Profiling Paula

What you see is what you get.

That’s according to Paula Deen, the television cooking star who built a fortune on her food and her down home, honest to goodness personality.

I’ve watched Paula Deen over the years, and frankly, I think she is as genuine as the real article she claims to be. Without personally knowing the lady off camera, I have neither seen nor heard of any evidence that she is not what she appears to be.

This is a woman who knows what it means to struggle, pull herself up by her boot straps, and keep trying to better herself.

After a failed marriage, Paula was living as a single mother of two boys, trying to make ends meet to provide for her children. That’s when she began making brown paper sack lunches that her boys would sell to business people on their lunch breaks. Pretty soon, her sack lunches were in high demand, being delivered to office buildings all over the city.

Business soon became not only brisk, but downright overwhelming. It wasn’t too much later that Paula would open a restaurant called “The Lady and Sons” in Savannah, Ga. Invoking the name of her original sack lunch business, this venture, too, became a local hit.

Then came television, the Food Network, and the big time. Endorsements and her own product labels soon followed.

For many years to come Paula Deen was the Food Network, for all intents and purposes. She was there in the network’s early years before it became the popular hit channel it is today. In fact, Paula was a main attraction on the cable network. One might go so far as to say that she was one of the reasons the Food Network took off like it did, appealing to generations of cooking fans who found her folksy appeal almost as endearing as her recipes.

But then, at the height of her success, word was leaked to the news media just a couple of weeks ago that Deen had uttered a racial slur.

Uh-oh.

Anyone who is media savvy knows exactly what this means: Your career is in jeopardy, and possibly over.

Several media personalities over the years have faded into obscurity following the controversies contrived over things they’ve said.

And just like that, the Food Network dropped Paula Deen quicker than a stick of deep-fried butter fresh out of the oil. The company that can bank much of its success on Paula Deen was the first to throw her under the bus. And all over something that someone accused her of saying.

Paula hasn’t denied using the racial slur. But she denies using it the way she has been alleged of doing.

According to Paula, she used the racial slur three decades ago while under pressure in the middle of a bank hold-up.

Now, there are those who believe this story like they believe Deen’s high calorie dishes are healthy for them. And then there are those who will take Paula Deen’s word just because she is Paula Deen.

I’m sure a lot of people have found themselves falling to one side or the other. Then there are those of us that look at the situation and are waiting for the evidence that establishes her guilt to surface.

I am not going to proclaim her guilty until I’ve seen the evidence. I’m uncertain if she’s innocent, either. But I do know that in America, an accused person is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. So Paula has admitted to uttering a racial slur at some time in her life. This was 30 years ago. If that is the extent of her “racism,” then no one, including Paula, should have anything to worry about.

As Paula noted, everyone makes mistakes and says things they may regret. She appeared quite contrite and genuine in her public apologies. Her appearance on NBC’s “Today” show brought her to tears…real tears.

So many media and marketing experts have analyzed and over-analyzed her television appearances since the controversial allegation came out. Many have said that Paula hasn’t said enough, she hasn’t done enough, to earn back the love she once enjoyed from the American public.

But, the way I see things, the only people panicking over what Paula Deen said three decades ago are her corporate partners who are in “cover your butt” mode to protect against financial fall-out. In other words, they are merely looking out for their monetary interests, because they know how knee-jerk the media is and how much the ignorant public can be.

Paula’s true fan-base is largely unchanged. She may have lost those who followed her as a passing fancy, because they think she has a funny accent and her food looks good. But those who truly admire what she has done throughout her life, how much she has accomplished, and the obstacles she has overcome, are likely to stick with her until there is hard, empirical, conclusive evidence that establishes Paula is not the person she claims to be.

I do have to question the motive of the individual who leveled this accusation; and the timing.

Paula is at the top of her game. Her name, her brand is worth millions of dollars. To someone who is down and out, and who perhaps was rubbed the wrong way by Savannah’s “Bag Lady,” making an accusation of racism would seem like an viable game plan to getting one’s hands on a piece of Deen’s fortune.

After all, Paula has all of the right ingredients to be labeled a white supremacist racist. She’s white and she’s a Southron. Quite frankly, I think that’s why the news media latched onto the accusation as quickly as it did.

Everyone in the media knows that every white Southerner is really a racist at heart. That’s the profile that is built by a supposedly unbiased news media.

If the accusation had been made of Ina Garten or Giada Di Laurentis, it wouldn’t have resonated through the media the way it did because the accused was Paula Deen, whose Southern accent is so strong, I swear I can’t understand some of the things she says; like “pah,” or “buhhhder.”

Now, I’ll concede that Paula didn’t come right out and say “I’m sorry,” or “I apologize” on NBC's “Today Show.” She did utter a pretty clear apology on YouTube, asking people for their forgiveness.

From the way the "Today" interview went, I think Paula was downright angry, frustrated and upset about the fall-out over something that is in the distant past. She felt railroaded, the target of a witch-hunt because of her success.

I’ll wager she is partly correct. She is also a target because she is a white Southron. Those traits plus financial success equal inevitable trouble over the hyper-sensitive issue of race.

Why? Because white Southrons are profiled as racists by virtue of the South’s history. They are guilty of racism without even having to open their mouths, because, dag-nabbit, we all know where a white Southerner’s heart and mind lay, don’t we? They are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

I particularly enjoyed Paula’s parting shot at her critics, who very clearly are ready to throw stones her way. Invoking the New Testament story of Jesus who stepped in to save the life of an adulterous woman about to be stoned to death, Paula looked into the camera and pleaded for anyone who has never said something they have regretted to pick up a stone and throw it so hard it kills her.

Anyone with an ounce of sophisticated thought could hear that Paula was admitting her guilt, but then challenging the rest of us to examine ourselves to see if we really ought to be condemning her.

Whether America turns its back on Paula Deen or she is able to rise above yet another obstacle remains to be seen. I’ll put my money on Paula. She is more resilient than the people and entities bailing on her right now.