I think we're missing some context here. Here's the full quote from the deposition. I'm not posting the link to Salon in case some content is not DIS-friendly.
She wanted to hire people to pose as slaves, for her (white) family's amusement.
It's not about hiring only black people to serve food at an event. Of course that's not racist, and no one would claim it to be.
Hiring black people to pose as slaves for your entertainment? Yeah, I would say that's arguably racist.
How is this something that's appropriate festive entertainment at a wedding? These people were prisoners. They were waiting on the white folks at the plantation because they were ordered to do so by their captors, and they would be whipped, beaten or worse if they didn't obey? They were branded, for the love of pete. Their children were sold. It was a horror, a blight on our history, a shame our country will forever live with. Not wedding entertainment material.
Would she think it would be equally festive to have a concentration camp-themed wedding? With skinny Jewish people dressed up in prisoner's rags? Cause they used to have to dress up nice and wait on the Nazi officers at the camps, too, ya know.
Not much difference between slaves and concentration camp victims, I think. Both prisoners, both used and brutalized, because of their race.
Look, racism isn't just about the use of a word. It's an attitude. It's a belief that members of another race are inferior, simply because they *are* members of that race.
I can't say whether Paula Deen is a racist, I don't know what her private thoughts are about black people. But based on this, I can say she's ignorant, oblivious, and dumb as a bag of hair.