I confess having little interest in the Paula Deen story, most likely like most of you. There seems little abnormal or interesting about Deen’s racism except, perhaps, her openness about it. When hearing about it on NPR, I thought, “Well, it’s a cool case of a private lawsuit shining a light on a much bigger problem.” I’ve spent a tiny amount of time trying to learn more about Lisa T. Jackson’s lawsuit against Deen and her brother, Bubba, and I haven’t really found anything substantive. It seems Paula and Bubba Deen made a hellish work environment, and one of their managers took ‘em to court over it. As I said, kind of cool that the lawsuit unearthed an actual social problem and is making a racist pay in ways far beyond the $1.2 million Jackson is seeking. Of course, though, Deen has become a scapegoat for a nation’s ills and the brouhaha over her casual racism is obscuring a wider conversation about race in America. It’s cool she’s gonna “pay” in ways she didn’t expect, but Deen is just another one of those “bad” or “immoral” people rather than a reflection of a society, an era, and a history.
Michael W. Twitty—a chef, food historian, southerner, and blogger—gets all this and more. Twitty recently composed a beautiful “Open Letter to Paula Deen” that not only digs into the true complications Deen’s testimony has brought up, but he does so with an empathetic nobility that is quite breath-taking. Plus, he doesn’t let Deen, her brother, her family, or her history off the hook. Not one bit. I encourage readers to read this letter in full, but here are some highlights:
“You and I are both human, we are both Americans, we are both quite “healthily” built, and yet none of these labels is more profound for me than the fact we are both Southern. Sweet tea runs in our blood, in fact is our blood…What I understand to be true, a lot of your critics don’t…which is, as Southerners our ancestors co-created the food and hospitality and manners which you were born to 66 years ago and I, thirty-six. In the words of scholar Mechal Sobel, this was “a world they made together,” but beyond that, it is a world we make together. So I speak to you as a fellow Southerner, a cousin if you will, not as a combatant.”
“Systemic racism in the world of Southern food and public discourse not your past epithets are what really piss me off. There is so much press and so much activity around Southern food and yet the diversity of people of color engaged in this art form and telling and teaching its history and giving it a future are often passed up or disregarded. Gentrification in our cities, the lack of attention to Southern food deserts often inhabited by the non-elites that aren’t spoken about, the ignorance and ignoring of voices beyond a few token Black cooks/chefs or being called on to speak to our issues as an afterthought is what gets me mad. In the world of Southern food, we are lacking a diversity of voices and that does not just mean Black people—or Black perspectives! We are surrounded by culinary injustice where some Southerners take credit for things that enslaved Africans and their descendants played key roles in innovating. “
“Don’t forget that the Southern food you have been crowned the queen of was made into an art largely in the hands of enslaved cooks, some like the ones who prepared food on your ancestor’s Georgia plantation. You, just like me cousin, stand squarely on what late playwright August Wilson called, “the self defining ground of the slave quarter.” There and in the big house kitchen, Africa, Europe and Native America(s) melded and became a fluid genre of world cuisine known as Southern food.”
The kicker here is that Twitty ends his letter with an honest invitation to come cook with him at a North Carolina plantation where he’ll be celebrating African American foodways and cooking in a 19th century style. “This isn’t publicity this is opportunity,” Twitty graciously writes, “Leave the cameras at home. Don’t worry, it’s cool, nobody will harm you if you’re willing to walk to the Mourner’s Bench. Better yet, I’ll be there right with you.”
A remarkable letter and a testament to the human spirit. Deen has an amazing and quite undeserved chance to act, learn, and grow, rather than side-step and explain away. I hope she can learn to walk the walk. She has already found (hopefully she’ll read Twitty’s letter) an inspiring mentor.
