Hey Paula Deen: It’s not the N-word, It’s Your Mindset

Paula Deen told Matt Lauer “I is what I is, and I’m not changing.” Therein lies my disappointment with the whole saga.

Black folks know that many, many white folks have used the n-word at some point in their lives. It’s forgivable. We grow, evolve and learn from our experiences. 

What’s remarkable about Deen is that it appears that she has not evolved, and is not trying to. She has experienced a public and professional backlash since her deposition in the lawsuit filed by a former employee was made public. 

During her “Today,” interview Deen said that her father was emphatic about showing people equality when she was growing up, and that is how she has been. She said the only time she used the n-word was after a black man held a gun to her head 30 years ago.  

It was during a bank hold-up when she was understandably frightened.

Her later description of the man as the n-word, rather than the facts of what he looked like, says what she thought in her heart and spirit. To her, he was the n-word.

I’ve never been in that type of life-threatening situation, however, I am certain that if I were, my terror might give rise to profanity, perhaps anger after I was rescued, but not a racially-charged term. That I know for sure, because it’s not who I am. It's not in my psyche. 

We can present a certain persona to the public but who we really are - our true nature - comes out when we are under stress and duress. 

Many black folks can tell you of countless times in years past when they were around a white person who accidentally said the n-word in their presence. Growing up, I heard the word so much from white folks that when I moved to Atlanta to attend college, I had to get used to not hearing it. 

Deen's use of the n-word to describe the man, speaks to what she felt at the time. And for me, that would be okay if she had acknowledged it and had said to Lauer something like, ‘That was 30 years ago and that is not who I am today.’  But she spoke as if under the circumstances, it was understandable that she would've use the term back then.

Her insistence that the incident was the only time she used the word is doubtful, and it’s hard for people to move on when she appears in deep denial or is being purposely dishonest. 

As Jimmy Kimmel said during his Monday night show on ABC, “Just an FYI, if a lawyer ever asks you if you’ve ever used the n-word. The only thing you could say worse than, ‘Yes,’ is ‘Yes, of course.”

Deen’s longing to experience the service of slaves at a southern plantation-style wedding says to me that she fantasizes about life during slavery times.  

Her testimony during court proceedings also shows there are some black people who can be categorized under the n-word, in her mind.

In the transcript, the attorney asked Deen if she might have ever slipped and used the n-word to describe the servers at the plantation-style wedding that she attended. She said, “No because that’s not how these men were. They were professional black men doing a fabulous job.”

Paula, it’s not that some of us black folks are the n-word and some of us are not. No black person is the n-word. 

Have you ever been engaged in a conversation with someone of a different race or culture and they say something that signals they are seeing you as simply the color of your skin, or your ethnicity? There’s a thought of  ‘Oh, you don’t see me for who I am. You see me as ‘Other’ than you.’ And the connection is lost. 

It’s disappointing.