On Paula Deen

This is based on the first article I read about Paula Deen (I've since read two others). I haven't seen any of the YouTube videos. Mine is arguably a rather uninformed perspective.

Paula. Honey. You do you realize some of your fans are/were Black? Others may have not been fans, but they respected you. There were those who were inspired by you. You, as a single mom, did all of that? Well, then, maybe so could I. Nobody talks when eating my cooking.

Did you really want black employees to dress as slaves when catering a wedding? Was it an antebellum theme? Gone with the Wind and you needed Mammy, Prissy, Pork, and Big Sam? Mistake indeed.

Now. Those comments were made as part of an explanation of the present work environment at one of your restaurants. The concern, of course, is whether those distant past comments reflect a current state of heart.

Please don't go on Oprah to prove you're not a closet racist.

The way you address the situation at the restaurant is the proof most people are looking for.

Baffling Behavior

WARNING! A bit of coarse language here. And a trigger-y subject for some.

In 2009, a student at Richmond High was gang raped after a school dance, on school premises. The total number of assailants is unknown – they ran like roaches when the police arrived – but two have pled guilty and are testifying at the joint trial of two others.

According to one person's testimony, the victim was unconscious when one of the group tried to put his penis in her mouth for copulation. Naturally, he was unsuccessful. So he started beating her head.

Ooo, look, she's unconscious. She has no control over her muscles. I think she should give me a blow job.

Ah, man. That's not working. Maybe if I beat her she'll re-gain consciousness so I can get what I want.

Yeah. I couldn't find a logical explanation either.

No, "They were drunk," is not an explanation. Please.

You know drunkenness is not an excuse. You know that racist rant was not a new thought birthed from a hefeweizen froth. You know it was in the back recesses of the mind all along. And that friend of the ethnicity in question? They're the exceptions to the rules in the rant.

In other words

Somewhere in their minds, the idea of tearing the clothes off of someone who could barely sit upright is palatable.

Why is that?

* * * * *

When the story of the Richmond High gang rape first broke, it really shook me.

That first week, as I read the newspaper and glimpsed the TV news, it got worse. Maybe I missed something, but I only heard one male voice denounce the incident. He was one of the responding officers, and had tears in his eyes when he spoke.

Why weren't more men saying anything? Why was there silence in the face of such atrocity? The apparent lack of male response made me feel unsafe.

The next week there was a report of a group of men meeting in a park to pray and stand in solidarity with the victim. I felt a little better.

A few weeks later, the newspaper had a story about a preacher who referenced the incident in a sermon. He focused on the alcohol use.

I sighed. The pastor missed the point. Yes, alcohol was a factor – the will to fight our impulses diminishes when drunk. But it does not explain the impulse itself. And the problem is the impulse. What other species rapes for the sake of raping?