There's a little bit of schadenfreude in watching Paula Deen's (literal) gravy train with Krispy Kreme wheels get derailed by her ignorant (again literal) piehole. Offhand, I'd say her greater crime against humanity is finding newer, grosser ways to poison them with a toxic effluence of saturated fats, but that's me.
Anyway, for those of you not porking yourselves into a diabetic coma washing down donut sandwiches with 64-ounce Big Gulps, let's cut the shit. Deen's casual racism is certainly off-putting and revelatory, and will stall her career for a few weeks until Roger Ailes gives her a blank check to clog America's arteries once more from the safe confines ofSteve Doocy's assholeFox and Friends.
But there's a difference between a jackass and a scumbag. Deen is a jackass; these people are scumbags. We used to be able to tell ourselves that racism would finally die off when mossbacks like George Wallace finally shuffled off to hell, then it was when the smiling ofay raised-that-way dipshits like Deen were gone. But you can see from the links that the majority of the twittards appear to be in their twenties, maybe thirties. We're stuck with these cocksuckers.
Or not. As America gets younger, poorer, and browner, these bozos are going to have to get with the program; that world will be a lot less forgiving of their overprivileged white asses venting their imaginary grievances. People used to (hell, still try to) defend this stuff with half-assed nonsense like "it's the southuhn cultcha" or "that's the time and place they came from." Give me a fucking break. Paula Deen is sixty-damn-six years old; exactly how old do you need to be to figure out that slavery-themed weddings and "sambo burgers" are fucked up?
It all stems from the inability of (a preponderance of, not all) southerners to let go of their lost cause mythos, and drop their finger-in-the-eye-of-yer-political-cureckniss bullshit. Get over it. You were wrong. You lost. You deserved to fucking lose. Also, too, it was 150 years ago.
As they like to say in the south, you can't fix stupid. All you can do is stand back and watch things fix themselves, and when the oaf inevitably pulls the vending machine on himself, chalk it up to evolution winning out at long last.
Anyway, for those of you not porking yourselves into a diabetic coma washing down donut sandwiches with 64-ounce Big Gulps, let's cut the shit. Deen's casual racism is certainly off-putting and revelatory, and will stall her career for a few weeks until Roger Ailes gives her a blank check to clog America's arteries once more from the safe confines of
But there's a difference between a jackass and a scumbag. Deen is a jackass; these people are scumbags. We used to be able to tell ourselves that racism would finally die off when mossbacks like George Wallace finally shuffled off to hell, then it was when the smiling ofay raised-that-way dipshits like Deen were gone. But you can see from the links that the majority of the twittards appear to be in their twenties, maybe thirties. We're stuck with these cocksuckers.
Or not. As America gets younger, poorer, and browner, these bozos are going to have to get with the program; that world will be a lot less forgiving of their overprivileged white asses venting their imaginary grievances. People used to (hell, still try to) defend this stuff with half-assed nonsense like "it's the southuhn cultcha" or "that's the time and place they came from." Give me a fucking break. Paula Deen is sixty-damn-six years old; exactly how old do you need to be to figure out that slavery-themed weddings and "sambo burgers" are fucked up?
It all stems from the inability of (a preponderance of, not all) southerners to let go of their lost cause mythos, and drop their finger-in-the-eye-of-yer-political-cureckniss bullshit. Get over it. You were wrong. You lost. You deserved to fucking lose. Also, too, it was 150 years ago.
As they like to say in the south, you can't fix stupid. All you can do is stand back and watch things fix themselves, and when the oaf inevitably pulls the vending machine on himself, chalk it up to evolution winning out at long last.
I am a guy who was born in the border south (Missourah), who then proceeded to grow up the son of true liberal democrats, back when that still meant something). I can tell you that I have cousins who fit that stubborn southern asstard mode. I am in my late forties, and when he was still alive it was about all we could do to get my maternal grandparents to use the word "negro". My paternals were a bit more evolved, btw. Anyway, I know exactly what you're speaking of because I spent my life with one foot stuck in it. Or related to it, as it were. I have relatives who won't even friend me on Facebook because, well, they just don't "get me", I actually scare some of them. Morons.
ReplyDeleteI can relate; my great-grandmother came from the Texas-Louisiana border, and my grandmother from San Marcos. They were basic "yellow dog" Democrats. And one branch of the Texas family, name of Lee, claims direct descent from Robert E.
ReplyDeleteThat said, none of them, as far as I ever saw, had the gall to utter that word, or to treat black people with the casual disdain and contempt one sees from some southerners.
Again, the problem is that for so many, it's become inextricably wrapped up in the "culture." There is a southern culture, and there are certainly aspects of it that deserve respect.
Southerners will say that culture is "god, guns, and guts," which is reflective of the Scots-Irish stubbornness that permeates the economic climate. Poor but proud, fuck you if you don't like it, finger in the eye, yada yada.
For me, it was more about "family, food, and fun." Southerners are fun, generous, hospitable people. If they kept that part of the culture, and just dropped the flag and the nostalgia for an evil, doomed cause that died seven generations ago, they would finally get the respect they deeply crave.
They can't do that, because they insist on it on their own terms. But as long as they're living on the good graces of the librul blue states they despise, they don't get to dictate those terms.