The strong reaction to Ms. Deen’s pickle reflects a simple truth: race remains one of the most difficult conversations to have in America. And here, where antiseptic nostalgia for the antebellum South is not uncommon, the conversation is even more complex.
“The memory of slavery and Jim Crow and civil rights is still very much alive,” said William Ferris, a University of North Carolina folklorist and an editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. “We carry those burdens through our lives. How we deal with them measures who we are. It’s always there lurking over our shoulders.”
Ms. Deen, 66, many say, did not carry her burden well. “Deen is inarticulate about race because she doesn’t have to be articulate,” said Roxane Gay, a writer who explored the cultural conditioning behind Ms. Deen’s comments in Salon. “She hasn’t had to have any critical awareness.”
But in other circles, the cultural outcry and Food Network’s decision seemed overblown.