I was trying to avoid the Paula Deen incident because she’s not someone who pops up on the radar for me. When I had cable I was an addict for the Food Network Channel and I’ve watched her show. It was fun because she had that nice Southern charm, let out the prerequisite y’alls and wasn’t afraid to cook with butter. Some people may remember a show from the U.K. called Two Fat Ladies which used a similar charm offensive of elderly overweight women who were willing to load the potatoes, stuff the turkey and drench everything in butter. Both shows reveled in thumbing their noses up at the sophisticated foods and relished the fattening joy of comfort food.

Paula Deen isn’t my mother, I’ve never met Paula Deen and unless she’s was on some network at the time I was surfing through morning TV shows I didn’t see nor thought of her much. What I have a hard time wrapping my head around with the comments I have seen from people on social media and comment lines supporting Paula Deen is why do you guys care so much about her? I’m not trying to make this something cruel but seriously, is this someone you want to defend?

It is obvious from a lot of the comments I have read people don’t read. Today I saw on a number of websites where people defending Deen were saying she said the N-word 30 years ago and she should be given a break. Guys, stop listening to what she is saying and take ten minutes to look at the deposition in question. Stop thinking with your heart and think with your head. Just for a moment, remember what Paula Deen said when she answered the question about when she had ever SAID the n-word.

Actually, before getting to that, I just ran across something interesting. Every time I have gone to look up something on Paula Deen and her deposition more information comes out about the underlying reason why Deen is being dropped by so many companies. Remember when she revealed she had diabetes and had hid it for two years? There were people who were against her because they said by her unhealthy food lifestyle she was promoting bad health with Americans. She had to do damage control and from what I recall she adjusted her cooking show to reflect her prognosis. She didn’t lose any of her endorsement deals over this because her apology seemed sincere.

The nagging thing in this deposition is the press is focusing on the n-word being used, and since most Americans are unwilling to research or look beyond the fold of the newspaper, they are reacting to the word she used because it is the focal point of most articles. Few people can recall the reason for the lawsuit was because of hostile and unprofessional actions in the workplace. Even today when she was asked by Matt Lauer about the plantation style wedding she wanted for her brother, the question was dodged by Deen. See, saying you said the n-word 30 years ago or more will probably allow people to forgive you. Saying you wanted a plantation wedding is a bit tougher for people to forgive.

So what about the pornography that was in the workplace? Yep, that was another thing that was brought out in the deposition. Seems her brother, the same brother she wanted to throw the plantation wedding for, had a habit of allowing pornography to be displayed in the back rooms. You may say that was her brother and not Paula but she co-owned the restaurant, she admitted she was there a lot in the deposition, so why didn’t she tell him or others to take it down, especially when any business person would know having that up was just a lawsuit waiting to happen?

The Atlanta Constitution reported a few days ago that one current and two former employees, not related to the pending discrimination lawsuit, confirmed discriminatory actions at the restaurant. A black employee said one of Deen’s family members would referred to a black cook as ‘my little monkey.’ Another employee said Deen “preferred white and light-skinned blacks to work with customers” and that darker-skinned blacks were relegated to “back-of-the-house operations.”

RadarOnline has an interview with Sheldon J. Ervin who claims that Paula Deen, on a number of occasions, paid staff who worked extra for setting up parties at her house in beer and alcohol. He also claims that the plantation like scenario she wanted to have at her brother’s wedding was something she did at a lot of her private parties. He has a complaint filed with the EEOD.

Saying the n-word is one thing, but having a restaurant that is discriminating to its black employees is something far more sinister. It’s a cascade effect and it makes sense that Deen would want to focus on the n-word part of this. Yep, she will take a hit but if people think you are an old Southern lady who once used the n-word, that is when you get fans willing to defend you. If you are someone who allegedly pays some employees with beer, have separate entrances for black employees, has a paper bag rule for who gets to work in the big house (that you Tim Reid and ‘Frank’s Place’ for showing this to America back in the day) and a sexually hostile workplace, no charm will clear that stain. I haven’t even touched on the NY Times video interview she did a year or so ago where she said her friend Hollis Johnson was “as back as that board” and later she says “Come out her Hollis. We can’t see you against that dark board.” Yep, she didn’t call him the n-word and the audience did laugh, but it does seem a bit like bad taste to me.

Now, as to what she said today about using the n-word 30 years ago. Again, remember she SAID the word, didn’t think the word. She said she used the word because she was being held at gunpoint by a black man. OK, put that image in your head. She said in the interview today, almost as an apology, that the man holding the gun to her head was someone she knew, offering that she believed he might have been afraid she would recognize him. So, in the past few days the story changed from a wild black man with a gun to someone she knew because she had denied him a loan.

Do any of those scenarios make you think a middle aged white woman would say the n-word? If a black man has a gun to my head, calling him the n-word is not something that pops up in my head! If the person is someone I know with a gun to my head, saying the n-word to his face isn’t something I’m thinking about. If the situation is over and the person runs out of the building, I’m not going to sigh against a wall and say something like that n-word almost shot me, if we are to believe Paula Deen and that type of thinking isn’t part of her upbringing.

When you think about it, the whole scenario of the 30 year old use of the word doesn’t fit well, and when added to the other egregious things in the deposition and what is being brought out by other parties, the n-word is the least of Paula Deen’s concerns. Before jumping to her defense blindly, realize that before those companies made the decision to fire her, they looked at the deposition. They saw all those other red flags pop up and that is why they let her go.