Independent George wrote:[Who, exactly, is Bubba Hiers? Is he Paul Dean's brother?

Yes, & he's a co-defendant in the law suit.

I thought this was interesting, its a critique of her apology on the Today Show & contains this assessment

“She acted like she was the wronged party,” David E. Johnson, the CEO of the PR and branding firm Strategic Vision, told EW. “She doesn’t understand why the N word bothers people. Paula is known as a woman who is a gregarious, nice grandma. Instead, she came across as angry and mean. She says she is the victim. She is clueless about race relations.”

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/26/paula ... gy-slammed

If it were just about the off-hand use of a racial slur, then I think it really would be overblown. What the court document details is an extended pattern of harassment and (in my lay opinion) sexual assault by Bubba Hiers, with absolutely no corrective action taken after being reported.

I'm not an expert on this, but just about every charge detailed in the account was before witnesses who will, presumably, be deposed and testify. She's on the hook because she knew about all of the allegations and did absolutely nothing to stop it.

Independent George wrote:

seebee wrote:Love this one:
"most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks ... gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don't know — I just don't know what to say,” Deen reportedly said in her defense.

Racism doesn't even exist anymore, right?

I wonder what kind of promotions the restaurants she is "attached" to will be pushing. I'm sure the late night talk shows can come up with some good material.

I haven't been following this story closely, but I grew up in a very multi-ethnic neighborhood where our single most popular pastime was finding new and creative ways to insult each other's race, religion, lineage, sexual orientation, and how closely related each others' parents were. I've forgotten more racial epithets (in French/Creole, Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese, and Malayalam) than most people will ever hear in a lifetime. None of it was malicious in the slightest (unless you happened to actually take offense to it and got angry; then, the gloves really came off). This tradition continues in the enlisted ranks of most of the Armed Forces as well.

Granted, I grew out of it once I realized that it was no longer appropriate to any context but the one I grew up in, but I can easily imagine a non-racist context for some horribly offensive speech.

I gotta tell you - I grew up in pretty much the same kinds of circles. I love talking trash with my home boys, who are of all races and ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations. We talk so much trash about each other, that most ppl would cringe if they heard it. I get it. I get it totally, and I bet if we hung out, we'd be laughing til the wee hours telling jokes and talking shit.

I'd respect Paula WAY more if she could hold a press conference with some of her black friends, and have them come out and say, "Paula was just talking shit, she's good ppl, and we tell nigga jokes behind closed doors with her." But, instead, per status quo, she comes out crying, pandering to the heart strings for some reason. I understand the concept of trying to apologize to everyone, but in my mind, I would forgive her for the slurs if I knew she was just talking shit and some black folk would truly vouch for her just talking shit. Certainly, most ppl could not handle that, but I have a feeling that a bunch of black folk would appreciate it. I'm not saying that makes it RIGHT, I'm just saying that I'd stop thinking she was a card carrying klan member wannabe behind closed doors if she were to come out, puff up her chest and say, "yeah, I said it, and it was funny as shit, and my black friends know I was just talking shit. Now everybody, chill out about me being a racist."

Hi- If anything Bubba is more guilty of crimes committed and being a racist than Paula, and we have not heard from him at all, and Paula has not brought up his name. Bubba is the one who has been watching porn at his restaurant, taking money out of the till, and relegating dark skinned black employees to the kitchen. He was probably the one who would not let black employees enter the restaurant from the front entrance, and made them use a separate bathroom, and Paula just looked the other way. Bubba also did not like the fact that Paula was designating a female to be the general manager of his restaurant, and one of her upper echelon people denied Ms. Jackson a bonus one year because she had just divorced her husband, and Christians do not do that.

Paula seems to be digging her grave deeper the more she speaks. She needs to put Bubba in his place for starts, and that is not going to happen.

There is a Wall Street Journal article in the last couple days that noted that Paula Deen's ratings, taken WELL BEFORE the latest scandal was down over 28%. In addition, the "how to" cooking format has lost favor with so many younger viewers. The latest scandal might have been a good opportunity to get rid of her with cause than pay her any more money.

Now if the Yankees could do the same with A-Rod ...

jlawrence01 wrote:There is a Wall Street Journal article in the last couple days that noted that Paula Deen's ratings, taken WELL BEFORE the latest scandal was down over 28%. In addition, the "how to" cooking format has lost favor with so many younger viewers. The latest scandal might have been a good opportunity to get rid of her with cause than pay her any more money.

Now if the Yankees could do the same with A-Rod ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 71860.html

Hi- Of more importance is the fact that viewership among the coveted younger crowd has gone way down, and the great majority of her viewers are over the age of 50. This group does not appeal to advertisers. I much prefer the cooking shows on PBS to the ones on the Food Network.

Apparently business has been booming at her restaurants since all this surfaced.

Paula has just hired a crisis expert who is the person that the show Scandal is based upon. She is out of Washington DC. Here is a link to the article.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/26/paula ... ivia-pope/

Hi- I was just on the Today show site, and Home Depot and Walmart have also dumped Paula. For those people who did not get to see her on the Today show this morning, here is the video.

http://www.today.com/food/public-reacti ... 6C10457029

NFriday wrote:Hi- Of more importance is the fact that viewership among the coveted younger crowd has gone way down, and the great majority of her viewers are over the age of 50. This group does not appeal to advertisers. I much prefer the cooking shows on PBS to the ones on the Food Network.

Apparently business has been booming at her restaurants since all this surfaced.

I listen to a LOT of Los Angeles radio. When the scandal broke, the talk show host started talking about it. Then he comes up with the line, "Since she won't be on TV anymore, maybe she'll have time to open a restaurant." Nothing like people who are so willing to jump on teh bandwagon without doing minimal research.

Hi- I was just on Amazon, and Paula's new cookbook, which is not scheduled to come out until October 15, has shot up to #1 on Amazon. It sounds like she still has a lot of fans.

On the Today show this morning Paula mentioned that Rev. Jackson was supporting her, and I looked it up. Apparently Paula approached Jessie Jackson a few days ago, for advice about getting out of this mess, and he agreed to work with her. I don't know how much good he is going to be able to help her.

seebee wrote:
I'm not saying that makes it RIGHT, I'm just saying that I'd stop thinking she was a card carrying klan member wannabe behind closed doors if she were to come out, puff up her chest and say, "yeah, I said it, and it was funny as shit, and my black friends know I was just talking shit. Now everybody, chill out about me being a racist."

You actually think it is appropriate to be "talking shit" while under oath in a court of law. That concept is outrageous and ignores the importance of historical context.

Tim

I think people are reacting exactly the way I did - the media attention is focused on off-hand uses of the N-Word (which is not even close to being worthy of a million-dollar lawsuit), while completely ignoring the long pattern of sexual harassment and sexual assault by her brother. Which, incidentally, constitutes about 99% of the lawsuit. Paula Dean is involved because she's the managing partner of the restaurant her brother "runs", is responsible for its management, completely ignored what was happening, and willfully enabled reprisals against the plaintiff for her complaints.

Has any journalist asked her about the specifics of what her brother is alleged to have done, versus asking about when and how she used the "N-Word"? I wouldn't have known about any of that unless I read the pdf linked previously. Something is seriously wrong with the reporting on this - it's like the journalists on the story never read the case files, either, but just read some random blog post and decided the race angle was enough. The most important, and damning, parts of the story are not being reported.

Independent George wrote:I think people are reacting exactly the way I did - the media attention is focused on off-hand uses of the N-Word (which is not even close to being worthy of a million-dollar lawsuit), while completely ignoring the long pattern of sexual harassment and sexual assault by her brother. Which, incidentally, constitutes about 99% of the lawsuit. Paula Dean is involved because she's the managing partner of the restaurant her brother "runs", is responsible for its management, completely ignored what was happening, and willfully enabled reprisals against the plaintiff for her complaints.

It is probably the best way to take down someone very quickly ....

Hi- Novo Nordisk has suspended their contract with Paula. They said that this was because she had too much on her plate right now, and that they might reinstate the contract after everything dies down.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/2 ... 09855.html

I agree with what somebody else just mentioned that too much talk is being centered on the word that Paula used, when 99% of the lawsuit centered on Bubba's faults. I think the only thing that Paula can be faulted for is that she put up with everything that was happening at Bubba's restaurant, and chose not to do anything about it. I would love to see Bubba publicly say that he is sorry for all the harm he caused, and it is not going to happen anymore, but I know that he would never do it.

NFriday wrote:I think the only thing that Paula can be faulted for is that she put up with everything that was happening at Bubba's restaurant, and chose not to do anything about it.

Really, though, that's actually quite a lot. She's a partner in the business, and her failure to act is the equivalent of engaging in the harassment itself - especially because it led to reprisals for complaining.

Think of what would happen if this were a fraud case - one partner in a business engages in fraud without the other partner's knowledge. An employee brings it to the second partner, who ignores it. At that point, she's guilty of fraud as well. If the first partner then goes on to retaliate against the employee to send a message to all the other workers, with the full knowledge of the second partner, then she's complicit even if she's not involved in the day-to-day operations.

How in the hell does someone with Paula Deen's prominence not have an attorney to tell her, "Hey, you really need to take care of this."?

Independent George wrote:I think people are reacting exactly the way I did - the media attention is focused on off-hand uses of the N-Word (which is not even close to being worthy of a million-dollar lawsuit), while completely ignoring the long pattern of sexual harassment and sexual assault by her brother.

I definitely agree that the bulk of the lawsuit isn't getting the attention it deserves, but I think a lot of the attention about her use of the N-Word isn't so much on what she said in the past as it is about her cluelessness in dealing with it now. The fact that she doesn't seem to get it is what's really causing her problems. Anyone with half a brain and a scrap of empathy for others wouldn't have gotten themselves into the position she's in.

Independent George wrote:How in the hell does someone with Paula Deen's prominence not have an attorney to tell her, "Hey, you really need to take care of this."?

She should really discuss this with Martha Stewart, who should have had an attorney present when talking to Federal investigators. In Martha's case, it was probably arrogance thinking she could handle it.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:

Independent George wrote:How in the hell does someone with Paula Deen's prominence not have an attorney to tell her, "Hey, you really need to take care of this."?

She should really discuss this with Martha Stewart, who should have had an attorney present when talking to Federal investigators. In Martha's case, it was probably arrogance thinking she could handle it.

As a rule, it's a really bad idea to talk to any law enforcement without an attorney present, regardless of whether you did anything or not.

In Paula Deen's case, though, I don't understand how anybody can run a business that size without having an attorney on-hand to handle these kinds of situations. Hell, from a strictly amoral business perspective, the first time somebody tells her, "Your brother is sexually harassing me in front of multiple witnesses", she should have been at least asking, (1) "How much will a settlement + NDA cost?", followed immediately by (2) "How quickly can I legally extricate myself from this mess so that I'm not connected when it happens again?".

She did nothing, the abuse continued, and now she's toast.

Attrill wrote:I definitely agree that the bulk of the lawsuit isn't getting the attention it deserves, but I think a lot of the attention about her use of the N-Word isn't so much on what she said in the past as it is about her cluelessness in dealing with it now. The fact that she doesn't seem to get it is what's really causing her problems. Anyone with half a brain and a scrap of empathy for others wouldn't have gotten themselves into the position she's in.

Hell, even if she's just a truly horrible person -- and cares nothing about the welfare of others -- you'd think self-interest would have prompted some sort of response on her part. Clueless really seems to describe her understanding of the situation.

=R=

Hi- According to Ms. Jackson's court case, she talked to Paula's lawyer on several occasions, relating what was going on at the restaurant, and each time the lawyer sympathized with her, but did nothing to correct the situation.

Other than the fact that the celebrity we're gossiping about is a Food Network celebrity and owns a restaurant, we're not really talking about food anymore, are we? I'm looking forward to the end of this thread.

Katie wrote:Other than the fact that the celebrity we're gossiping about is a Food Network celebrity and owns a restaurant, we're not really talking about food anymore, are we? I'm looking forward to the end of this thread.

It's in the "other" thread, and yes it relates to matters culinary, even if only tangentially. And no one is making you read it. Thanks for you half-cent though.

Oh, Habibi, I respect you greatly, but that wasn't nice. Someone can always say "you don't have to read it if you don't want to," and I know that. Are only certain people allowed to comment on when we're getting off topic, and others not? We've engaged in serious conversations about, for example, how much discussions of fast food contribute to this forum, and those discussions were actually about food.

Sorry if I offended. Honest.

I just don't think this is any less relevant than discussing Chopped or Top Chef. Paula "They look so nice in those uniforms" Deen is a food celebrity. I don't read the threads devoted to those idiotic TV shows. But I don't think the threads don't have a place here for people that actually watch those shows.

The post to Michael Twitty's Afroculinaria blog in this thread, for example, is something that (for people who actually click the link) is immensely valuable and enriching and directly connected to culinary matters. That link might not have come up in this forum if not for this discussion about old racist butterf*ck.

Also it's fun to talk shit about Paula Deen because she sucks and she is racist and she is going to racist hell where she will not be able to eat fried butter and will instead have to live like a poor farmer in Central Africa and live on simply prepared vegetables, pulses and grains.

Not everything on here is about food. Being a Food Network personality and a restaurateur seems to fit the criteria of topics for the board, doesn't it? Just curious, not trying to be snippy. Besides, someone above said she was toast. Mmmm...heavily buttered toast...

This reflects really well what I think.

NFriday wrote:Hi- According to Ms. Jackson's court case, she talked to Paula's lawyer on several occasions, relating what was going on at the restaurant, and each time the lawyer sympathized with her, but did nothing to correct the situation.

Wow. Either the lawyer is incompetent to the level of being disbarred (seems unlikely to me), or Paula Deen is a complete moron. She had to have known just how damaging the allegations were; how the hell does anybody go on without rectifying it? Forget the moral obligation - strictly from the perspective of good business sense and self-interest, how do you not do anything? By doing nothing, she becomes complicit in every horrible thing her brother does.

Sweet merciful crap, I know nothing about running a restaurant, but that just seems like plain common sense to me. If you any employee, let alone a managing partner, is sexually assaulting another employee, then he needs to be fired immediately. The industry doesn't matter. Who can't figure that out?

mbh wrote:This reflects really well what I think.

And again - that article misses the forest for the trees. Her using racist terminology is ultimately a secondary matter; her brother sexually harassing - and, on occasion, sexually assaulting - their employees on a regular basis is the primary issue in the lawsuit, and it doesn't even merit a mention in the article. And from the way it's written, I'd guess he doesn't even know about any of that. Nor do any of the comments mention it.

He's congratulating himself for taking the higher road on an issue he apparently doesn't even know about.

Hi- Both Target and QVC have also dumped Paula.

Independent George wrote:Wow. Either the lawyer is incompetent to the level of being disbarred (seems unlikely to me), or Paula Deen is a complete moron.

My guess would be that she's a complete moron who is in the habit of only hiring people who agree with her. Therefor she went through a number of lawyers before settling on an incompetent one who told her whatever she wanted to hear.

Paula Deen gif, funny stuff. http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/ori ... 28/83e.gif