When mainstream America makes an example of Paula Deen, it both turns her into a scapegoat and also creatively claims its own innocence, because it limits the definition of racism to individual acts. In doing so, the dominant culture washes its hands of all the racial ideology that it permits, the racialized injustice it ignores, and the racialized patterns of life in which it participates. If you want to hold Deen accountable, then let us also hold the entire racialized system accountable for its calculated violence against black, Native, and brown life.
