The media has focused exclusively on Paula Deen’s use of the so-called “N-word”.  In doing so, it has ignored more important aspects of the lawsuit filed against her.

The plaintiff in the case is Lisa Jackson, former General Manager of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.

Lisa Jackson

At the center of the complaint filed in the case is Earl “Bubba” Hiers, the brother of Paula Deen.

Among the allegations listed in the complaint:

• Hiers “frequently visits strip clubs and would bring to the workplace numerous stories…regarding the highlights of his visits.”
• Hiers “commented to…Jackson regarding a female employee who was married to a significantly younger man, ‘Can you imagine that man going to bed with her?'”
• “The male General Manager of the Lady & Sons Restaurant is paid substantially more” than Jackson was as General Manager at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House–even though both are run by the Paula Dean Family of Companies.
• In addition, “there are male managers below the General Manager level at Lady & Sons Restaurant that are compensated more than…Jackson and who received compensation in addition to salary, including bonuses and retirement not allowed to…Jackson.”
• On July 20, 2010, Jackson told Hiers that a white restaurant employee had made “a sexually harassing comment” to a black kitchen staffer.  “Seething with anger and red in the face….Hiers repeatedly screamed at [the witness] asking what he saw….Unsatisfied with [the witness’s] response…Hiers physically and violently shook him and stated, ‘Fuck your civil rights.  You work for me and my sister Paula Deen,’ saying futher: ‘You’re not going to get me sued over some little bitch.’  Mr. Hiers proceeded to physically and violently shake [the employee].”
• “The staff of Uncle Bubba’s restaurant was in a constant state of fear awaiting Bubba Hiers’ arrival at the restaurant and any required interaction with him.”
• “The stress of repeatedly taking on the role of anticipating…Hiers’ violence, moderating it to the extent possible, and playing the go-between role with her staff caused…Jackson enormous stress.”
• This “caused chest pains and…panic attacks that would often begin when…Hiers’ truck pulled into the parking lot or upon appearance of the white cup–the styrofoam cup poured almost full with whiskey at approximately 10 a.m., whereupon…Hiers began his day of drinking and abusive behavior.  When the truck pulled up or the white cup appeared, staff would scatter, leaving…Jackson to manage…Hiers.”
• “Jackson’s pleas for relief from the harassment to senior management also took the form of requests…for a transfer anywhere in the company–even if it required a cut in pay.  But she was told…that Paula Deen would never let her leave Uncle Bubba’s restaurant.”
• When Jackson directly asked Deen for a transfer, Deen “told…Jackson she could never leave Uncle Bubba’s restaurant.”
• “Corporate counsel James P. Gerard would frequently call…Jackson at home in the evenings and on the weekend to discuss and sympathize with the discriminatory conditions and abusive treatment she confronted.”
• “For over five years, Ms. Jackson made numerous and frequent complaints of racial and sexual harassment and abusive treatment to the highest levels of corporate management and ownership, including:
• “Defendants Paula Deen and Bubba Hiers; Paula Deen Enterprises Chief Operation Officer and Director of Operations Theresa Fueger; the Certified Public Accountant…Karl Schumacher; and to the attorney for defendants, James P. Gerard.”
• “The conduct was universally known and tolerated within the ownership and management levels of the corporate enterprise, and by corporate counsel and no remedy was offered.”

Deen hasn’t helped herself with her response to the firestorm of criticism that has descended upon her.

On June 20, the full, unedited transcript of Deen’s deposition was leaked–proving that she did, in fact, admit to using the dreaded “N-word.”

The media chose to focus on this–and completely ignored the multiple instances of sexual/racial harassment, drunkenness and violence.

On June 22, Deen canceled a scheduled appearance on the Today show to discuss the reports. She released a video apology that went viral. This was quickly taken down and replaced with a second version.

Paula Deen apology video

“Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter to me,” Deen told her viewers. “But it’s what in the heart. What’s in the heart.  And my family and I try to live by that.”

Deen then posted a third video, directly apologizing to Today host Matt Lauer for cancelling her scheduled June 22 interview with him.

On June 26, Deen finally appeared on Today, tearfully offering a response that was half-apology, half-defiance:

“If there’s anyone out there that has never said something that they wished they could take back. If you’re out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please. I want to meet you. I is what I is and I’m not changing.”

But none of these appearances have reclaimed one lost sponsor–nor caused the media to back off.

The media has focused exclusively on Paula Deen’s use of “nigger.” In doing so, it has completely ignored even more important aspects of the lawsuit filed against her.

Consider the allegations listed in the complaint filed by Lisa Jackson, who spent five years (2005 – 2010) as  General Manager for Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, in Savannah, Georgia.  This is owned by Deen’s brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers.

Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House

According to the complaint, employees at the restaurant were routinely subjected to “violent behavior,” which included “racial harassment, assault, battery and other humiliating conduct.”

Among those violations alleged in the complaint:

• In Jackson’s presence, Hiers told another employee who had just gotten dentures: “I bet your husband is going to like that.”
• Hiers told a joke to male and female staffers that described why men should have sex with flat-headed women: Because “you can sit your beer on top of her head while she is giving you a blow-job.”
• Hiers told Jackson that he would like to replace the staff at Uncle Bubba’s with “Hooter’s Girls.”
• At a weekly managers’ meeting, Hiers brought printouts of an email entitled, “Why Gay marriage Should Be Legal,” replete with pictures of lesbian sex.  Hiers passed the emails around the table for men and women–including Jackson–to see.
• A meeting was scheduled by Karl Schumacher, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, and attended by James P. Gerard, attorney for the Paula Deen Family of Companies.  Its purpose: to address Hiers’ “frequent and outrageous sexual and racial comments.  In this meeting, in… Gerard’s office, Bubba Hiers discussed his interest in Web site pornography.”  He stated to Gerard: “Don’t tell me you don’t do that at night.”
• In 2007, Deen placed Jackson in charge of food and serving arrangements for the wedding of her brother, Hiers.  Jackson asked Dean what look the wedding should have.  Deen replied: “I want a true Southern plantation-style wedding.  What I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around.”  Deen laughed and added: “Now that would be a true Southern wedding, wouldn’t it?  But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”
• At Uncle Bubba’s Oysterr House restaurant, “African-American staff persons are required to use the back entrance for all purposes, including picking up their checks.  They were prohibited from using the front entrance.”
• “African-American staff…are required to use one restroom that is in the back of the restaurant and is not the customer restroom.  White staff was allowed to use the customer bathroom.”
• “African-American staff” who are “stationed at the back of [the] restaurant are not allowed to go to the front.”
• Jackson hired two black hostesses, whose position “required them to be stationed in the front of the restaurant.  Bubba Hiers complained repeatedly about one hostess being out front and she was later fired for allegedly stealing a white customer’s purse.  The police were called and the young woman was searched, but she was not arrested and no charges were brought.  Mr. Hiers demanded that the other [black] hostess be moved to a position in the back…where she could not be seen by customers.”
• Jackson was meeting with a vendor in her office at the restaurant when Hiers entered “and slammed the door behind him, stating, ‘I wish I could put all those niggers [in the kitchen] on a boat to Africa.'”
• “Bubba Hiers confronted a [black] male kitchen staff[er] and repeatedly screamed at him, and physically and violently shook him.”
• In Jackson’s presence, Hiers said to his black security guard and driver: “Don’t you wish you could rub all the black off you and be like me?”  The guard replied, “I’m fine the way I am.”  Hiers then said: “You just look dirty.  I bet you wish you could.”
• Hiers stated in Jackson’s presence: “They should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf [of Mexico] so he could nigger-rig it.”
• In the presence of Jackson and  a vendor who traps wildlife, Hiers said: “You also got a bunch of coons in this kitchen you can trap.”
• Hiers “told jokes using the word ‘nigger’ in front of the coordinator of a fundraising event at the Bethesda Boys Home.  The coordinator…expressed to Ms. Jackson her discomfort with Mr. Hiers and his language.”
• During a meeting, Hiers “began beating on his chest and challenging anyone and everyone in the kitchen to fight him.  He screamed so loud that spit was coming out of his mouth, as he said: ‘Come get some.  Come on, you want a piece of me?  Meet me on the dock you mother fuckers.'”
• After this outburst, Jackson “scanned the room in horror and saw her staff, recognizing the look of fear, disbelief and helplessness” on their faces.  “Mr. Hiers then stumbled out the back foor to his truck and he was gone.”

Here’s a brief chronology of the downfall of celebrity chef Paula Deen:

On May 17, Deen gave a deposition in a $1.2 million discrimination lawsuit filed against herself and her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, by Lisa Jackson, a former General Manager at one of her restaurants.

Earl “Bubba” Hiers and Paula Deen

On June 19, the National Enquirer released details about that deposition.  When asked if she had ever used the word, “nigger,” she replied: “Yes, of course,” as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She claimed she used it when telling her husband about being held at gunpoint by a black bank robber.  When asked if she had used it since, she replied: “I’m sure I have, but it’s been a very long time.”

On June 20, the full unedited transcript of the deposition was leaked.

Since then, Deen has been caught up in a media frenzy–and the loss of most of her high-priced collaborators:

• The Food Network
• QVC’s Home Shopping Network
• Smithfield Foods–a company specializing in pork products
• Wal-Mart
• Ceasars Entertainment
• Novo Nordisk, a diabetes drug company
• Sears Holdings Corporation, the owner of Sears and K-Mart
• Walgreens

And although her latest book, Paula Deen’s New Testament: 250 Favorite Recipes All Lightened Up, had risen to Number 1 on Amazon.com, its publisher, Ballantine Books, announced that it had decided to cancel its upcoming publication.

The media has focused exclusively on Deen’s use of “nigger.”  In doing so, it has completely ignored even more important aspects of this lawsuit.

Consider the allegations listed in the complaint filed by Lisa Jackson, who spent five years (2005 – 2010) as General Manager for Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, in Savannah, Georgia.

According to the complaint, managers at the restaurant–owned by Deen’s brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers–often engaged in the following practices:

• Subjecting Jackson to “violent behavior,” which included “racial harassment, assault, battery and other humiliating conduct.”
• Upon her promotion to General Manager, Hiers told Jackson: “You’re everything I’ve never wanted but everything I need–a woman to clean my business up.”  He advised Jackson to “take it [his comment] as a compliment.”
• For Jackson’s money-saving efforts, Karl Schumacher, the Chief Financial Officer for Paula Deen Enterprises, referred to her  as “almost Jewish,” and Hiers called Jackson “my little Jew girl.”
• Paula Deen Enterprises paid for “Uncle Bubba’s restaurant expense to remedy violations of the Occupational Safety and health Act; as well as …to remedy City Health Code violations in Uncle Bubba’s restaurant kitchen.”
• Hiers several times told Jackson: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my sister [Paula Deen] if it ever comes down to firing a guy or a girl, you let the girl go because they are a dime a dozen and you can always find a girl to come work for you but it’s hard to find good buys.”
• Jackson often complained to upper management that “she was not paid a salary equal to [that of] her male counterparts.”
• When she requested a raise in 2007, Schumacher told Jackson that Hiers would not permit a woman to be paid any more than she was already paid: “Bubba Hiers would have a heart attack if he knew you were being paid this much.”
• When Jackson expressed concerns over compensation, Deen scheduled a meeting.  Pointing at the women managers there, Deen said: “You all need to work together and become one.”  The male managers at the meeting were never addressed.
• “The male General Manager of the Lady & Sons Restaurant is paid substantially more than…Jackson despite his general incompetence, his performance of fewer duties than…Jackson, and his oppressive sexual and racial harassment of employees.”
• Jackson “received a bonus, as other managers did, for approximately six months, but bonus payments were withdrawn and taken away by…Schumacher immediately upon her divorce.  This occurred in the context of numerous remarks by…Schumacher regarding his religious views of marriage and the sin of divorce.”
• Schumacher stated in Jackson’s presence: “Women are stupid because they think they can work and have babies and get everything done.”
• Jackson was told by Director of Operations Theresa Fueger: “You know the family dynamics in the company.  Certain people are not going anywhere, and if you don’t like it, you can go find another job.”
• Hiers, Deen’s brother, “is a frequent customer of pornography Web sites and would download and view such sites at work.  In the small office he shared with Ms. Jackson, it was impossible for her to avoid viewing the pornography.”
• “Alternately, he visited those Websites on the kitchen computer, often forgetting to log out; whereupon other employees involuntarily shared his pornography adventure.”
• “On more than one occasion, Bubba Hiers requested that Ms. Jackson bring pictures of herself when she was young for him to view.  He told her, ‘You have nice legs’ and that two other employees are ‘ fat girls.'”
• Schumacher “on multiple occasions, told jokes or ridiculed the President of the United States, using the word ‘nigger.'”