ddled a black student.wouldn't want no niggers beatin' on her kids  Sweet 16 Christmas , neither.This occasioned lots of eye-rolling from the grandchildren and some gentle rebukes from our parents.Then someone passed the gravy.As a typical Southern white family, we didn't talk much about race.But whenever the older generation hauled it indelicately to the surface, it was an opportunity for us grandkids to see the ugliness our country would rather forget.For our parents it was a teachable moment, a chance to show us just how ugly prejudice is.In this way it was useful, instructive even, to have an old racist grandma at the dinner table.Which brings us to Paula Deen.By now the celebrity chef's crimes are well known.to dress up in antebellum finery for an Old South-style wedding feast she was throwing.As punishment, she has been stripped of her Food Network show and her endorsement deal with Smithfield Ham.In other words, polite society has tried to sweep her ugliness under the carpet where we can safely ignore it.You cannot have a 'National Conversation About Race' and not invite racists to be a part of itThat's exactly the wrong thing to do.our reaction is always to ostracize the allegedly racist offender.But as perverse as it may seem, you cannot have a National Conversation About Race and not invite racists to be a part of that conversation.Paula Deen represents a sizable constituency in this discussion.Witness the support for her among Southern whites, which has been unapologetic and loud.The morning after the Food Network dumped her, the line outside her Georgia restaurant snaked around the block.Facebook page has 376,558 likes counting.Deen has the kind of mind that can look back on America's Holocaust and see nothing but cotillions and hoop skirts.There's little use in pretending that mentality doesn't exist.All we do is push it back into the shadows where it waits to spill out again.And, contrary to what some might think, having a racist grandma isn't entirely bad.No doubt there are many white families where racism is passed down generation to generation like some cancerous gene.But for others  Formal Dresses Christmas , seeing that gene and knowing you're predisposed to it is a warning sign, a nagging reminder to take preventive measures for yourself.I say let's push racist Grandma back to center stage and let her keep talking.RelatedPaula Deen fans threaten to turn channel forever from Food Network after celebrity cook dropped over racial slursCelebrity chef Paula Deen says 'of course' she has used 'N-word' in court deposition'I is what I is and I'm not changing': Paula Deen breaks down during Today show interview with Matt LauerThe counterargument to keeping Deen on the air is that someone with her repugnant views shouldn't be rewarded with a lucrative television contract, and that's fair as far as it goes.But Paula Deen is already a millionaire.She will remain a millionaire whether her TV show exists or not.And had the Food Network kept her on, Deen would hardly be the only racist in America with a decent job.Our racist grandmas may get a pass, but as a public figure, Deen has responsibilities.Which is precisely why she should be forced to remain on television.are incapable of dealing with it, in large part.What better penance could there be than to have Deen wake up on Monday morning and stand in front of a camera and open her mouth and do her job?Because she's become far more than just a TV chef.She has set herself up as a voice for all that is good about the South.And despite its sins, one thing the South can rightly be proud of is its food.When you do find moments of genuine interracial community in the South, it's usually over a plate of red beans and riceSouthern food is a big bucket of deep-fried awesome.Who doesn't crave a heaping helping of biscuits and gravy or shrimp and grits?Southern food also perfectly captures the complexities and contradictions of how race is lived in that part of the country.When you find moments of genuine interracial community in the South, it's usually over a plate of red beans and rice or a huge slab of ribs, people sharing favorite recipes or swapping stories about whose grandfather liked to cook this or that; food may be the thing poor Southern whites and poor Southern blacks have most in common.But Southern cuisine also gives fuel to some of our worst racial stereotypes.Fried chicken and watermelon and all the rest of it.And the politics of food, of who serves what to whom, the very thing that got Deen in trouble with her antebellum dinner party, is ever present.Whether it's whites refusing to serve blacks at the lunch counter or blacks in dinner jackets serving the soup course to whites  Homecoming Dresses Christmas , you could write a whole book on the power dynamics of putting a plate on a table below the Mason-Dixon Line.And I would love to see Paula Deen walk through it on national television.like a yoke around her neck, Paula Deen standing in front of a big Sunday spread of buttermilk fried chicken, barbecue brisket, collard greens, corn bread, fried okra, pigs' feet, and sweet potato pie.Let her stand there and explain where all that good food came from and how her mama's housekeeper used to make the best green bean casserole and see if she can learn how to do it without putting her racist foot in her mouth.Then, when she screws up, make her go back and do it again.That would be a punishment that fits the crime.It would make her a better person.It would make our National Conversation About Race a conversation worth having.And it would also make fantastic television.Mickey Cimolai feared their wedding would be a total bust.By Thursday, the southern Alberta mountain town was in a state of emergency.Evacuation orders were issued.Forecasts warned one hundred millimetres of rain would fall.Friday she called me and said I m going to have to call it off,' said Crista Lee Mitchell, a local photographer who had been working with the Calgary couple for almost a year planning the big day.the photo of the newlyweds kiss.