
Bring Back Paula Deen
The Data: Founded one week ago, this Facebook page (same name, different URL, happier message) now has 187,000 likes and counting.
The Demands: The Food Network should re-hire Deen; white people should put her on their car bumpers.
This is actually the biggest of the BBPD pages by Facebook Likes. And, sure, it's not as edgy as the one above, but it sure is earnest, y'all. On this sunny version of BBPD, the Deen lovers write about "the incident" in far less detail (there's hardly any mention of the N-word) and seem to focus more on the various public half-apologies. Or, you know, Paula Deen cooking ham:

And there's also a mention of Christianity:

And this bumper sticker:

Fox News Radio
The Dude: Todd Starnes
The Demands: That the liberal media tell the whole truth about Paula Deen's use of the N-word.
The fix is in, according to the national radio host and occasional Fox News Channel guest commentator, and the "liberal anti-South media is trying to crucify Paula Deen." He wrote his feelings in a Facebook rant last week. Starnes continues:
Paula admitted she used the word -- back in the 1980s - when a black guy walked into the bank, stuck a gun in her face and ordered her to hand over the cash.
The national media failed to mention that part of the story.
I'll give credit to the Associated Press for telling the full story.
What Starnes leaves out is that people are more upset that Deen's deposition has roots in an employment discrimination lawsuit with a slew of ugly allegations, the most serious of which is that Deen enabled a hostile and racist work environment. Yes, most people say certain things that are ugly and stupid and wouldn't want to be judged for the rest of their lives for it, but there are exponentially fewer people who get smacked with an employment discrimination lawsuit and then have to talk about it.
White People Mad at the Food Network
The Tumblr: http://whitepeoplemadatfoodnetwork.tumblr.com/
The Demands: That white people never, ever stop being mad at the Food Network for firing Paula Deen.
This site isn't so much a Paula Deen fan site as it is a microscope into some of the more flagrant Paula Deen defenders. And in the week and a half since Deen's deposition leaked, the WPMATFN Tumblr has amassed more than a dozen pages of fans. Here's a sampling of what they've found, like this awful person:

Or this "none sense":

Or this interesting theory of how using the N-word, uh, doesn't make you racist:

So can't we just ignore these terrible people? Well, they don't see (or don't want to see) the difference Deen using the N-word as a slur and its use in black or hip-hop culture, so that's one thing. And, okay, some of them that don't quite fully understand that the First Amendment allows you to say anything you want — but that it also doesn't require that your boss be absolutely cool with everything you say. These are the people who don't get why this is such a big deal, and why the conversation about race that followed Deen's disaster remains important. To wake up people like this. Unfortunately, every time another one of Deen's corporate sponsors drops her, the more vocal these fans seem to become. At least that's good news for Paula Deen, who has a $17 million empire riding on these folks.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.