By Sheryl Estrada
Paula Deen with her son, Bobby, and her former producer Gordon Elliott. Photo from Twitter.
Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen, who is famous for her recipes like “Saucy Catfish” and for having used racial slurs against Blacks, is now under fire for what many are calling a racist photo toward Latinos.
A picture of Deen and son Bobby trying to depict Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, characters played by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz stars of the 1950s comedy “I Love Lucy,” was tweeted from her Twitter account on Tuesday. Bobby is clearly in “brownface.” He is wearing dark makeup as Arnaz, Ball’s real-life spouse,was a Cuban-born American.
The tweet read, “Lucyyyyyyy! You got a lot of esplainin’to do! #TransformationTuesday @BobbyDeen.”
“Brownface” refers to the propagation of racist Latino stereotypes and caricatures in popular culture; this especially occurred in early Hollywood when white actors were made up to appear stereotypically Latino.
The photo is from a 2011 Halloween episode of “Paula’s Best Dishes,” her former Food Network Show. When social media began to react negatively, the photo was quickly deleted from the account, but not before screenshots were made and circulated on Twitter:
.@Paula_Deen, saw that you just deleted this Tweet. Don’t worry, I saved it for you. pic.twitter.com/1RcifEXYFD
Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) July 7, 2015
So, it’s actually Deen who has some explaining to do, again.
According to the Associated Press, her spokesman Jaret Keller said Tuesday that a social media manager posted the photo. The manager, who was not identified, was fired from Paula Deen Ventures, Keller said in a statement.
“Paula immediately had this picture taken down as soon as she saw the post and apologizes to all who were offended,” Keller said.
In 2013, Deen’s massive empire from her own line of kitchenware to her regular TV showon the Food Network collapsed. She admitted during a court deposition to having used the N-word, andconsidering hiring an all-Black wait staff for her brother’s 2007 plantation-themed wedding.
The lawsuit, filed by a former employee, was ultimately settled out of court. Dean’s videotaped apologies addressing her fans and critics didn’t help.
“Paula Deen went off-the-cuff in one of her video apologies and said what was in her heart: ‘Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter to me ,'” CEO of Fair360, formerly DiversityInc Luke Visconti wrote in his column, Ask the White Guy: Privilege and Where Paula Deen Went Wrong. “‘Does not matter to me’ is deeply insulting to people who have already been hurt. I doubt Paula Deen meant to hurt people’s feelings, but she compounded the damage done with this comment. She expressed white privilege in making an omnipotent disregard to howpeople describethemselves.”
Deen has been since trying to restore her image. In 2014 she awkwardly compared that difficulty to the challenges Michael Sam, the first openly gay active NFL player, faced.
“I feel like ’embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always followmy name,”she said.”It’s like that Black football player who recently came out.He said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying.”
Deen currently has her owndigital network and just began a radio show and weekly podcast.
