Racism

Still Digging

Following the exodus of all her sponsors and corporate partnerships, Paula Deen is still digging in that deep hole.

What I would describe as her driving the point home that she is a racist is now part of her official legal defense in federal court.

On Tuesday, Deen filed a notice with the federal court hearing a race discrimination lawsuit against her, suggesting that the court should dismiss this lawsuit in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Prop 8 case. Last week, the Court explained that “for a federal court to have authority under the Constitution to settle a dispute, the party before it must seek a remedy for a personal and tangible harm.”

Deen is employing the precedent to claim that the white plaintiff who is suing her, Lisa Jackson, cannot bring a race discrimination suit alleging animus against African-Americans because she is not personally injured by racism directed at people of another race.

We’re all on the same team here in White America, right?

It’s ironic to quote the Supreme Court’s ruling on Proposition 8, which ended one form of discrimination, to excuse another form of discrimination, but this idea that racism is okay as long as we’re all in good company (and by good company I mean we’re all white) is a real tell.

Apparently even those “quiet rooms” are no longer a safe place to say what you really think. Is this still America?