Anyway, great fair! accurate! funny! analysis, SW.

Speaking as a Black daughter of the South (and one who was partially raised on the pitiful tips of a father who worked the sort of white folks parties Paula Deen so admires), I believe the Jim Crow culture and laws that limited work options for Black men and women also enabled some whites to maintain the fantasy that the natural world order was a Black holding a tray or a coat or a door or a baby for a white — long after the Yankees “drove old Dixie down.”

I would love to know the evidence for PD’s claim that those black waiters and caterers were making a good living. Could her impression be related to an assertion made by one of her brother’s Black employees about being forced to work overtime and accept beer for payment? If that’s her frame of reference, I can see how she might imagine a high life for any Black paid in something besides (Miller) High Life.

I watched that butter-sucking fool whine to Matt Lauer about how she’s practically worn out from comforting friends traumatized by her ordeal, how black youth working in her kitchen need to stop offending her ears with the n-word, and how “I is what I is and I’m not going to change.” It was a crafted and crafty performance: as fake and nauseating as any of her stunt dishes.

Okay, Paula: don’t change. Stay as willfully ignorant as you are and watch the world change around you.

Hoo, yeah. This IS a hot mess, deep fried in buddah and rolled in bacon bits. I’d only heard a little on NPR, but not the horrifying apologies. She IS such a hard working woman, who really did build her empire from nothing while being a single mom- I can feel such empathy watching her see it crumble. I do think you’re right about her tolerant attitude toward the men in her family, and I’d really like to see how she does after a little more time to think – maybe she’ll stop reflexively random-apologizing to try and save everyone, and just let the chips – white chocolate, possibly butterscotch – fall where they may.

Thanks for digging through the crust to find the real meat of this story.

Okay, I’ll stop. ☻