Cooking up a Hot Mess with Paula Deen and Anne Rice

The recent allegations levelled at Paula Deen, self-proclaimed Queen of Southern cooking, have brought with them a slurry of debate on social media networks. The level of emotive commentary has highlighted just how far the world has yet to go in race relations (and I use the term "race" in its most socially understood form here). It seems that everybody has an opinion and nobody's scared to voice it.

Today, while meandering through my Facebook newsfeed, I spotted a new blogpost from a site I regularly read. The bulk of that post was on a young author who had scored herself a publishing deal at the tender age of 15. A wonderfully positive post about a clever young writer who is being recognised for her talent. Lurking at the bottom of the post, however, was a link to author Anne Rice's Facebook post, posing a question about the social vilification of Paula Deen.

Did I ignore the link? Did I allow my fingers to hover momentarily over the link then brush them quickly away to another page? No. I clicked the link. I read the initially apparently innocent question. Then I read the many many polarised responses to the question, to Paula Deen herself and to a plethora of other social issues, some of which appeared unrelated to the issue. People don't hold back on social media. Sometimes people loose all sense that they are a member of humanity and should perhaps exercise a little humanity in their responses to others. And having worked myself into a lather, shaking my head at the state of affairs, and losing heart in people's capacity to conduct a debate or even an argument without a rapid slide into vulgarity, accusations and name-calling, I decided to post my own response to both the question Ms Rice posed and to some of the responses it elicited.

It's an issue I feel quite strongly about, so … well, I got a little carried away. So here, in its 980 word entirety, is what I posted. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Completely agree with Sarah ^^ (this is a long post and I apologise in advance). Ms Deen is not in danger of losing her life. She's really not in any danger of losing even her livelihood (her empire spans more than just the one Food Network show, and they haven't cancelled either of her sons' shows). This isn't a "lynch mob" as you so colourfully put it (nothing like emotive language to whip up a mob). She's not being pursued with a noose or burning torches and pitchforks. Nobody here appears to be wearing white pointy hats. I think the scrutiny she's being subjected to is perfectly human, and frankly justifiable given her frequent claims to Southern manners. It's unfortunate for her that social media happens to be the church meeting or town gathering of our times and allows for the airing of many more opinions than would previously have been possible. It's also unfortunate that people use the relative anonymity of social media to express their views in a less than tactful or considerate way, but if we cut through the bluster and filibuster, it seems to me that there are three positions here. Firstly, there are those who are outraged by the revelations from the allegations (and let's remember that at this point they are still allegations - her tearful video admissions aside), there are those who are mindful that she has not yet been convicted of any wrong-doing other than in the court of public appeal (tearful video admissions aside again) and so should not be condemned on the basis of allegations, and finally there are those that seem to have missed the point of the debate. Paula Deen may well be a charming archetype of a Southern white lady, but that doesn't mean she has any right to racist views. Claiming a defence of "everyone's at least a little bit racist" serves only to detract from the significance of her utterances (and it appears she's a recidivist on this count) - she is a Southern white lady and all the history of subjugation that that entails. I agree that it is shocking to hear African Americans call each other the N-word in jest or affection. It appears like double standards. It doesn't sit well with me, but does confirm how entrenched the generations of discrimination and disenfranchisement are. There is a minor case to be made about the taking back of power by using the word, but I think that's a furphy - some words are just too vile. Calling for people to "move on from what happened in the past" is a position of luxury adopted often by those who have never been oppressed or had generations of their family oppressed by anyone, or by those who are apologists for such colonialism. We're not talking about a bit of name calling and a sticking out of tongues like you did at age 5. This is generations of being subjugated, having your futures determined for you by others purely because of the colour of your skin, this is being told who you can marry, where you can live, where you can shop, when you can go out on the streets, where or whether you can educate your children and for how long and in what courses, for generations. It is the assumption that one group of people is innately superior to another by virtue of a little less melanin. And it's the fact that there is still not equity (not talking about equality here - I'm not sure real equality is ever achievable) between African Americans, Native Americans and others (white, brown, brindle, whatever you choose to call the colour of your skin - and the same applies in other countries too, so don't feel you are being persecuted because you're from the US, it's not much different in Britain or in Australia). I'm not talking about an individual, case-by-case analysis. I'm talking about the entirety of African America or Native America compared to how everyone else fares in health, education and employment (severely under-represented) and the criminal justice system (severely over-represented). It's not that easy to "just get over it". This is generations of mental health issues, generations of general health issues (have you seen the diabetes and heart health statistics for African Americans and Native Americans compared to the rest of the population? Have you seen the morbidity rates?), generations of fighting overt and covert discrimination in education, workplaces and life in general. For many African Americans, waking up and deciding not to let the past determine how you react to the world can be stymied the very second they walk into a store and the clerk behind the counter ignores them in favour of the white lady who walked in after them. They may brush it off as one ignorant clerk being a jerk, leave the store and walk down the street, only to have a mother pull her child protectively out of the way. They go home, walk in the door, and notice a car speeding past, that slows in front of their house, just enough for the young teenager in the front to lean half-way out the window and scream, red-faced and ugly, the N-word before racing off again. Anne Rice, do you not think it's a valid response that people are still polarised by her words? Are you surprised? Do you truly believe she's in danger of having her front door bashed down in the middle of the night, of being dragged half naked and half asleep into the yard, and of being strung up from the nearest tree by people who don't even have the courage of their convictions to show their face? I understand that you were trying to draw an analogy with the comparative anonymity of social media, but your inflammatory language was perhaps a little ill-thought-out.

Fairy Princesses and GI Joes

Image by Cayusa via FlickrI was reading a blog today by Candace Lindemann about our progressive move as a society to limit the choices of aspirational goal/hero for our girls and it set alarm bells ringing for me. I've long thought that the choices we offer girls is woeful. In no way is this the fault of parents. When there is little variety on offer, there is little scope for parents to make choices that don't disenfranchise their children from friendships or exclude them from the norm. And we all want to fit in. Next time you go clothes shopping, turn the aisle into the children's section and take a peek at what's on offer for girls. Though not a parent of girls, I do have a niece and do periodically wander bug-eyed and bamboozled through the array of attire for girls. I'm constantly horrified. If it's not pink, frilly and princess-like, then it's something that's too adult, too revealing and positively salacious. Something that in my worst, most critical moments I think of as appropriate work wear for a full-body masseuse. These are not the clothes I wore as a child. Especially since I was the classic tomboy, happier up a tree or playing with my train set or cars in the sand than playing at fairy princess. Don't get me wrong, I loved the idea of magic and witches, but I was always more attracted to the darker side - Macbeth is still my favourite of Shakespeare's plays and the weird sisters, Hecate and Lady M are my favourite characters. I love these women. They are strong and wilful and ambitious. They live their lives as they please (in the case of the witches) and don't let any men tell them what to do. But pink and frilly was never me... and low-cut, leopard print and lustrous nails are not my idea of the alternative.

Image via WikipediaSo having vented my spleen on the pitiful choices available for our young girls, let me turn to what's on offer for boys. I started my parenting adventure believing that I was going to be different. I would raise children who didn't feel the need to conform to the norm. I would provide my boys with as many alternatives as possible and nothing was off limits. The toy room was filled with cars, trucks, planes, soft toys and dolls. Many many dolls. Of many many skin colours and national dress. Despite the concerned looks from LomL and the obvious discomfort of the in-laws, I persisted. Thank goodness for a loving family that support me in all my mad schemes. My baby boys were dressed in bright, happy colours. Bright blues, greens, yellows, purples and even pinks adorned them regardless of the tutt-tutts and dire warnings of retinal damage from all the older Aunties in the community. Not a single pastel passed my boys' bodies. And I was proud of the start I was giving them. Vibrant, full of choices to be who they wanted, uninhibited by the demands of peer pressure or societal norms, accepted always. But the baby stage doesn't last long. Pretty soon my boys grew into toddlers and the cute baby suits in bright colours had to be replaced with more age-appropriate clothing. But what was on offer? Gone were the bright colours. Gone were the purples and pinks. Gone were the sex-neutral baby suits. Replaced with khaki greens, navy blues, browns, blacks and greys. The colour and wonder of babyhood was rapidly replaced by an increasingly dull, monotonous (and it really did look like one tone when you squinted), drab wardrobe. This was depressing for me. It made me wonder whether this would start my children down the path of becoming another depressed teen boy statistic. Is this how it starts? In tiny, drab, monotonous choices? Do we wear our boys into depression by making them wear the colours of it? Perhaps I'm being a little hysterical, but for me colour and music are always key catalysts for my mood.

And what of the choices of toys to play with? Gone were the options for dolls and soft toys. That was all very well when they were babies, but now it was time for them to be proper little boys. Flooding in came trains large and small, planes and automobiles. I held off on the weaponry for as long as I could, but it was like holding back a tidal wave. Once the first knife appeared, it was quickly followed by bows and arrows, spears and eventually my greatest hurdle, guns. I finally gave up on resisting guns in the house when my boys started making guns out of sticks, coloured markers and even toast. I had to admit defeat. They had been enculturated and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't blame the media entirely since we didn't watch a lot of TV and what we did watch was almost exclusively on the non-commercial broadcaster or on video. But I realised quickly that I couldn't keep them away from the inevitable draw of the blinking box forever. So what was the alternative? Send them uncritical, unquestioning to face the onslaught of sophisticated and insidious marketing on commercial television? That was not an option I cared to consider. Instead, we've watched TV with our kids, commenting on the advertisements as they appear. We critique them, talk about how they make us feel, examine whether or not we want to buy the product and why. We talk critically about marketing strategies, times of the day that certain advertisements appear and why. We listen to the music used and explore why that choice was made. We talk about the choice of actors or characters in the advertisements. All in all we aim to make our children critical viewers of the media images they're exposed to.

I don't think it's realistic to believe we can shelter them from all advertising forever. So instead, I'd rather aim for developing a sense of critical viewing of the advertising and an awareness of what it's trying to do. I hope that this will equip them to protect themselves from being led, nose-first into making poor financial and life choices.