wedding waitstaff, Deen admitted to Billips that she used the term in the past.
“Yes, of course,” Deen replied when asked if she ever said the word.
Deen said she employed the term when telling her husband about an incident “when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.”
“I didn’t feel real favorable towards him,” Deen said of the alleged bank robber.

Oh, dear.

Deen also admitted she was “sure” that she’d used the word since that incident. Specifically, Deen said she “probably” used the word while “repeating” a “conversation between blacks.” She also said that her family, including Hiers, do not discriminate against any race and object to the N word “being used in any cruel or mean behavior.” Jackson’s attorney responded by asking Deen to explain how the N word might be used in a “non-mean way.”
“We hear a lot of things in the kitchen, things that they — that black people will say to each other,” Deen said. “If we are relaying something that was said, a problem that we’re discussing, that’s not said in a mean way.”
Billips also asked Deen whether she thought “jokes” containing the N word would be hurtful. Deen said she was unsure.
“That’s kind of hard. Most — most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target — I don’t know. I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know,” said Deen. “They usually target, though, a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don’t know — I just don’t know what to say. I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”
Though she said she does not tell “racial” jokes herself, Deen said she was “sure” members of her family have told jokes that contained the N word and that her husband “is constantly telling me jokes.” Billips asked whether Deen is “offended at all by those jokes.”
“No, because it’s my husband,” she said.

Of course not.

The whole thing is below, and well worth a read. There’s even some educational laughter to be had, too:

Mr Billips: Okay, what was your first husband’s name?
Paula: Jimmy
Mr Billips: And his last name?
Paula: Deen.
Mr Billips: No relation to the sausage?
Paula: No.
Mr Billips: Okay.

I always wondered about that!

Just a quick thought on Paula Deen’s specific brand of racism. As some people are saying, this isn’t the same as your super racist grandpa telling some racist jokes at Thanksgiving and then your whole family yells at him and/or sits back and takes it because it’s too hard to fight anymore and he’s old and will be dead soon and you can all just pretend he has dementia, anyway. (Or, I guess if you’re Paula Deen, you just laugh along with the terrible, non-joke joke.)

This is a media savvy woman who built an empire on the back of cooking butter in buter southern food, and that counts for something. She is only 66-years-old, and likely has plenty of years left in the media spotlight shilling her shitty cookbooks and shows whilst raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fact that she’s more concerned with people (read: the pesky liberal elite) judging her for hiring exclusively black servers for a southern plantation wedding, and not thinking about the actual fucking problem with hiring exclusively black servers is incredibly fucking bothersome.

Transcript of the Testimony of Paula Deen Date: May 17, 2013 by tpmdocs


[Talking Points Media]

Photo via AP

 
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