Enough about Paula Deen

I don’t have any strong feeling about Paul Deen one way or the other as an individual person. That’s because I don’t know her, personally. If she needs to be vilified then we can leave that to our muck-raking media. I should restate that. Whether Paula Deen needs to be vilified, or not, our disgusting media is going to do it.

I once knew a Texan who sometimes said, “The higher up you get on a limb, the more people there are that are going want to take a shot at you.” There is much wisdom in that colloquialism. When Paula was a divorced mother rearing her two sons and orphaned younger brother, the media left her alone.

Then her catering business, started out of her kitchen, turned into an entrepreneur’s dream. Success put Paula Deen higher in the tree. Then people, who couldn't reach such heights, could notice and envy her.

As for her use of a blatantly derogatory term thirty years ago, it’s not okay. It never was okay and it definitely never will be okay. For her very wrongful indiscretion, she has publicly and sincerely apologized.

Ninety percent of baby boomers, whether they grew up in the south, the north or the west,  will admit to casual use of derogatory racial slurs at some point in their life. The other ten percent are, more than likely, liars. I nearly got my jaw broken for it once when I only spoke a derogatory term under my breath in a bar.

None of us can change the environment that we grew up in. All that we can do is change ourselves and how we rear our children so that the wrongs in our lifetimes are replaced with rights. If Paula Deen has failed at this, to the point of violating the law, then let the judicial system handle it. The media needs to back off.