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As several states raced to find ways to disenfranchise
minority voters in the days following the Supreme Court’s decision regarding
the Voter Rights Act, the Paula Deen debacle put paid to the notion that some
sort of sea change has occurred and racism is no longer an issue in the United
States. Racism clearly is still an issue. TV celebrity chef Deen’s tribulations
have entertainment value in today’s scandal-driven media, but her missteps
belie deeper societal problems. Racism has moved from the blatant to the
casual.
For example, in June the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) released Housing
Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities 2012. When minority
buyers and renters show up, “This
study finds that
minority homeseekers whose ethnicity is more readily
identifiable experience more discrimination than those who may be mistaken for
whites.” The study notes that discrimination has diminished, but it has not disappeared
in communities across the nation. Researchers included more than 8,000 tests in
a nationally representative sample of 28 metropolitan areas.
Folks like the
doyen of Southern comfort food will smile in your face, but don’t turn your
back. Sure, Paula Deen probably wouldn’t pick up a handy butcher knife and stab
you. But there are subtler ways for casual racists to damage those who are not
like them. Like the minority homeseekers in the HUD study, you simply will be
shown fewer properties or have a harder time getting an appointment. The racism
is still there—less obvious, not gone.
“I is what I is,”
Deen lamented with faux folksiness in a tearful Today Show interview. Well, Miz Paula, you might as well have
trotted out that old saw, you know, about how “some o’ mah best friends is
black folk.” Uh huh. The real problem is, you is a racist. Personally, I would rather Deen had said something
along the lines of “I am working on overcoming the racism in which I was
raised, but sometimes stupidity drops out of my mouth before I can stop it, and
I’m sorry.” That might, or might not, have been a more honest response. After
all, Miz Paula also added, “I’m not changing.”
For
sensationalism seekers, a real apology wouldn’t have been as entertaining as
Deen’s weepy self-justifying meltdown on national television. But it would have
gone further to rehabilitate Deen’s image. And a more responsible, less
emotional approach also would have acknowledged that racism, though less ardent
than in prior years, still exists—and still negatively affects every American
regardless of race and ethnicity in some way. Sadly, deny or defend are more
prevalent strategies among casual racists, as we are now likely to see in
issues of voter discrimination as well, following the High Court’s decision on
the Voting Rights Act.
