This Paula Deen thing is a red-hot mess. It’s a red-hot mess rolled in powdered sugar, deep-fried, and topped with bourbon-scented whipped cream. Or take two and clap a bacon cheeseburger in between.

It started with a lawsuit brought by the manager of a restaurant owned by Deen and her brother. (Deen’s empire includes restaurants, books, cooking shows, magazine, endorsements, and spokesgigs.) A focus is Deen’s younger brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, who ran this restaurant, Uncle Bubba’s Seafood & Oyster House. (Hush, Yankees. “Bubba” is a version of “Brother.” Many excellent people are called Bubba.) The suit alleges sexual and racial discrimination, drunkenness and violence on Hiers’s part, and describes an atmosphere rife with racial slurs, pornography, and sexual jokes.

Deen was deposed for the case, and it’s her deposition that set everything off. I bravely read the deposition, conveniently posted on Talking Points Memo. Deen defended her brother against charges he made racist and sexist jokes at work. “Just because he’s got a sense of humor does not make him a bad person or incapable of running a business,” she said. “Every man I’ve ever come in contact with has one [racial joke].” Deen didn’t work at that restaurant after the first six weeks, so her testimony is mostly “I know he wouldn’t do that,” and “I would have heard if he did that,” and “Bubba would never force someone to look at the crap that comes up on that computer.”

The depo (rhymes with Zeppo) discussed allegations that Hiers came to work drunk, made people look at porn on his computer, read dirty jokes to unwilling audiences, grabbed and shook people, and routinely used racial slurs at work. Note: It’s a lawsuit. These are allegations. They might not be true. Some parts are more plausible than others. Like the parts Hiers admitted in his own depo.

Deen suggested that jealous people were sabotaging Hiers. She conceded that she’d spoken with her brother when he was found to be stealing money from the restaurant – he was being paid unfairly little, she said, and that was fixed. And that he’d been in alcohol and cocaine rehab, but that’s in the past. Now he drinks socially!

Of the porn allegation, she said, “all the men in my family, at one time or another they’ll tell each other, “Look what so-and-so sent me on my phone,” you know. It’s just men being men.”

The questioning veered to Deen. She said she doesn’t tell racial jokes. Her jokes “poke fun at myself and other women.” [Editorial note: Ngk.] She admitted having used “the N word” but didn’t seem to see any problem. “Yes, of course,” she said. Then, “It’s been a very long time,” and “That’s just not a word that we use as time has gone on.” She said that she and her husband had taught their kids not to use it “in a mean way” The lawyers demanded an example of a not-mean way. She said she’s probably used it when repeating conversations in the kitchen in which other people used it – black people talking to each other.

Deen also said she remembered using it when describing to her husband how she’d been held up at gunpoint by a black assailant. (So probably in a mean way.)

Prodded, she discussed a wish to stage a “really southern plantation wedding” for her brother. Deen apparently discussed this in the hearing of the manager who’s suing. She had been to a restaurant where all servers were dignified middle-aged black men in white dinner jackets and bow ties. “It was so impressive,” she said. “I remember saying I would love to have servers like that… but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret… [the media], or whomever, is so shallow that they would read something [in]to it.” The lawyer asked why they couldn’t have been of different races. “Well, that’s what made it,” Deen said. She stressed that the servers looked professional and probably made a “very, very good living.” The lawyer asked why such servers would have made it a really southern plantation wedding. Deen said, “That restaurant represented a certain era in America.” The lawyer made her discuss what era that would be. She babbled about the Civil War.

“Okay,” said the lawyer. “And before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right?” “Yes, I would say that they were slaves,” Deen agreed. “But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying that I loved their look and their professionalism.”

For some reason, the lawyers taking the depo did not ask Deen about another nuptial-related allegation from the same source – the one in which Deen said she’d like to have a bunch of little black kids in long-sleeved white shirts, black shorts, and bow ties tap-dancing around like in a Shirley Temple movie. (Might be “Dimples,” with Temple as a ragamuffin and then starring in a minstrel show. Or “Poor Little Rich Girl,” with Temple’s ethnic impersonations. Or “The Littlest Rebel,” in which she dances with Uncle Billy, a slave played by Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a movie Business Insider called one of the most racist movies of all time.) In this alleged quote, the N word is used .

The depo is a public record, freely available to you and me and the National Enquirer – who made sure this one didn’t languish in obscurity. The Food Network promptly said it wouldn’t be renewing Deen’s show.

In the first response to the story, Paula Deen Enterprises put out a statement/excuse. “During a deposition where she swore to tell the truth, Ms. Deen recounted having used a racial epithet in the past, speaking largely about a time in American history which was quite different than today. She was born 60 years ago when America’s South had schools that were segregated, different bathrooms, different restaurants and Americans rode in different parts of the bus. This is not today.” Why no. That was under Jim Crow laws, and this isn’t, so people have to act differently.

“To be clear Ms. Deen does not find acceptable the use of this term under any circumstance by anyone nor condone any form of racism or discrimination.”

As the story got bigger and started to whirl and pick up warm air above the Gulf of Mexico, Deen put out a choppy video apology. It was hastily made, and Deen’s makeup/lighting are off, so she sports the seldom-seen pinkface. In it, she said:

I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong that I’ve done. I want to learn and grow from this – inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally… unacceptable. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but, I – beg you, my children, my team, my fans, my partners, I beg for your forgiveness. Please forgive me for the mistakes that I’ve made.

That apology was soon taken down, but alert individuals had already captured and re-released it. Deen did another apology video:

Hello, y’all. I’m Paula Deen. I was invited this morning to speak with Matt Lauer about a subject that has been very hurtful for a lot of people. And Matt, I have to say, I was physically not able this morning. The pain has been tremendous, that I have caused to myself, and to others, and so I’m taking this opportunity, now that I’ve pulled myself together, and am able to speak, to offer an apology to those that I have hurt. I want people to understand that – my family and I are not the kind of people that the press is wanting to say we are, I spent the best of 24 years to help myself and others. Your – color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter – to me. But it’s what in the heart – what’s in the heart, and my family and I try to live by that. And I am here to say I am so sorry. I was wrong. Yes, I’ve worked hard and I’ve made mistakes, but that is no excuse. And I offer my sincere apology to those that I have hurt and I hope that you forgive me, because this comes from the deepest part of my heart. And I will continue to work, and continue to do good things. For good people. Thank you for listening.

She did another just for Lauer (of the Today Show).

I’m Paula Deen and I’m here to issue an apology to Matt Lauer. I was invited to do an interview with him this morning, and Matt, I am so sorry. I was physically in no shape to come in and talk with you. The last 48 hours have been very, very hard, and you know, I’m a strong woman, but today I wasn’t. This morning, I was not. And so, I do apologize.

If you hadn’t been following this story, you’d have no idea what she’s talking about. Except that she didn’t do an interview – about something – with Matt Lauer. Something about hurtful language? She is not prejudiced! And the press is bad. But what is she apologizing for, exactly?

They’re not good apologies. It’s clear she’s wildly upset. She knows her laboriously-built empire is in danger, but it’s not clear she understands why. Actually, the apology to Matt Lauer is clear. She’s really sorry she stood him up – that’s unprofessional.

In the pinkface video she seems to be apologizing for harming the business – to her team, her fans, her partners – with inappropriate language.

The one to Matt Lauer and “to those that I have hurt” is a combination of apology and defense. She defends her family – they’ve been misrepresented! She says how hard she’s worked for 24 years! And done good things!

(I have to say, her swipe at the press has some merit. A lot of stories and posts have slapped together quotes from the depo that make her look as bad as possible.)

She also says some good apology things. She was wrong, there’s no excuse, and she hopes to be forgiven. But – wrong how? No excuse for what? Forgiven for what? If she can’t even name it, how can she change it?

Based on her depo, I think Paula Deen probably doesn’t fling the N word around or tell racist jokes.

But she’s much too tolerant of her brother’s behavior, and how it affects employees. She doesn’t comprehend what a “hostile work environment” is – which is bad and irresponsible when you’re an employer. She’s too tolerant of misbehavior in general, if it comes from men.

She doesn’t comprehend racism well, and hasn’t tried to. She has had the luxury of not needing to understand. She has an unforgivable sentimentality about the “plantation” era which is blind to the nature of slavery. Karen Cox of Pop South points out that Deen’s wedding fantasy isn’t real southern history. “What she described… was essentially Hollywood’s version of a southern plantation from movies of the 1930s.” Cox quotes a fellow historian: “I’ve seen a great many 19th century slave photos and none included tuxedo clad slave waiters.” Cox ends by saying “[W]hat I hope doesn’t get lost in all of this is that while Deen feigns to represent the South, she is not representative of the entire region. Another southern white woman, after all, is responsible for calling her out and holding her feet to the fire.”

I don’t necessarily share her view of the complainant in the lawsuit as a crusader for justice. But Cox isn’t the only one embarrassed by Deen as a supposed emblem of the south.

James Poniewozik wrote in Time, that the plantation wedding fantasy (so easily misunderstood!) is “uglier even than her ‘N word’ admission, because it’s thought-through sentimentality for a racist system, excused as being about a love for beauty and graciousness.”

In a segment on The Daily Show, hilarious Senior Lifestyle Correspondent Jessica Williams, in the midst of her discussion of whether Deen has Type 1 or Type 2 Racism, showed a clip of Deen on a genealogy show. The expert displays an old legal document showing that a Deen ancestor owned 35 slaves. “Thirty-five. That’s a lot,” says Deen blankly. “Yeah! You know what else is a lot? ONE! ONE SLAVE IS A LOT OF SLAVES, PAULA DEEN!” shouts Williams. True. A slave is a person bought and sold, controlled, helpless under the law. One slave is a lot of injustice, even in a nice dinner jacket.

Poniewozik continued: “Deen made a pile of money off a certain idea of old-school southern culture. In return, she had an obligation to that culture – an obligation not to embody its worst, most shameful history and attitudes. Instead, in one swoop, fairly or not, she single-handedly affirmed people’s worst suspicions of people who talk and eat like her… She insulted the present-day south and the decent people in it; she insulted the fans who wanted to like her food and TV shows and not be embarrassed; and she insulted the home-and-hospitality culture she purports to stand up for.”

Until now, Deen has been able not to think about these things. It takes her a while to process blows to her empire – she’d been diagnosed with diabetes for 3 deep-frying years before she went public with that information – by which time she’d arranged to be paid to represent a diabetes drug.

This time she hasn’t been able to control the information, and she’s run into what USA Today calls a gleeful social-media lynch mob, and Time‘s John McWhorter calls implacable witch hunting, (but see my esteemed co-blogger’s forthcoming book, The Interwebbian Pile-On Tendency Toward Knee-Jerk Outrage for a more precise exploration).

Dean’s easy to mock. Her more over-the-top recipes (why would you deep-fry lasagna? because people want to see you do it) and accompanying shtik play into that. In the inevitable backlash, many feel Deen’s been wronged, and fans are demanding the Food Network take her back.

I’ll need to follow up this post, because Deen’s rescheduled with the Today Show Wednesday morning (6/26/13). (I predict she’ll defend her family.) If we’re lucky, The Daily Show will follow up too. That’s where it was argued that, with help, Deen may be able to lead a normal life.

 

*

UPDATE

I was wrong about Deen defending her family. She moved on. To weepy outrage, and paranoia.

The interview with Lauer included no further apologies, although she did say “I have apologized.” Guess she’s done with that.

Lauer spent most of the 13-minute interview asking about finances, which Deen didn’t want to discuss. She wanted to say how heartbroken she is. She twice outlined a dramatic, self-pitying, cast-the-first-stone scenario: “If there’s anyone out there that has never said something that they wished they could take back, if you’re out there, please pick up that stone, and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please! I want to meet you. I want to meet you.”

Actually it is hard to meet people when you are dead. You find yourself at a loss for words.

Deen now denies using the N word any time except the time she was held up at gun point (by someone she’d tried to help!) and also got on a high horse, about her distress at how people working in her kitchens speak among themselves. (The N word.) “These young people are going to have to take control and start showing respect for each other and not throw in that word at each other.” (In other words: “They say it! Would it be so awful if I said it? WHICH I DIDN’T.”)

She also wept, “There’s someone evil out there, that saw what I had worked for, and they wanted it.” Oh please.

“Let’s end it on that,” said Lauer, but Deen wedged in a second rendition of the stoning scenario, making it a boulder this time.

It’s not clear whether Deen had already gotten advice from her newly-hired PR adviser, Judy Smith, when she talked to Lauer. I hope not, because the interview didn’t do her any good.

*

Also: In the first published version of this story I had a sentence saying of Deen: “She’s too tolerant of men’s behavior in general.” That was in the context of Deen’s remarks that every man she’s met has at least one racial joke to tell, and that the men in her family show each other pornographic images they’ve been sent on their phones.

A male friend was jarred by the sentence. He correctly pointed out that Deen’s perception of how men behave doesn’t apply to all men. Absolutely true, I am glad to say.

Men! I am sorry. I didn’t mean you. But the sentence was badly worded and came off as an insult. I should have been more careful. (And words are my business. English is hard!)

I have changed it to: “She’s too tolerant of misbehavior in general, if it comes from men.”