paula deen target part ways

Paula Deen Loses Additional Deals Including Target

The collapse of Paula Deen’s empire continues unabated. If the adage is true that in turmoil you find out who your real friends are, the lesson to be learned here is that there are no friends in corporate America.

Deen was embroiled in a discrimination lawsuit when she admitted under oath that she had used the pejorative N-word in her past. The admission of that was enough to spawn a backlash and send her advertisers and business partners scrambling like cockroaches in the light.

It has been an amazing abandonment of one business partner after another from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, the Food Network, and now most recently Target and big pharma Novo Nordisk. The advertisers announce the decision to part ways as being mutually agreed upon.

However, as anyone who’s ever been fired well knows, the “mutual” part of the agreement is a term used quite loosely. Deen has made multiple attempts to repair her image including very emotional apologies, but it seems that there is little tolerance in corporate America for anyone identified as using the racial epithet. The word carries with a guilt by association so to stand by Deen would be endorse use of the N-word.

Source:

Paula Deen N-word controversy costs her lucrative deals with Target, Home Depot; diabetes drug maker Novo Nordisk suspends relationship
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/deen-loses-lucrative-deals-target-home-depot-diabetes-drug-maker-article-1.1384036