Paula Deen -- For Realz?

Okay -- Rule #1 is NEVER trust the media to be honest and unbiased.  Since most of the links, blurbs, blogs, and comments that we see our friends post and share are based upon information gathered from the media, it's all suspect and subject to interpretation.

HERE is the link to the actual transcripts, to what was actually said:
 http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/06/entertainment/deen-deposition/index.html

I strongly urge anybody who wants to have an opinion or discourse on the subject of Ms. Deen to read this. You don't need to read it to talk about what words are PC, or if certain words are okay in certain circumstances, or what your own opinions are about racism, bandwagon hopping, and so on.  BUT if you want to intelligently discuss Ms. Deen's situation then forget reading news reports, forget watching You Tube videos, forget this opinion or that opinion by this celeb or that one, and go straight to the legal record.  That's as close as you're likely to get to actual truth of circumstance short of having been present yourself at the time.

Having read this I can only say that Ms. Deen has not got a great deal of understanding about the proper application of workplace ethics regarding sex, sexual harassment, racial issues, and what does or does not offend people other than herself and her brother.  She is proof that ANYBODY can become famous, no matter how intelligent they are, no matter how good a person they are or aren't, all they need is a gimmick.  Ms. Deen can cook.  That does not make her a role model but luckily for her it did make her rich.  I don't think the fame was very lucky for her in the end as after the American People build up our celebs we relish tearing them back down and burning the wreckage.  However, I don't believe that in the long run her core businesses, the restaurants, are going to suffer from the world finding out that she is no better than the rest of us.

If you think that she meant to be hurtful in her application of racial behavior and language, then I think that you're reading more into the situations than was ever there.   Is Ms. Deen a racist?  As much as anybody else is.  And I firmly believe that we are all racist, despite our best efforts.  It's bred into us when Mom locks the car door in the black neighborhoods when we stopped at the stop sign.  It's bred into us when we assume that the Asian student in our math class has the best grades.  It's bred into us when we ask the Native American woman if she knows of some herbal remedy for some random condition we have.  It's bred into us when we assume that a Muslim hates Americans.  It's bred into us from the time that we open our eyes outside the womb right up to and including today, and all of our tomorrows.  The best that we can do is to try to see it in ourselves, overcome it, and try to be a better person tomorrow than we were today.  But if we can't recognize the habits in ourselves, if we decide that we couldn't possibly do any wrong, that we couldn't possibly do anything bad, then right there and then we've decided not to learn and grow.   And that's a lot of what's wrong with the world, right there.

So Ms. Deen has learned a lesson about fame in America.  I think she'll come out of it okay in the end.  The lesson here?

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

― Lao Tzu