The Paula Deen Affair- some tips for white people.

So when one of America's most notoriously bad companies fires you because you are bad for the brand, you are having a bad week. The Cod is on the record as not being a fan of Paula Deen, or of Smithfield, for that matter, but there is much that is troubling. To be sure, using the word "nigger" as she did is hurtful, as is the idea of the plantation-themed wedding. But this is her undoing? Not her partnership w/ Smithfield in the first place, not her attempt to monetize her own diabetes, not her entire persona as a grotesque charicature of something that does not exist? (It's always seemed to me that the essence of Deen's success was a perverse kind of minstrelsy, where she was a white, and thus acceptable version of Aunt Jemima, but I digress.) 

However, the national media has done a bad job with this story, says me. I may be more aware of this than some, but having been raised on one place famous for its own brand of racism (Boston), and living as an adult in another place famous for its different brand of racism (South Carolina), I am often struck by how easy it is for a certain kind of non-southerner to identify racism as a southern phenomenon. Park Slope Mom can forget that there's only one Black kid at little Hermione's pre-school, because there are no cotton fields in Prospect Park. Boston Food Blogger can tut-tut at Deen's language and not notice that the only Black folks he sees when he dines are washing dishes. And so on. 

If you don't live there, and you don't say that word, the thinking goes, then you are not part of the problem, no matter what percentage of Black men are incarerated in your home state. Allow me to suggest humbly that not using that word is great, but it is the beginning, and not the end, of what white folks need to do. 

Indulge me in a diagram: 

	People who say “nigger. “	People who don’t.
Racists	A	B
Non-Racists	C	D

There are certainly folks who fit into category A, and also category D (we will ignore for the moment the tricky business of defining "non-racist"). But allow me to suggest that we all meet plenty of category B people every day, and I can even think of a few folks who might claim category C.