Music

Read Jann Arden's Twitter defense of alleged racist Paula Deen

by Mark Teo

June 26, 2013

If there's anyone who has recently stoked the coals of America's simmering racial tension, it's hot dog-complexioned celeb chef Paula Deen.

If there’s anyone who has recently stoked the coals of America’s simmering racial tension, it’s hot dog-complexioned celeb chef Paula Deen. A quick recap: While she has tearfully maintained that she’s not a racist, she’s also been caught on tape dropping racial epithets, has been accused of sexual and racial discrimination in the workplace, and admitted to planning a Southern plantation-style wedding with “whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men,” hearkening back to the slavery-era South. And she’s admitted to instances of using the ugly “N” word, but, she said on NBC’s Today, “The day I used that word it was a world ago,” Deen added. “It was 30 years ago.”

The reaction has been intense (and divisive): The Food Network yanked her shows. Smithfield Foods, sensing a PR disaster, severed their ties. Slate called her “America’s racist grandma.” Meanwhile, the We Support Paula Deen Facebook Group swelled to 415k. Interview With a Vampire Writer Ann Rice stepped up in support of Deen. So, where would support come from next?

Few would guess it’d come from a Canadian adult contemporary star. But it did. From Calgary, AB: Jann Arden! (Thanks to AUX pal John Semley for blowing this one wide open.)

Let’s start, shall we?

What “they” are doing to Paula Deen is disgusting. Those in glass houses should not throw stones.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

Um, “they”? Surely, Jann didn’t mean the royal “they.” And, when the Twittersphere exploded with criticism, things started to get shaky. Here’s what she posted next. Foot is inching ever closer to mouth.

I thought the “N” word was NUTELLA.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

if someone was to fire me over a word, well, Fuck…I have said them ALL!!

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

Please, Jann, explain. She didn’t, of course. Inexplicably, she next accused Deen’s detractors of being bigots—which makes no sense at all.

Ironically, it’s bigots who are going after Paula Deen’s character. Like they are perfect citizens?…what a bunch of bullshit.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 201

you bunch of whities. wittles? I’ll think of something.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

Um. Right? Next, Arden criticized Deen’s ex-supporters, while challenging her very own.

okay, I am going for a run and I am going to say all the N words I know out loud to the squirrels. Call ET canada and the food network.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

Numb nuts. There I said it.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

But then, things start to get really sketchy.

Rappers are going to have to become mimes… Cause they are using a LOT of questionable language. Racist? No? Bad taste? Yup.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

And then this bizarre slur.

@mopheadf Moorhead..no mophead. That is kind of racist isn’t it?

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

This is where Arden begins to get way, way over her head. Of course, the “questionable language” she refers to just happens to centre around the most historically loaded word in the English language—raising all sorts of questions about ownership, appropriation, and context—but, like Deen, Arden doesn’t understand: The word’s not racist. It’s in “bad taste.” Right. Can anyone say misfire? Then, the hilariously terrible “I’m-not-racist-I-hate-indiscriminately” tweet. It’s coming. Wait for it. NOW!

I only like clear people. — jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

OK Jann, that’s a tad “insensitive,” no? Then, Arden was forced into the position Deen was: Denying that she’s racist.

Racism is beyond horrible. Honestly- I have not been witness to a fraction of the horrors others have endured. — jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

No denying the truthiness of that statement. We were ready to close the book, until…

People make horrific misjudgements- they make mistakes- they say the wrong things. NO ONE is in a position to judge others. Period.

— jann arden (@jannarden) June 25, 2013

No one’s in a position to judge others? Ugh. Right. Fuck a legal system, y’all.