Photo: Courtesy Gawker.In the great tradition of George Plimpton, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ernie Pyle, Gawker writer Caity Weaver embedded herself among the "slightly overweight but not obese" passengers aboard the most recent Eastern Caribbean Paula Deen cruise ship and reported back to a public hungry for details.
Why, exactly, did Weaver set sea with Deen six months after the TV chef's very public downfall? "I wanted to know what life was like in the Paula Deen Universe half a year later. I wanted to see who was willing to spend, at minimum, roughly $3,000 to support a downtrodden millionaire. I wanted to see if there were any black people," she explains.
Indeed, there were black people, including Weaver, who self-identifies as a "one half-black sleeper cell agent who can pass for white." Granted, there were only five African Americans aboard the 140-plus Paula Deen cruise contingent...but still.
As you might guess, Weaver's account of her journey is filled with offhand racism and calories, which is to say many of the same atrocities we read about six months prior. "Everyone on the boat is racist and nice. Including me," she writes. It's a probing, sometimes amusing, sometimes appalling look at a vacation — and a woman — most of us would never attempt to engage. Read it now. (Gawker)