Are you going to miss Paula Deen Foods?

Wait so, has she been fired by Food Network yet?

Uhf.. I would of hope she would of drop her ish by now..

I almost wrote something terrible in here. It would have been great though. Really tasteless though.

Anyway, I've never had this ladies racist ass food before.

Will this even last? Bill Burr made a good point about this situation:

And how many people are going to lose their jobs over something this 66 year old woman said years ago, after literally having a gun to her head? If she's found out to be making racist statements NOW, that's one thing, but isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on this shit?

It's kind of ridiculous.

Yeah, I've never had any of this dirty girl's food before. Any that I'm aware of, at least.

This whole situation is idiotic. A career ruined because of one word people can't seem to stop flipping their shit over.

@spaceinsomniac: I'm sure it won't last. It's an interesting situation. This was a woman born in a place and time where saying something like that was an acceptable, normal thing to do. I think the issue is more how she initially handled the situation. If she had immediately admitted what happened, apologized, condemned the whole situation and so forth then she would have been fine. I think in trying to defend herself she made it much worse. That isn't something you try to justify doing. You admit you were a true idiot and did a horrible thing, like she eventually did. The problem was that she didn't feel bad about it until after it ruined her career. It's one thing to use a word years ago in a situation where it was socially acceptable to use it, and another to shrug it off like you did nothing wrong today. That's what people were upset about. But, again, this is a lady born in a very different time and it can be hard for someone her age to change her beliefs so completely. Look at cartoons from the pre-civil rights era. These are cartoons that are enormously offensive if viewed today, made by people who were known to be genuinely good and kind people. It's just that it was a different time and things were acceptable then that aren't now. Hell, look at Song of the South. Disney refuses to even admit that film exists but my parents remember watching it as kids very fondly. They never looked at it as racist. Today it would seem insanely racist, but the people who made the film were the same people who helped keep South America from joining the Nazis in WW2 with Saludos Amigos and Disney's goodwill tour. No one could call these people racist or hateful. They merely portrayed people how they were viewed at the time.

@blu3v3nom07: Yes she was fired the day she admitted it.

She had a pretty good run.....ya'll.

Well, I've never used any of her products, so I can't say that I will.

Literally?

@walkerd:

It's a really bad word. Plus it suggests a way of thinking that's real shitty.

Nope, there is always Rachael Ray! Need I say more? Great food + attractive lady = WIN!

I've hated her so much for so long.

I had literally no idea who she was prior to this being in the news. Is her stuff distributed outside of the U.S.? I swear I've never seen her name anywhere up until a few weeks ago.

I would not classify her as attractive. Also her voice makes me want to open a portal to the warp and end this miserable earth.

@walkerd: @raven10: @spaceinsomniac: You guys know that she also tried to organize a wedding where all the black servers dressed up as slaves, right?

@milkman: The video where she's sympathizing with her great-grandfather after he killed himself over losing all of his slaves was really something.

Yeah I guess we would miss that sweet cooking....

Paula Deen is the scariest person alive. Just horrifying.

Nah.

Unhealthy food that's helping to ruin our entire country. And she's making money off selling diabetic drugs. Oh, and she's apparently just a terrible human being too.

@artemesia: To each their own I guess. From what I've seen of her show, she seems like a decent human being and is apparently good at what she does for her to have her own show.

@gamingmichael said:

Nope, there is always Rachael Ray! Need I say more? Great food + attractive lady = WIN!

When did she become hot? She's no Giada De Laurentiis, but good for her nonetheless.

Yeah. I used some of her recipes before, and they were quite delicious!

I've never thought any of her cooking to be remotely interesting. It seemed like she often tried to take a dish and simply shove as much butter, sugar, or whatever else into it. Ostentatious might be the word. For good and interesting Southern cooking (which is a diverse category), there are much better sources. So, no? Honestly, I have very few nice things to say about most TV cook/chef personalities. Rachel Ray, for instance, might be considered attractive compared to most TV cooks, but I've found her recipes to be frequently disappointing. And she is fuck all annoying. If you really care about food and cooking, there are many excellent websites and books to turn to.

I had literally never heard of her, her show or her line of foods before this news came out.

I barely watch Food Network (my family does) so I have no strong feelings whatsoever on this. I do remember seeing a few episodes of her and thinking, "She's so bubbly. I love her!" before changing the channel.

@gamingmichael said:

Nope, there is always Rachael Ray! Need I say more? Great food + attractive lady = WIN!

I would classify her as "Cute friend at best"

hahah what?! wow. classy.

never heard of her. She messed up her brand good though.

give it 6 months and she'll be getting paid again.

No I won't miss her food but this whole thing is super fucking dumb. Because a old woman who grew up with that said a word a zillion years ago, thousands of people have to lose their jobs. #dumbsociety

I just wanted to comment to say that "ham producer" is a pretty funny phrase.

I voted no, but there is an explanation. A) Her foods are basically what I grew up with, even though I try to be healthy... as does everyone in my family. B) Paula Deen isn't going anywhere. This is a time where the media and ad people overreact. There are plenty of sympathizers here that know she wasn't hateful or will just ignore the news. Here are my guesses at the morals of this story. 1) Paula Deen is an evil bitch and should die. 2) She did something regretful in the past and should die. 3) She likes butter and should die. 4) People should find something else to worry about and everyone is going to die.

@milkman said:

Edit: I'm pretty sure that particular party exclusively consisted of black severs dressed up as slaves as part of some bullshit theme.

Yeah, I don't know the terms of her dismissal from the food network, but she did a little more than just say the "N" word however many years ago. She's also said some bizarrely racist/ignorant shit prior to her being fired. Here's a choice quote from NY Daily News (courtesy of Ta-Nehisi Coates):

Deen, talking at an event months before losing her job for using the "N-word," recounted how her great-grandfather was driven to suicide after his 30 slaves were set free.

"Between the death of his son and losing all the workers, he went out into his barn and shot himself because he couldn't deal with those kind of changes," Deen said at a New York Times event. Deen, owner of a restaurant empire, asserted the owner-slave relationship was more kinship than cruelty.

"Back then, black folk were such an integral part of our lives," said Deen. "They were like our family, and for that reason we didn't see ourselves as prejudiced."

She also called up an employee to join her onstage, noting that Hollis Johnson was "as black as this board" -- pointing to the dark backdrop behind her. "We can't see you standing in front of that dark board!" Deen quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.

At the same event, Deen at one point described race relations in the South as "pretty good." "We're all prejudiced against one thing or another," she added. "I think black people feel the same prejudice that white people feel."

@spaceinsomniac: This was found out because she was being sued for creating a hostile work environment for black people. She was also pretty unapologetic in her deposition about referring to this supposed bank robber with a racial epithet. The fact that she would think it's acceptable to use racial slurs to refer to people who've wronged her actually makes it so much worse, because it shows that, in her mind, being a violent criminal is typical black behavior.

Also, in her deposition, she talked about how awesome she thought it was that she went to a party where all the serving staff was black men dressed in white suits with black bowties and how it made her nostalgic for the Civil War era (slavery). Recently, she gave an interview in which she got all weepy about how one of her ancestors committed suicide after his ~30 slaves were freed and he lost all his income because he relied on their backbreaking slave labor. She then also said in an interview that the south was less racist than the north because slave-owners spent so much time around their slaves that they were like a part of their family. A whole bunch of other employees have come out now to sue her over workplace discrimination and creating a hostile work environment because of how she discriminated against black people and she and her brother would make racist and/or sexual jokes on a frequent basis. Never make excuses for someone who got caught doing/saying racist shit unless you have very persuasive evidence that they have learned their lesson, apologized sincerely and proven that they've changed their ways.

In two years she went from the butter lady to the diabetes lady to racist lady. To think that there was a time when Martha Stewart was the only trouble maker tv personality on the air.

Yeah, I have to admit that I hadn't heard all that. :(

Still sucks for employees of her business though.

Not really, though I can't say I've eaten any of her foods before. I just really fucking hate that smile of hers, so I'm glad I'll see it less.

I won't miss her, but I think the whole situation is overreaching. Is this what we do now? Reach 30 years into someone's past to ruin them?

@gamingmichael said:

Nope, there is always Rachael Ray! Need I say more? Great food + attractive lady = WIN!

What the fuck is she doing? Is she just spooning that shit out and eating it.

She certainly wouldn't make a very good politician. "I do not recall ever having used that word." How simple would that have been? Even if they had people who said otherwise, it would be their word against hers.

If one thing can be said in her favor, it's that she certainly seems honest. To a fault, yes, but honest none the less. If she says that she's not racist, I believe she at least doesn't see herself as racist. She does seem almost completely socially ignorant when it comes to this topic, though.

Paula is terrifying, she looks like an old barbie doll. She always has that same look on her face.

Butter

No, I'm a Good Eats kind of guy.

I'm not even American but Jesus Christ, she's a 66-year-old woman from Georgia. I'd find it strange if she DIDN'T use the n-word on a frequent basis.

I don't think we're the "saying the N-word" happy nation that you think we are. I'm from the mid-west, and it's certainly a big deal when someone says it here. Age and geographic location can certainly explain using it in the past, but it would NOT explain or justify using it these days. Then again, no one can prove that she is using it these days.

She is saying a lot of stupid shit that is just digging the hole deeper, though.

I kind of feel bad for her to be honest. I don't condone what she said, but this is getting ridiculous. I can understand losing her job with Food Network but losing her sponsorship deals with 5 different places and then losing her cookbook deal? Give me a fucking break.

I'd take people saying the N-word more seriously if rappers didn't say it every 20 seconds in their songs.

Cray bitch.

Not really, but lets all be honest, this whole thing made her money at this point, no publicity is bad publicity.

I never cease to be baffled by these kinds of scandals. If her products are good, who cares if she's racist? By all means, attack her as a person, but her food products and her use of racial slurs have absolutely fuck-all to do with each other. Are her baked goods racist? Do the Paula Dee-branded frying pans hurl offensive slurs at you as you're making sunny-side-up eggs? If it turned out the heads of all the corporations that supply us with, I don't know, bananas or something -- if all of them turned out to be racist misogynistic homophobes, should all grocery stores stop selling bananas?

I don't see how, maybe her restaurant gets a few extra customers from the controversy, but she's not on TV or on store shelves where the actual money comes from. If anything, this could cost her most of her income.

@thecreamfilling said:

@gamingmichael said:

Nope, there is always Rachael Ray! Need I say more? Great food + attractive lady = WIN!

When did she become hot? She's no Giada De Laurentiis, but good for her nonetheless.

She had those photos taken before she was famous...so that was 15 years ago.