I'm okay with Paula Deen's fate, but don't let it happen to you

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."

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.