Paula Deen, the famous southern style cooking queen, was infamously dethroned when she called her black servants negroes, and used them as slave actors for her dinner party. Paula says she did not mean to offend anyone and was just trying to have an authentic dinner. However, it seems as though Deen has made a recovery in her career and is back to cooking those great meals. She made a debut in Texas at a cooking demonstration, and wept "tears of joy yal" as she recieved a long ovation from a slew of supporters.
I feel like Paula Deen's comeback is both a victory and a defeat. My boyfriend and I always joke about how our race feels about Deen's behavior and if she should be punished by saying "I don't care if she said n***a negro or ni**er as long as she keeps making those recipes." Which is kind of my attitude towards the situation. Yes, anybody using the word in a derogatory context or trying to demean others with it are wrong. However, so is using words like slut, b****, ghetto, sloppy, unorginized, or clumsy. All of these words used in a degrading way are wrong. The truth is, the attention and emphasis put on "the n word" has brought more attention to racial differences than the word itself. Yes, some attempts at using this word like any other have failed, but a lot of people see it this way: If we stop looking at the word as a negative, no one can hurt us with it anymore. Now on the standing o Paula got, I don't necessarily believe it was from a group of people congradulating her in furthering the efforts of depolitisizing the word. Texas is one of the most racist states in America, and this could have been a crowd saying way to go for putting those people in their place. In any case, Paula Deen didn't seem to mean any harm by the word, so let's stop trying to make "nigga" into the most offensive word in history, and just leave it as it is, a cluster of letters unrepresentative of anything except ignorance.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/09/14/paula-deen-cries-houston-texas-first-appearance/2815001/
I feel like Paula Deen's comeback is both a victory and a defeat. My boyfriend and I always joke about how our race feels about Deen's behavior and if she should be punished by saying "I don't care if she said n***a negro or ni**er as long as she keeps making those recipes." Which is kind of my attitude towards the situation. Yes, anybody using the word in a derogatory context or trying to demean others with it are wrong. However, so is using words like slut, b****, ghetto, sloppy, unorginized, or clumsy. All of these words used in a degrading way are wrong. The truth is, the attention and emphasis put on "the n word" has brought more attention to racial differences than the word itself. Yes, some attempts at using this word like any other have failed, but a lot of people see it this way: If we stop looking at the word as a negative, no one can hurt us with it anymore. Now on the standing o Paula got, I don't necessarily believe it was from a group of people congradulating her in furthering the efforts of depolitisizing the word. Texas is one of the most racist states in America, and this could have been a crowd saying way to go for putting those people in their place. In any case, Paula Deen didn't seem to mean any harm by the word, so let's stop trying to make "nigga" into the most offensive word in history, and just leave it as it is, a cluster of letters unrepresentative of anything except ignorance.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/09/14/paula-deen-cries-houston-texas-first-appearance/2815001/
No comments:
Post a Comment