I know the next few things that I want to write, but I
keep getting hung up on the order. Maybe this is a good place to start. It
involves racial issues and fairness, but no one is dead.
(Yesterday's post was kind of about George Zimmerman, but
honestly, I think it will be a while before I will be able to blog about it
directly.)
As you may have guessed from the title, I am not weeping
for Paula Deen, but I know some people do feel it's unfair that a white person
can be so badly punished for using the N-word when black people do it all the
time with impunity. That is not what's going on though, and that's what I want
to write about, and then provide tips so other people do not encounter the same
problems.
Obviously Paula is having a hard time with this, and it
does not seem she really understands how this came about, or why. It may be too
late for her, but not for everyone else.
Here's the thing about getting television shows and
celebrity endorsements; those sponsoring you are banking on your attraction to
their audience. They may or may not like you personally, but this is business
because that's capitalism. If at some point you seem like more of a liability
than an asset, they are probably going to quit throwing cash your way.
And different people can get away with different things.
Yes, there are people who use the N-word without it hurting their career. There
are people of multiple races who do not like this, and probably people of
multiple races who do not care. There is room for some fascinating discussion
on subverting the language of the oppressor by adopting it, and I actually do
plan to post on that at some point in the future, but that will be gender
driven.
For now, we don't need that discussion, because that's
not what this is about. Whether they are athletes or musicians in this case,
they are appealing to a different audience, and conveying a different image
that their audience appreciates. They are banking on appearing dangerous,
rebellious, and anti-establishment, and generally speaking they are not selling
hams and cookware. Even so, they still have boundaries, and if you suddenly
become a suspect in multiple homicides, or connected to dog fighting rings,
those types of endorsements can dry up too.
(Nike will stay with you longer than most, but even they
have their limits.)
So Paula Deen had one type of image, and it was a
lucrative one, but it also required her to be likable. For her to maintain
that, she actually needed to be really careful. There were already people who
did not like her for failing to acknowledge other aspects of Southern Cuisine
beyond the fat-laden, for failing to acknowledge the history of the food, and
for her specific recipes doing little more than adding a gob of mayonnaise.
Still, she survived that.
Her image also took a bit of a beating when she announced
that she had Type-2 diabetes, that it was related to the unhealthy eating that
she was pushing, and that she had hid it for two years, only admitting it to
take another endorsement for a medication.
That should have been a learning experience, because she
took a lot of flack, and she did have to change her message. It should have
taught her that she was not invulnerable, and to think about her responses.
This does not appear to have happened.
If you are a celebrity chef, and you have restaurants,
when there are things that go wrong with them, that has the potential to make
news. This should not surprise anyone. That might be a good reason to make sure
employees are treated well. It was not reason enough.
Even so, Paula probably could have come out of this
pretty well by blaming everything on her brother. It might not be fair, but she
could argue that being busy with the show and cookbooks and empire, she could
not possibly affect the restaurants that much, and it would be easy for people
to think bad things about someone named "Bubba".
And I don't think it's because she loves her brother too
much to do that; I think she was too clueless to think of that. When you are being
asked questions about a hostile work environment, and race is an issue, and
someone asks you if you have ever said the N-word, "Of course" is the
wrong answer! That when asked for further detail she went back to an old
incident where she had been traumatized shows some realization that it's a
problem, but not enough. Imagine if it had gone this way:
"Have you ever used the N word?"
"Yes. I was held at gunpoint by a black man once, and when I was telling my husband about it I was still so angry and upset that I did. It was stupid and ugly, but I was lashing out."
"Yes. I was held at gunpoint by a black man once, and when I was telling my husband about it I was still so angry and upset that I did. It was stupid and ugly, but I was lashing out."
It's not really that different from what she said. It
still leaves the impression she only said it one time, without actually stating
that, but it's so much less glib, and so much more indicative of some
understanding of why using that word matters.
Still, the issue with the plantation theme, saying that
she can't know what would offend people (Really? You have no idea at all?), the
inability to stumble through a five sentence apology without editing -- it all
conveys that she does not get it.
And this leads us to the first step in not getting Paula
Deen'd, and many celebrities could learn from this (including Orson Scott
Card): a bad apology is worse than no apology!
No, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't apologize, but
it does mean that you should do it right. "I'm sorry if you were
offended," does not work. Adding a "but" in the apology does not
work. You need to acknowledge where you were wrong, and that means understanding
why you were wrong, even if you have to hire someone to explain it to you.
I really believe she could have survived this one if she
had just handled it better, but that would have involved a greater
understanding outside of the world of her own privilege. This is where we get
the bonus round: try and understand what other people's lives are like. Look
deeper. Don't just write off prejudices and stereotypes that don't affect you,
so clearly it is all in their heads. It's very convenient to believe that
everyone has the same opportunities and privileges as you; but basing your
worldview on false beliefs is the kind of thing that can come back and haunt
you later.
Getting there was largely luck, not virtue, and falling
was largely stupidity, not persecution. And you know, if you don't lose your
popularity until after you have made millions of dollars, that's a privilege
right there that most people don't get.
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