Charges of racial discrimination against Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen have now been tossed out in a lawsuit filed against her by a disgruntled employee.
Although the charges were clearly silly considering her accuser, Lisa Jackson, is white, Deen will likely never be able to fully resurrect her image.
Why? Because in society today there is no greater crime than being politically incorrect.
Once Jackson’s attorney released a deposition where Deen had used the dreaded “N-word” the narrative was set. It was obvious from the start the lawsuit was silly (although the fact the accuser was white was rarely noted).
The lawyer was likely very aware that he could start a media feeding frenzy by taking his case to the media. The news media immediately followed the legal lead and set out to bury her—and they were successful.
Some will say she did an awful PR job of going on TV and crying. Some will say she should have gotten in front of the issue. In reality, there was nothing she could do once the media narrative was set.
Deen was dead the minute she admitted using the word in a May deposition after being robbed at a bank. While one would be hard-pressed to find ANYONE in the world who has never used the word, it was a tactic Jackson’s lawyers knew would work in the court of public opinion. And that’s where they took it in the hope of winning the case.
A white woman from the South? It fit the perfect establishment media stereotype of a racist. No amount of PR was going to save her.
The New York news media helped set the narrative because it fit THEIR view of the South. They look on everyone in the South as racist card-carrying members of the KKK.
Deen was ruthlessly ripped apart. Reporters did everything in their power to follow the storyline that she was a racist and kept it alive as long as possible.
The news media began calling Deen’s sponsors.
“This is Sam Smith from the New York Times. Did you know that Paula Deen once used the “N” word? Are you going to keep sponsoring a racist?”
The Food Network dumped her as did Walmart, Smithfield Foods, Home Depot, Target, etc. Her book publisher canceled her forthcoming cookbook. There was even an attempt to blackmail her.
“Nonetheless, her admission disqualified Deen from further participation in public life — at least according to the titans of corporate America,” wrote Diana West in the Mercury News. (West noted that a search of iTunes will show more than 2,000 items for sale using the same term.)
Can Deen ever recover from the PR nightmare? Yes, eventually, but probably not at the levels she experienced before being drawn and quartered by the news media.
After all, Martha Stewart recovered from being found guilty of insider trading. Even Jane Fonda recovered from supporting the enemy during the Vietnam War. Time will heal most wounds.
The only thing that could have saved Deen was when she was asked if she ever used the “N” word in the deposition she would have responded by saying, “I can’t recall ever using that term.”
Unfortunately for her she answered the question honestly and forthrightly and paid the price.
It destroyed her life and career and no amount of PR could have saved her from the media onslaught.
BUMBLED APOLOGIES
I do think she terrifically bumbled her apologies and made herself look far more vulnerable than necessary to get her point across. The media and public sensed the weakness and pounced. It made the reaction all that much more energetic and in my opinion it fed on itself from there. I imagine a quieter outcome would have been possible-maybe less damaging as well.
MEDIA AGENDA
And this is precisely why the general public has a low opinion of the media, multiple components of which have a definite agenda they’re more than willing to advance. In fact, only used car salesmen and politicians probably rank lower than the media. How sad.
PAID THE PRICE
Yes, she was honest and she paid a price for it. Honesty, however, pays a good dividend, too.
When the lawyer asked Deen if she had ever used the “n-word”, she should have said, “What word is that?” She should have made the lawyer say the word in question. Then, she could honestly say that yes, she had used the word, but in a neutral context, just as the lawyer had used the word.
Great answer. Wish I would have thought of it…
RACISM FEEDING FRENZY
As a professor of political science, I suspect that a generation from now many trees will be killed by political science Ph.D. candidates seeking to explain why the US media fell into what will someday be called “The racism feeding frenzy of the summer of 2013.” Paula Deen, George Zimmerman, Oprah’s purse-buying incident, the “Obama Clown” at the Missouri state fair; etc.-the nation’s journalists are currently absolutely obsessed with the issue of racism. Past cases of media feeding frenzies on racial issues have not turned out well: In the summer of 1906 the Atlanta’s media’s obsession with cases of black men raping white women whipped up public anger to the point where a horrific race riots resulted in several dozen deaths. In NYC in 1987-1989 the media feeding frenzy that erupted over the Tawana Brawley case led to an explosion of violence in the black neighborhoods of the city as the NYPD, knowing in the frenzied state of media attention on police racism a cop accused of racism was not going to get even a pretense of due process or fair media coverage, stopped fighting black-on-black crime-in NYC by 1989 there was a grim joke on the streets: “Here in NYC we don’t need the KKK to large large numbers of innocent black people-here we have the local TV networks and the editorial page of the NY Times.”I don’t know what will be the negative consequences for America of this ongoing media racims feeding frenzy-but I am confident that before it is all over a lot of innocent people are going to be dead. All of us must pray for the Republic. Sincerely, Respectfully and In Christ, Dr. Ernest Evans
COOPER GOT OFF EASY
Riley Cooper got off easy compared to Deen and he used the word in a drunk and angry episode-and within the past few months.
Agree with the person above-this is why the media is thought of so little these days-they pick and choose who they want to blister, based on some arbitrary rules they control.