I find the coverage of Paula Deen troubling. Take this CBS News piece as an example. It reports that Ms. Deen’s new cookbook has been dropped by her publisher despite being ranked number one on Amazon due to pre-orders. The article also mentions that Ms. Deen’s contract isn’t being renewed with The Food Network and that she has lost a host of sponsorships and business relationships. But what is the reason for all this hostility to Ms. Deen?
Deen has lost many of her business relationships following revelations that she used racial slurs in the past.
The New York Times piece on the same subject is little better. While it notes that she was deposed in a civil case, it provides little more information.
Since last week, the Food Network, Smithfield Foods, Walmart, Target, Caesars Entertainment, QVC and the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk have decided to suspend or sever ties with Ms. Deen after her admission in a legal deposition that she had used racist language in the past and allowed racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic jokes in one of her restaurants. Ms. Deen was deposed on video as part of a discrimination lawsuit filed last year by a former employee.
But the allegations in the civil suit go far beyond the use of the ‘n’ word. The allegations include racial discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment, and physical intimidation. As for the ‘n’ word, it is alleged that Paula Dean wanted the caterers at her brother’s wedding to be “a bunch of little n***ers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around…” They include the allegation that Deen’s brother said they should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico so he could “n***er-rig it.”
I don’t know if these allegations are true, but they help explain why businesses are running away from Ms. Deen. You can’t responsibly report on these severances of business relationships without explaining what the controversy involves.
