Paula Deen Update: Court Transcript, Son Keeps Food Network Show, Sambo Burger

UPDATE: Paula Deen Dropped By Smithfield Foods

Paula Deen Update One.

In this Paula Deen Update, reporting on the latest since The Food Network dropped her for using the N-word in working with her employees, the first real news is that there are over 260 comments and battles on this Zennie62 YouTube video-blog:

And while Paula Deen’s show’s off the air, TMZ reports that her son Bobby Deen gets to keep his show Not My Mama’s Meals on The Food Network. Also the LA-based blog says that the reason they terminated Deen’s show was that her public relations team mishandled the controversy, and the video was the last straw.

My video upate on Paula Deen and other news:

Full Paula Deen Court Transcript Here

For those of you who haven’t read the full Paula Deen court transcript, here it is:

Transcript of the Testimony of Paula Deen Date: May 17, 2013

Fans Overwhelm Food Network Facebook Page

The Food Network Facebook Page has been infected by tons of angry comments regarding the decision to cancel her show. Some of the comments are from people, like “Todd Peterson” (remember the man who was jailed for murdering his wife in California? Same name) claim to be black, but when you go to their Facebook page, you find no photos of them of family members. Guess what? They’re lying.

Here’ a sample of the other comments:

Marina Underhill Walker – FOOD NETWORK you should take your entire show off the air….,if you think that EVERY person alive has never done anything in their past that they are now ashamed of then I challenge you to put every last person CEO and all under oath and asked about words they may have used in the past (when these words were not considered as offensive as they are now) and now regret! I will no longer watch ANY of your shows because of what you have chosen to do to Paula………..Done anything you regret lately Food Network?

Tony Cherette – I don’t give a flat damn if any other person has called another human being the N word. I don’t give a flat damn if some think it Southern thing. I don’t give a flat damn if you want to stand up for a woman who is so rich, she has much less to lose than most folks who make the mistakes she has. Stop already. You don’t own her, we don’t own her. Unless she is your damn mother, she did wrong. This isn’t about me and you doing wrong. So, sit back and let us see what else may come about. This defending her as if she actually puts food in your mouths tells me that your love for a stranger is more important to you than your love for stopping name calling.

This one is flat out dumb, because I’m black and I don’t use the N-Word. I’m tired of this effort among some to equalize racism:

Scott Strauss – Food Network, You should be ashamed of yourself. Paula Deen is the best thing that you had going for you. She made a mistake. She apologized for her mistake, and you fired her. I hope that makes you feel big and strong. When you hear black people call each other the N word, are you going to repromand them also? Get yourr act together! You are going to lose alot of viewers because of your brainless actions. Paula, your fans still love you!!!

You get the idea. Here’s more…

Paulie Brading Food Network is known for it’s diverse ethnic mix of chefs and guests. There is probably more to this story than any of us will ever know.

Linda Harrison Ms. Jackson, I’ll bet you never told or laughed at a joke about a redneck, blonde, gay person, Polish person, hillbilly . . . either.

Ken Schuster Bob Tuschman FN SVP when growing up in Cleveland used N, AH, GD, M, B and SOB words. Now he is just a hypocrite that needs to be terminated for discrimination against senior southern woman.

Elizabeth Brett so glad the bloody racist is Gone With the Wind!

The Sambo Burger Story By Joan Walsh

Joan Walsh, the author and MSNBC commentator who wrote the book What’s The Matter With White People has penned a story over at Talking Points Memo called “When Paula Deen Tried To Cook A ‘Sambo Burger.” Here’s the juicy part from Deen’s 2006 Memoir It Ain’t All About The Cookin:

“I’ll never forget the day I was doing hamburgers, and I was cookin’ what ended up being called a Beau Burger, which was topped with a fried egg. Actually I wanted to call it a Sambo Burger. It came about when this motorcycle-driving, long-haired lawyer named Sam told me about his favorite little hamburger joint owned by a guy named Beau. When Sam was out tooling along on his cycle, he’d stop off for the best burger in town, topped with a fried egg, some melted cheese, a load of grilled onions—out of this world! One day, Sam was on my set because we were doing a show about motorcycles, and we were standin’ around talking about these burgers and I told him, ‘Sam I am going to do that burger on the show. We’ll call it after you—the Sambo Burger. You know—Sam, Beau. Sounds great, doesn’t it?’”

As much as I want to feel sorry for Paula, and I do, the fact is she’s going to have a hard time with advertisers. As much as her fans scream and yell, what we’ve learned over just the last week is that America doesn’t just want diversity, but so does American Business.

Letting Dean go was about money as much as anything else.

Stay tuned.