Former Food Network star and lover of butter Paula Deen is apparently still trying to pick up the pieces after her world fell apart last year when it was made public that she had made a racial slur at some point in the past. It’s easy to make fun of the over-the-top cook but her plight still rouses some sympathy. Celebrities who are guilty of much worse crimes have managed to bounce back and poor Paula sits in the dirt.
However, Deen recently spoke to People magazine about her journey upwards and made the very unwise decision to say this: “I feel like ’embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always follow my name. It’s like that black football player who recently came out. He said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying.”
Deen was of course referring to Michael Sam. Can’t help but wince at the comparison she’s drawing, especially with her adding the qualifier of ‘that black player’ which doesn’t exactly send the message she might want after her recent troubles.
Her comparison reminded me of an experiment performed by anti-racism activist Jane Elliott, commonly called the “blue-eyed/brown-eyed” experiment in which Elliott tries to get a predominantly white group to understand how racism feels firsthand. The below screencaps are from her 2009 UK event called How Racist Are You?
Okay, white people. Okay.