I'm sorry, President Carter, but I can't forgive Paula Deen. [View all]

[last1standing]

I can't express how much respect and admiration I have for President Carter both as a president who held the country together honorably and decently after the turmoil of the Nixon years and as a sincerely good human being who has left his mark on human rights, elections, charitable works and post-political decorum. Even so, I can't take up his call to forgive Paula Deen for a few reasons.

First, I'm not the target of her bigotry. I can try to understand why she would hold black people in contempt and call them derogatory names, but I can't forgive her for doing so because she doesn't look down on me for having a different skin color.

Second, I didn't spend years as a minority in her restaurants being harassed, looked over, and humiliated. I didn't have to compete with my fellow workers hunting for a few meager dollars that she had hidden in the restaurant so that she could laugh at us for trying to supplement our low wages.

Third, I don't have a law suit pending against her for doing those things and more. I haven't had to deal with her, or her brother's, cruel bigotry so I didn't have a reason to sue them.

I can't forgive Paula Deen because I'm not the person she hurt. All I can do is try to support the people she has hurt by not watching their TV shows, eating in their restaurants, or buying the products of companies they represent.

Maybe Deen has been punished enough. I don't know and it's not my place to say. All I know is that there is still a law suit that she is fighting and employees who were subjected to this treatment who have not received compensation for her actions. Perhaps if she wants forgiveness she should look to them, not us. If her tears are more than a way to stop the hemorrhaging of her media/restaurant empire maybe she should cry to those she has actually harmed instead of doing it on daytime television.

President Carter is a great man with a greater heart and nothing he said today makes me think any less of him. However, I believe he's asked the wrong people to forgive Deen just as she has.