Paula Deen grew up in Georgia. In the ’50s. Her world was the one depicted in The Help, in which black people’s status as lesser beings was casually assumed. So, who is really surprised that she has used the N word in her life? It would be downright strange if she hadn’t, and we can assume the same of pretty much any white Southerner of a certain age (not to mention more than a few Americans of other regions). And yet the Food Network has fired her after revelations that Deen has been a normal person of her time and place, even though she has leveled no fewer than three public apologies. The reason is the unique status of the N word. (MORE: Paula Deen Begs for Your Forgiveness, for Something) In modern America, we really have only a few genuinely profane words, and the N word is one of them. Sure, we call a certain suite of four-letter words profanity, and they once were. However, they are now used so freely by most that they qualify more as salty. A Martian, hearing our “bad words” decorating our hit songs, tossed off in movies, used in a hit parody children’s book like Go the F–k to Sleep, and sprinkled into ordinary conversation, would never even think to describe these words as “bad.” Yet we do have words we treat as truly unthinkable. They are no longer about excretion or sexual intercourse or religion, but about disrespecting groups of people. One begins with F; another begins with C. The third is the N word. Even the sassiest comedy shows refrain from tossing it around. We shudder at the thought of our children using it. And we regularly watch celebrities treated as if they were lepers for saying it — comedian Michael Richards in 2006 — or even saying it to refer to it, like Laura Schlessinger in 2010. (MORE: Can Whites Say the N Word?) This taboo status, then, is why Deen is being fired for what her fans are decrying as “just using … Continue reading Viewpoint: The Food Network Should Give Paula Deen Back Her Job