Ouch! Deen's dismissal

[planetc]

14. Yes, I thought she was being condemned for using butter, not the n word

I agree with much of what you say, especially:

"And I must tell you that the display of self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and condemnation exhibited around here at DU is very much akin to what people accuse rednecks of, isn't it? And the intollerance and tyranny of political correctness is contrary to the principles of a free society."

I definitely felt that people were delighted to find out that she was a racist**, too, so they could throw her under the bus for overindulging in butter.

** How much of a racist she is is totally unclear to me. She is accused, in a case as yet unheard in court, of using the n word, and her brother or she and her brother, of treating African American employees differently from white ones. The legal system will settle this case. Ms Deen's main strategic error seems to have been that she didn't lie in her deposition. She just about admitted using the word, on at least a few occasions. But I believe racism is a sin, not a crime, as the present case demonstrates. You can harbor all the racist thoughts you want, but until you go out and shoot Medgar Evers, you haven't committed a crime. So Deen is somewhat sinful as to watching her language and perhaps policing her thoughts. It is unclear at the moment how many of her other actions fall outside the law or are discriminatory.

But as is clear from the deluge of comments on this and other boards, of equal or greater sinfulness is her reliance on butter. Heavy cream. Sour cream. Sugar. The evil her cooking has done seems to be beyond question, and beyond salvation. It's as though she's being held directly responsible for a third of the population being obese. Never mind that all good cooks use butter to bake, and that no one at Food Network, including Deen, holds people's noses while pouring pound cake down their throats, in the view of most commenters, Deen is uniquely guilty of making people fat, and giving them diabetes.

And I wonder why she is singled out in this regard. You really can't arrest people for using butter in their baking. You can't arrest people for opening restaurants or selling cookbooks. And few of the stone-throwing commenters seem ever to have watched her show. Is it just that she's a convenient target? Or that dashing off a comment on a celebrity is easier than finding out something about nutrition or the causes of obesity and diabetes?