As a result her testimony, Deen's career was dealt a severe blow. She was dropped by the Food Network after 11 years,
along with pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, Wal-mart, QVC, Smithfield Foods, Home Depot, Target, Sears, and others. Despite her 15th cookbook reaching number one at Amazon.com in pre-order sales, her former publisher, Random House's Ballantine Books, canceled it.
Her current status is best described by David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, a public relations and branding agency based in Suwanee, GA. "The narrative has been set," he said, referring to a
New York Times story attempting to further denigrate Deen regarding her long-term relationship with black Deen employee Dora Charles. Yet, despite their best efforts, the paper was forced to reveal that an investigation by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition found that while some employees at the Lady and Sons, where Mrs. Charles works, said there was bias against blacks, others insisted that it was a terrific place to work. And despite the reality that Mrs. Charles has only a ninth grade education, she currently earns around $71,000 per year.
Furthermore, the so-called narrative is a capricious one, as it relates to taboo remarks. For instance, despite actress Gwyneth Paltrow
tweeting a photo of herself onstage at Jay-Z and Kanye West's 2012 "Watch the Throne" concert in Paris with the caption, "Ni**as in paris for real," there has been no discernible damage done to her career as a result. Actor Alec Baldwin allegedly
called a black
NY Post photographer a "coon," and a "crackhead" in February, followed by a rant in June when he
referred to
Daily Mail reporter George Stark as a "toxic little queen" and "little #" on Twitter. For his "penance," Baldwin will reportedly be
getting his own weekly show on cable network MSNBC's primetime lineup.
That would be the same MSNBC where racial arsonist Al Sharpton also has his own show, despite his own track record of both racist and anti-Semitic references. It was Sharpton who
referred to the owner of Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem as a "white interloper," after which, he denied any responsibility for the ensuing massacre committed by protest attendee Roland James Smith, Jr. Smith
killed seven people plus himself after ordering black people to leave the store prior to setting it on fire. Sharpton also
referred to Jews as "diamond merchants" during the anti-Semitic Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, which led to the death of Australian Jew Yankel Rosenbaum. Yet Sharpton's chief claim to fame was his participation in the racially-charged Tawana Brawley hoax that
resulted in a defamation judgment against him for accusing former New York prosecutor Steven Pagones of kidnapping and raping Brawley.
For Sharpton, a genuine track record of racism appears to be a career enhancement
. So, too, for Jesse Jackson, whose career as as media-anointed spokesman for black America has never been derailed by his anti-Semitic
reference to New York City as "Hymietown," his 2008 off-air comment on Fox News during which he
accused Barack Obama of "telling # how to behave," or his most recent outburst,
accusing the entire state of Florida of being racist, and comparing its Governor Rick Scott to hard-core segregationist George Wallace, because George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder.
Sharpton, Jackson, Paltrow and Baldwin get a pass, while Deen does not
Rod Dreher, writing for the American Conservative,
offers up the most convincing explanation for why the likes of Sharpton, Jackson, Paltrow and Baldwin get a pass, while Deen does not. "Alec Baldwin, New York liberal, is of the media's world; Paula Deen, Southern grits-chomper, is not," he writes. "He can be forgiven for a slur he uttered the day before yesterday; she must be professionally destroyed for something she said years ago. She's not one of us, dear."
Meanwhile, Paltrow, whose obsession with
body cleansing includes hawking her own kit for $425, stands in stark contrast to the traditional Southern recipes of Deen, who was derisively
labeled the "cholesterol-loving chef" by
Salon. Such recipes are utterly antithetical to the left's preoccupation,
led by Michelle Obama, of controlling the diet of every American, irrespective of their personal desires. Add Deen's Southern and
devoutly Baptist roots to the mix, two elements which also offend the elitist sensibilities of East and West Coast progressives, who see the rest of nation as "flyover country" filled with Americans who "cling" to their guns and religion, and her ex-communication becomes even more understandable.
Judge Moore refused to play along. He
dismissed Lisa Jackson's claim that she had suffered from racially offensive talk and employment practices allegedly aimed at black workers at Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. Moore also didn't buy Jackson's charge that such prejudices were "more personally offensive" to her because her nieces are biracial. The judge then
explained that letting Jackson's claim continue would "serve to conscript federal courts as human-resources departments that are responsible for imposing and monitoring a federally created standard for harmony in the workplace."
One suspects progressives would like nothing better than to use the power of the federal government to create a "standard of harmony" for the entire nation. But for now, they will have to content themselves with the reality that Deen's career may never be fully resurrected, irrespective of the
numerous, high-profile apologies she has made. Such a fate may be insufficient for the racial grievance industry, still reeling from the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman murder case. Their reflexive charge of racism, based on Deen's use of a single word that virtually every one of the "civil rights" leaders have undoubtedly uttered themselves, reeks of hypocrisy.
"We are pleased with the court's ruling today that Lisa Jackson's claims of race discrimination have been dismissed," said Deen spokeswoman Elana Weiss in a statement e-mailed to the Associated Press. "As Ms. Deen has stated before, she is confident that those who truly know how she lives her life know that she believes in equal opportunity, kindness and fairness for everyone." In a nation where maintaining a racial divide among Americans remains an extremely lucrative enterprise, Deen's confidence is misplaced.