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Dear Paula, tell ’em to go to hell!

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I am, I found out, a contemporary of Paula Deen, ex Food Network star. I admit to watching Food Network from time to time and I’ve even caught her show a time or two. I tend to strike out on my own for recipes, so I don’t watch for recipes, and if I watched more than a couple of episodes, I’d be surprised.

Paula’s not on the Food Network any more. Nor is her product line going to be sold at that bastion of Americana, Wal-Mart.

You see, Paula, like me, a child of the 1950’s South, used the ‘N-word’. “Nigger”. If you’re a rapper or a black comedian, you’re allowed. Right now. Today. You can storm around the stage spouting vulgarities by the bucketful and say ‘nigger’ or ‘niggah’ and it’s fine with everybody.

But if you’re a sixty-odd year old white person… Nuh-uh!

I was raised in the days when there were three bathrooms at upscale establishments in the South: Men, Women and ‘Colored’. My pediatrician had two waiting rooms at his doctor’s office, one for white folk, one for colored. I personally SAW the water cooler for white people and around the side of the gas station, the water fountain, uncooled, for colored people. People talk about segregation. I was raised in it.

The vocabulary was a lot different then, too, and ‘people of color’ were also colored folks or black or ‘nigra’ or Negro. Also coon, jigaboo, blue-gum, a long list of other names, and yes, ‘nigger’.

Those names are seldom-used any more among the circles in which I exist. They’re anachronisms, hearkening to times long gone.

Did I use them when I was young? Yes. Likely that if Mom or Dad heard me, I got rebuked, too.

That was decades ago.

I cannot take back what the world was when I was young, nor can I erase my own past. And if you have to look at those details long receded into the mists of time and tell me that I must give up what I am today? How many of you out there would survive that scrutiny?

And if you tried, I would grimly tell you to go to hell and then I would get on with my life.

Paula should do the same.

14 thoughts on “Dear Paula, tell ’em to go to hell!”

  1. Al “Tawana Brawley” was able to get a show on MSNDC.

    “White folks were in caves while we were building empires…. We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos ever got around to it.”

    – Al Sharpton, Speech at Kean College (1994)

  2. Wanna know how many times I have used that term during the George Zimmerman court proceedings?

  4. You betcha! But don’t you DARE call me “a’dem“!
    }:-]

  5. Tanker, I’m about the same age as you and Paula.
    As far back as I can remember, I have been reminded of the tragedy of slavery EVERY DAMNED DAY for close to 60 years.
    I am very, very sorry that my Great, Great Grandfather owned slaves. PLEEEEESE- give it a rest!

  6. I remember seeing a colored and white restroom across the street from the theater. I went in to see what color it was painted but it was plain white. A town cousin explained things to me.

    I think Paula will be ok without Wally and the Food Network money wise.

  7. And just yesterday, we were treated to our Lord and Savior, St. Barack, sermonizing once more about the evils of slavery, standing in the very door from which his co-religionists and fellow Africans sold slaves to Europe and the Americas. And I bet he used the “N-word” in the past himself (and probably since the last time Paula Deen did).

  8. Let’s bring back Amos & Andy ! It was a great show to watch.

  10. She was answering honestly in court. Didn’t we have another tv show star get into trouble for NOT answering honestly about her actions? I’m confused, which are you supposed to do?

  11. Bill-

    Answering honestly in sworn testimony? What a completely novel idea. I wonder if we might get the same consideration from members of the current regime and their lackies.

    MC

  12. I went to Elementary and Jr High in Alabama in the ’50’s –I guess they would label me as a racist. “Nuf said ?

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