Hug the Tar baby? WTF?!

Tony Snow.
Someone please explain the reference there, and its appropriateness, or lack of?

Tony Snow: Tar babies...
When I heard Tony Snow use the term "tar baby" while responding to a question in his first televised Press conference today, it actually startled me. Doesn't Tony understand what that phrase means to many people in this country?

CBS REPORTER: Why not declassify ? I mean, the President did talk about the surveillance program a day after the New York Times broke that story. This would seem to affect far more people and it did sound like the President was confirming that story today when he was answering questions.

SNOW: If you go back and look through what he said, there was a reference of foreign to domestic calls. I am not going to stand up here and presume to declassify any kind of program. That is a decision the President has to make. I can't confirm or deny it. The President was not confirming or denying. Again, I would take you back to the USA Today story to give you a little context. Look at the poll that appeared the following day <...> something like 65% of the public was not troubled by it. Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program... the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm or deny.

I asked Judd at Think Progress about it and he agreed. TP then explains to Tony the problem with using that term:

Based on the context of the term, we believe you meant tar baby to mean: "a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable."

But in "American lore," the expression tar baby is also a racial slur "used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people." Use of the term has resulted in people being fired.

As Random House notes, "some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context." Now that you are no longer at Fox News, you may want to take them up on their advice.

book by Toni Morrison. Why Snow said it isn't clear to me.

Only 3 matches
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22hugging+the+tar+baby%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Had exactly one match.

When talking racism with whites, don't expect much comprehension of or sensitivity to subtlety. Those who do learn to pick up on it are those who, rather than demanding that THEY define the terms, ASK.

Here's a little one that whizzed by on that same clip...

Snowjob: Let's try to segregate the stories here.

Once again we have "correct usage." Context IS everything! ;-) :rofl: ;-)

Verrry interestink.

That is horrible. Remember when he was appointed and we were digging up dirt on him and someone posted his ties to a white supremacist web site?

Tony Snow is a fucking racist pig. First we find out he writes for a WS website, now he says this. Amazing - the stupidity or arrogance of this man.

I'm 'white' and I was offended. Just sounded creepy that someone would use that phrase in a world forum. I couldn't find it on the white house transcript, it may be there. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060516-4.html

when I heard that terminology and can't remember what the run up was for that racist bullshit.
Sorry. I'll have to review later.

some background here.

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990212

along with an interesting usage note:

"The expression tar baby is also used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people (in the U.S. it refers to African-Americans; in New Zealand it refers to Maoris), or among blacks as a term for a particularly dark-skinned person. As a result, some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context."

I would never in a million years use that expression. Maybe it's a regional thing, but here in midAmerica, it is incredibly offensive.

Can we publish a list of metaphors, images, and literary references that people find offensive so people will know not to use them?

Look, I've done a lot of progressive and racial/social justice work in my life and I've never worried that someone would take the term "tar baby" as a racial slur. I've used it several times to mean "a situation you're stuck in that you're making worse by struggling with it".

I'll add that if there's a huge fuss over this it will look exactly as bad as when the DC mayor's aid got hounded for saying "niggardly" and it will probably set back real racial and social justice fights because a lot of people will rally around Snow if they fear he is being attacked by that phantom menace, "political correctness".

Snow clearly meant he didn't want to get dragged into a quagmire that would keep sucking him in. That's the clear sense of "tar baby" in the story. That's the only way I have ever heard it used so I suspect that's the only way a lot of people have heard it used. Do we really want to go after a guy for quoting African-American folk tales?

Would saying "please don't throw me in that briar patch" also be offensive? Or is it just the "tar" reference? I'd be happy to switch to "glue baby" if tar baby bothers people; I'm not being sarcastic it just honestly never occurred to me that somebody would think "tar baby" is a racial slur.

I just told my African American co-worker and she was stunned. She said 'you know, to some people, that expression is more offensive than the N word.'

I teach African American kids. If one of my students ever said 'tar baby' in ANY context, I would jump on it just like the N word. Really.

I said earlier that maybe it's a regional thing, but here where I live, it is a VERY offensive expression.

Boy, was that an idiotic episode.

A tar baby is an inextricable problem, and it's perfectly clear that's what Snow meant. So it's offensive to you, well, apparently it's not to him, and it's not to me either. You'll just have to live with being offended I guess, 'cause you sure don't have a right not to be.

Of all the stuff we're facing right now, someone thought this was fit to give its own thread?

Some of them (certainly, the people they grew up with) are inveterate racists. Some of them are yellow-dog democrats who rejected the racism they grew up with.

Certainly most of them who moved to the north would not pretend that northerners are any less racist than the South. You know the old saying: "I prefer to know who my enemies are." In "uber-progressive" cities and college towns like where I live, racism is silent. Most of the people I know (here in the Middle States) black or white, think that the north is actually MORE racist in some ways -- in a polite fashion -- than parts of the South.

You can't rival for racism the part of the south my folks grew up in, however. Or Waco, Texas, where the mayor said that he refused to apologize for a lynching that occurred 100 years ago because "someone has to stand up for the " back then.

Point of the story is, I have not heard one of these people ever hear or use the term "tar baby" in a racial context, and believe me, I am very sensitive to that sort of thing. "Tar baby" is an idiomatic expression.

Where this is headed is censoring memory of anything that comes out of African American culture or folk tales, past or present, because Neo-Nazis can and WILL use EVERYTHING that comes out of that culture as a racial slur, relevant or not, in order to pollute American culture in general by denying people the use of expressions without relevance to race. That is what they DO. It is called politicizing speech. Don't let them do it. Get involved in Anti-Racist action and kick some ass if you have to, not some navel-gazing PC bullshit slapping kids on the wrists for using an expression their mother taught them.

As I just said, that creates taboos that Neo-Nazis use to foster racial division and get a foothold in society (and the Republican party, as we see in the case of Tony Snow, who is laughing at PC zealots for falling into his trap -- chumming the waters with bait that nobody else, ESPECIALLY ordinary southern whites, will give a shit about because most people do not associate the expression as in any way referring to black people...)

If anything it is suggestive of "typically northern internalized racism" in much the same way as if you accused a DUer of being "racist" for calling Bush a "chimp". After all, neo-nazis often describe black people as monkeys.

Or how about calling someone a dirty liar? Or those DUers that are constantly complaining about freepers with large families? YOu see, it doesn't take an organized group of racist to complain about dirty outsiders with large families, because scientists have proven that such fears are genetic and inbred into all humans, including you and me. Once it was the Irish, now it is the Mexicans. Always, our genes are telling us to fear dirty outsiders with large families out-breeding our tribe. And little green men? Just the latest iteration of elves in our Jungian sub-consciousness. Jung must've been a racist!

in a predominately white and not particularly politically correct town. And I heard all sorts of epithets used to refer to African-Americans back in those days. But "tar baby" was never one of them. "Tar baby" was always understood, as far as I knew, to refer to the character in Joel Chandler Harris's Bre'r Rabbit tale about how hubris can get someone into a very "sticky" situation.

If that makes me a bad person, so be it. :)

But being offended seems to be your favorite hobby, so...

I have been called the "N word" and am quite aware of the usage of "tar baby" and "jungle bunny" among others by white people. YES, indeed, they ARE variations of the "N word."

I am white and find it offensive mostly because I've heard it used by dyed-in-the-wool racists.

I will avoid it.

How about "spic and span"? ORIGIN late 16th cent. (in the sense brand new): from spick and span new, from Old Norse spán-nýr, from spánn ‘chip’ + nýr ‘new’; spick influenced by Dutch spiksplinternieuw, literally ‘splinter new’... but it sounds like it could be derogatory ...

And no amount of shouting will change the fact that the "tar baby" reference was co-opted by white people as yet another perjorative term.

It's not even a "term". It's an adjective with a specific meaning.

And avoiding words because they have been "co-opted by white people" is
cowardly and strategically foolish, period.

If you want to avoid "tar baby" because you don't like the connotations of Br'er Rabbit folkatles, that is one thing. Avoiding it because you heard that "tar baby" is a common racial epithet among a tiny minority of the vast population of white racists in this country, many of whom use "homey" as a racial epithet, is a different matter. You'll just have to keep ceding language to the right, BTW, just like the "PC Dems" did before Howard Dean.

You'll probably have a beef with the Radical Faeries too, BTW. Not to mention the folks who complain that Bush looks like a chimp. After all, "monkey" is a much more common racial epithet than "tar baby", since the latter is an idiomatic expression whose literal meaning is inconsistent with being able to use it as a derogatory term for a person. If some racist somewhere started calling blacks "radioactive", would you refuse to use the word for its proper meaning in literate company?

I made it clear that I was referring to the term "tar baby" as a variation of the "n-word," but I see my error in responding to a post on the side issue of "niggardly." (ALWAYS check the tree! ;-) ) As a result, you've COMPLETELY missed my point that "tar baby" was indeed neutral in my early childhood (Aunt Carole told us all the stories, complete with dialect, at bedtime. She didn't require a book) UNTIL whites started hurling it at black children, i.e. those stinky, dirty creatures who'd leave a nasty residue if you were foolish enough to touch them. You see, LG, I've had to comfort others after I HEARD the term spit out at them. It was particularly vicious coming from those who passed the "paper bag test" warning their offspring that they would not cotton to any darkening of their gene pool.

As one who was regularly physically and psychologically assaulted by peers and "authority figures" during her adolescence for having MANY WORDS in her vocabulary that were not in common usage, YES, I learned to guage my audience and adjust my words accordingly. The first rule of effective communication: It's not what you say, it's what others HEAR.

The condescension in your post is palpable. But I'm a pretty good sport for a curmudgeonly old lady. I find the assumptions of superiority expressed by young white males amusing at times. BTW, how many languages do YOU speak and/or understand? Just curious.

"Tar baby" is spelled the same whether it is a racial epithet or an inextricable problem-- the fact that it is a racial epithet trumps all others.

Niggardly means only one thing and is spelled differently than the racial epithet to which one assumes you refer.

Yeah-- it does deserve it's own thread.

This regime is getting away with truckloads of crap. They need to be pilloried whenever they attempt to get away with more or attempt to do more crap.

Attempts by some fool to use it as a racial epithet can be roundly ignored in both cases by anyone literate.

Let's take another Southern example. If someone wanted to use "Brass Ankles" or "Melungeon" as a racial epothet, would you refuse to use those terms? Would you go so far as to deny someone's African American heritage to avoid the use of those terms? This is a real life example.

And it is exactly parallel to the current discussion.

"Tar baby" is only a racial epithet if politically correct, or ignorant fools choose to ACCEPT IT as a racial epithet instead of proper usage.

This is true of any other COMMON ENGLISH PHRASE that neo-nazis have attempted to co-opt as a code word!

AND a white boy who has little to NO sensitivity to language or comprehension of anything outside the range of your "white male privilege" to ASSERT where IT is all at. This is yo lil' ol' curmudgeonly darkie Tante who lubs ya talking so don't get your CK briefs all bunched up. And if you're wearin' dat shit, Tanta K INSISTS you toss 'em all and get yo'self some boxers. They're better for the family jewels. And DO NOT carry your fuckin' cell phone in your front pocket. :evilgrin:

LOVE IT!

PS: In my 50 years, "tar baby" has always been used as a racial slur. I've never known it to be anything else.

And you don't know American literature. That is scary.

:scared:

My brother still lives there, and my mother a few miles away in Brookside ... I spent 33 years in that area, and believe me, "tar baby" is not worse than "n*gger" in Kansas City, Missouri or Johnson County, Kansas or even in Wyandotte County KS. Puh-lease. If YOU find it offensive, or if your friend finds it offensive, fine - but don't make up shit.

You feel very passionately that there is no racial connotation to this phrase.

A lot of people feel much differently. I hope you can accept that. MKJ

I also would like you to accept that a lot of us had no frigging idea until 30 minutes ago that referring to a quagmire as a "tar baby" bothered people, and that people who have referred to quagmires as tarbabies are not neccessarily racist.

Welcome to DU. :)MKJ

I've never heard the reference to it meaning a quagmire.

It is a racist term. Fugg the Snowjob.

....and are completely unfamiliar with its proper usage... (especially living in the Border States...)

Then chances are, you have never heard the term period. And are only ASSUMING it's a racial epithet...

This is the conclusion that folks came to after an "investigation" into the scandal caused when a DC teacher used the word "niggardly". The folks that objected had never heard the word, period. They honestly misunderstood.

The use of "tar baby" as an idiom is very defined and straight-forward.

Next thing you know, "curiosity killed the cat" will be banned from DU as a derogatory phrase referring to hatred of jazz musicians!!!

And I live in DC right now.

Ain't no thang , Casper.

We know you a frendly ghost right?


(See how it feels?)

I've been called Casper (and ironically, Urkel) by black friends and schoolmates growing up. Doesn't make either one a racist expression, and neither does "tar baby".

If it were a derogatory noun, it might be more easily turned into an actual common racial slur. But it is an idiomatic expression, not a derogatory description of a person, so it can't, so it isn't. I have, however, heard "homey" used both as a diminutive among blacks AND, frighteningly often, as a racial epithet among whites (e.g. a contractor in New Orleans wrote: "HOMEY rules the streets.")

Since "homey" and "honky" unlike "tar baby" actually refers to a person, shouldn't we concentrate our ire on those words and not focus on someone's mistaken definition of a common idiomatic phrase that does not refer to a person, but to a situation?

And yes, most white people are inwardly racist, especially here up north. A guy I know maintains that all white people -- including himself -- are racist and won't admit it.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

but I have heard it discussed as a racial epithet.

name.

What prompted you to use that for your handle? MKJ

always been a racial slur. Must be some sort of regional thing.

that the "tar baby" reference is a slur.

what that term references! And it really should have NEVER dropped out of the mouth of a fucking White House official. Racist pig tripe! :wtf:

Who told you when you were a small girl that it was a slur? Folks down there have plenty of racial epithets, and I've heard them used, more so on-line since Katrina hit. "Tar baby", as a racial epithet, if it ever was common, is extraordinarily archaic usage, about on line with saying that "cotton-pickin'" is offensive. Just my observation. But then, I don't put it past people in Northern Louisiana to buck convention and misuse common English Phrases.

Oh yeah, and I've heard about this before, and expert historians disagree over whether "tar baby" was EVER used -- historically -- to refer to black people. It's proper use is a noun used to describe a situation, not a person. And the folk tale it originates from is not "inherently racist" either.

Or words to that effect. That's how Poppy Bush referred to, I think, a couple of his grandkids during a photo op. Some people went apeshit--how dare he demean them?

It was ridiculous, the overreaction. Say what you will of Poppy--war criminal, CIA goon, whatever--but obviously he loves his grand kids, and he was describing a pair of kids who belonged to a specific pair of parents.

I'm all over rhetorically kicking the crap out of any Chimpologist, professional or otherwise, for transgressions, but I think we're making too much of this one.

So Pony Blow said something stupid. It's the first in a long line of stupid shit he'll be paid to say. Big whoop.

It's a racial slur in Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky (states in which I've lived). It's vile and I almost fell out of my seat when I heard that Snow had used it.

...and I only ever heard it used in the context of the Brer Rabbit story. All this shows is that people have different experiences with different phrases.

as a slur as well.

I understand that some folks might not think that it's racist but it is. I've never heard of a white person being called a "tar baby." Have you?

It means a difficult situation that one gets oneself into. From Brer Rabbit. Not a reference to a person at all.

Buy a book.

when one is a part of that dominant culture can feed the inbred ignorance and arrogance that is white privilege.

As a child, I never knew that the term tar baby was anything bad because my family didn't use those kinds of terms or phrases. And the Brer Rabbit stories I grew up with were very sanitized Disney like books, and I had no idea until many years later their origins. But then I also don't remember ever hearing the n word until I was in middle school. I am from the generation that took for granted that we would be going to school with a diverse group of kids and never really thought about race, ethnicity or religion until we were older- and then only because those issues were being pushed by certain adults rather than us kids.

I am not saying that the phrase is appropriate, just that some people from good, tolerant, progressive families might not have heard it used that way. I'd just say sheltered is probably a better descriptor than privileged.

:hi: Let me explain my use of the term "white privilege." It is the assumption of anonymity in a crowd, normalcy, being heard and considered by one's very existence, somehow a part of the whole; not to be excluded. It is as difficult for white people to comprehend as it would be for a fish to explain the nature of water. It's something that just "is."

It is white privilege that allows posters who proclaim that since THEY never witnessed the term "tar baby" used as a pejorative, that anyone who HAS HAD that experience and objects to it should not be taken seriously, is simply uneducated, ignorant and just needs to "read a book" COMPLETELY IGNORING the immense pain that has been suffered by those on the receiving end.

This is yet another thread on DU that painfully reveals the sheer numbers of what are known as "closet racists" in the general population. Don't DARE open the door to air it out. You'll be met with vehement denials, outrage and "rationality" that smells very similar to rot. What is stunning in this particular case are the numbers of white DUers who ARE aware of the reference as a racial slur, being challenged.

Before "Shock and Awe" I used the reference "Don't kick that tar baby" along with "Don't poke a stick into that hornet's nest" in their originally intended connotation. Tony Snow did NOT do that. Brer Rabbit KICKED and PUNCHED the tar baby. "Hugging" is new usage which developed alongside the term morphing into an epithet.

Context is EVERYTHING. Tony Snow IS a racist and in allowing the term to slip numerous times as a representative of the *WH, in addition to his comment "Let's segregate the stories here." it is clear to me that he's playing code word games. I'm only asking Llit that you stand over here on THIS corner with me, take a look for yourself from where I stand and come to your own conclusions.

Tony Snow is charged with delivering the steady stream of lies and misrepresentations emanating from the *WH that are DESTROYING AMERICA. I don't ask myself why anyone on this board would jump to his defense, because after more than a half century I've come to the realization that in America RACE TRUMPS EVERYTHING.

But growing up as a white person I never felt "anonymous" or "accepted" or part of the "in-crowd". I am aware of the white privelege you speak of but it does not extend as far as you think it does. It is quite easy to lose your "honorary white upper middle class privilege" sticker by doing ANYTHING outside of the norm. So don't condemn white people just for being white. Besides, all people are rcist, especially white people. It's genetic. You don't combat it by accousing people of racism when it's not.

And saying that a term morphed into an epithet among some small part of the population, therefore it should not be used in its proper sense, is PC and I heartily disagree. I have SEEN and HEARD the bizarre and vaguely insulting debates that raise when someone in the name of inclusiveness tries to say that some word or phrase, taken out of context, is insulting PURELY because it could be used to describe someone from some ethnic group. This is especially problematic when the word or phrase is not derogatory and by implication, any adjective describing that ethnic group must be ASSUMED to be derogatory, which is the number one sign of a closet racist, in my opinion (and there are many in the oh-so-liberal neighborhood where I live.)

The more politically correct the person, the more likely they are to secretly believe that "blacks are culturally authoritarian" or that "white people are culturally predisposed to racism" etc. But they won't say so in public, OH NO, because they are politically correct!

Please hang in with me here for a moment. The dynamics I speak of are so very subtle. It's about not being followed around by security at the department store. It's about sitting in a classroom and having everyone in the room turn to around to stare at you when the teacher says "negro" (OK, I'm dating myself here. I integrated the elementary school in 1957). It's about standing in front of a hotel, waiting for a taxi, wearing an Armani suit, a Rolex, carrying a Vuitton briefcase and having someone thrust car keys in your hand admonishing you NOT to dent the car. It's about standing in a jazz club, instrument in hand, reed in mouth and having FIVE PEOPLE approach you asking you what you're gong to SING.

Your assumption that I am "condemning" white people is also a projection. :rofl: I married this guy whom I can only "identify" as the guy I married and subsequently divorced. We have 2 kids who are "identified" by society-at-large as bi-racial. I would defy you to identify any number of my cousins in an all-white crowd. I have ALWAYS lived amongst people of all descriptions. My Auntie called yesterday to let me know my dear Uncle had passed. I told her my son had a live-in girlfriend. Her first question was, "From WHERE? Has he broadened our family horizons?":rofl:

When I get involved in these threads it is always my sincerest hope that SOMEBODY will "get" my references. I'm so often disappointed, but have not as yet completely given up... Let me just say that your second paragraph reads much like l-o-n-g a compound word auf deutsch. Please be so kind give me an example of what you're talking about.

"Proper sense." Language is a living, ever-changing thing. The SNL exchange between Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase is posted SOMEWHERE on this thread. And THAT was some decades ago.

Do me a BIG favor and poll just 10 kids under 25 from your environs. NO PROMPTING. Ask them first if they know what a "tar baby" is. If they don't know, ask them what they THINK it is. Then ask if they've ever heard of Uncle Remus or Brer Rabbit.

:thumbsup:

The discussion of white privilege almost always brings out people who (not really understanding how ingrained white privilege is) say something to the effect of "white folk get kicked when they step out of the crowd too"--not realizing that stepping out of the crowd is a choice, and that's part of white privilege.

Reminds me of seeing Sammy Hagar on Politically Incorrect years ago. He was saying (and i'm paraphrasing, of course, but the gist of it was) that he was down with the black experience because he had long hair and security guards follow people with long hair around department stores as well. Bill Maher said: "you know you can cut your hair, right?" :rofl:

Political correctness is bullshit, period, and I say that as someone who thinks plenty of white people I meet are racists, ESPECIALLY left-liberals who grew up in sheltered environments. And Karenina sounds bitter and offensive going on about "inbred white people". The shoe is soundly on the other foot, in my opinion. And I have no reason to apologize, as someone from a liberal family who are from the South, for using "tar baby" in its PROPER TERMINOLOGY to refer to a situation, not a person.

Use of "tar baby" to refer to a person, not a situation, (white or black) is nonsensical.

If I started saying "all black people are radioactive" what would you say to the next white guy you met who used the word "radioactive" to refer to George Bush's political coat-tails? Or called Bush a chimp? Would you condemn them for using a racially offensive code-word?

In 2nd grade, I had a teacher who read us Brer Rabbit stories all of the time so I am quite familiar with the story.

I also had the unfortunate experience to be around a lot of racists growing up (which is why I left Alabama) and they used "tar baby" to describe black people. As you can imagine, they weren't using it in any way that could be remotely construed as kind.

Just because it has one meaning (getting oneself into a difficult situation) does NOT mean that it doesn't have a second, racist meaning.

Your sarcastic response doesn't change that nor does it make any other point except that you refuse to see anyone else's point but your own.

The first time I ever heard it used about a person was in this thread. And Snow didn't use it about a person. He used it about a situation.

Until today I had only ever heard it used about a situation, not a person

referance to person or persons, and as an innocent referance,
i.e., meaning a quagmire.
To me, whether it's use is innocent or not all depends on context,
and the user's racial track record.

We don't cotton to that kind of thing in these parts. Pick a side and stay there!

:pals:

sort of radical that way.
Gee, I hope I didn't ruin a perfectly good flamebait war.

Oops, guess not, here they come again...

(DUers, many of them actually women, throw stones at each other)

It's funny because I worked with a woman who didn't believe that calling a black person a "coon" was racist. She had never heard it used as a slur.

It's like the Confederate flag, to me. It offends some and, as such, I have to respect the multiple meanings that it carries.

She had several black acquaintances -- some of them elderly like herself -- that she considered "good people". "I got nothing against black people, there are good n**s and there are bad n**s" she once said

That's the mentality many people absorb -- or must reject -- growing up in the Deep South.

Cajuns had the anser, however. They appropriated the term "coon-ass" referring to a Cajun (meaning, more or less "white coon") for themselves. Admittedly it was easy for them to do so as racism is pretty rampant in the Cajun community, so plenty of people didn't have a problem with oppressing their black neighbors, but try calling a Cajun a "cunass" and you will get thumped good and hard UNLESS you are a Cajun.

Oh yeah, when I said "you had to have met some pretty vile racists -- and ignorant ones -- who would use 'tar baby'" as a racial epithet -- I guess I was right. :evilfrown:

I've talked to people who, when I call them on using the "n" word, will say, "That's what we've always called them."

I can't believe so much racism still exists and I can't believe those who don't believe that it still exists.

experience in person or in print of people using "tar baby" to mean a black person. Ignorance among racists is a given, but the usage simply makes no sense and sounds like one of those crackpot terminology like "mud people". (Oops! Guess politicians can't use the phrase "stuck in the mud" because it might be misinterpreted as a code word amongst a tiny population of illiterate neo-nazis!)

Were these people you met, familiar with the proper meaning of the phrase
"tar baby" Or did they use ANYTHING dark in color as a racial epithet?

".....it just honestly never occurred to me that somebody would think "tar baby" is a racial slur."

I would be fired.

Please don't tell me you work in a public school

What is and is not a racist expression or one that has anyrhing to do with race. They know exactly what they are doing. It is called politicizing ordinary speech. It started with Orwell.

Just like "liberal" was politicized to mean "jew" or "atheist" and now too many liberals genuflect all over themselves to avoid offending anyone by calling themselves anything other than "progressive" because Reagan and Fox News adopted a tactic that neo-nazis were already doing.

I thought we'd learned to get over PC bullshit. So any time racist fuckers appropriate a literary reference, we are supposed to censor ourselves to stay "safe"? NO FUCKING THANKS.

PS-- For your information (a) I am white and have several white relatives from the south, some of whom have racial hangups and some do not. I consider most white people, including white liberals, relatively racist or classist. I've talked to many people in my extremely progressive hometown who agree. (b) nevertheless, I have never heard "tar baby" used as anything other than an idiomatic expression that has NOTHING WHATSO-FUCKING-EVER to do with black people. That includes southerners I've dealt with, some of whom, as mentioned earlier, are outwardly racist and some are not. In fact, use of the expression in no way correlates with "regionality", much less race. (c) The Radical Faeries are having a drag ball in my hometown next month. Care to comment on their insensitivity and lack of attention to PC? After all, "fairy" unlike "tar baby" is actually used as an epithet. (d) The only people I've ever heard of who would be likely to use "tar baby" as an epithet -- bikers, neo-nazis and the like -- are far more likely -- and regularly do -- use "homey" as a racial epithet to refer to all black people. I can pull up an article where an electrical contractor in Gretna, LA (remember Gretna?? I guess not) talked about how he didn't care about if they had electricity in New Orleans becasue "HOMEY rules the streets." Care to persecute anyone -- black or white -- who uses the expression "homey"?

PC zealots need to get an education or get a life. PC-ness is one attribute that fortunately knows no racial boundaries, so it can be criticised for the anti-intellectualism it is.

Last time I heard nonsense like this was with the expression "fuck me pumps" and what a misogynistic phrase it was and how horrible someone was for using it. Never mind that it was coined by feminists. America is the home of the memory hole.

You know, Zippideedoodah? "De Tar Baby" is one of the stories from it. It's about as racist as Sambo's restaurants, but it's part of our culture. The Disneyworld log flume is themed after it, but they changed it to a "honey baby" to avoid lawsuits and boycotts.

He adapted it. Many of his adaptations were racist.

Kids in my school system and age cohort read the (revised) tale before they saw the (re-)release of the movie. The revision was for language.

Depending on which way you use it, you can come across very sharp, or very obtuse (if you don't know the meaning or the context of the story)

How did he use it?

you cannot let go.

It was a great parable (Uncle Remus) until the late 1950s when it went the way of Epanymondas and Sambo.

The misplaced outrage over this use of "tar baby" is really depressing. The Brer Rabbit stories are wonderful American folklore, and their loss as a commonly shared reference is shameful.

One of my most prized possessions.

I absolutely lived with those tales as a kid.

Thought they were real.

And they were, for a little kid in rural Texas.

I have a reprint and loved the Brer Rabbit stories. My kids loved to hear them too.

I loved those stories!

They were like Aesop's Fables.

The Tar Baby was simply a dummy made of tar and dressed by Br-er Fox to fool Br'er Rabbit into hitting it, whereupon the Br'er Rabbit would get stuck in the tar.

Yes I agree with you. there is a lot of outrage over nothing, IMO.

Mark Twain wrote dialogue in the strong dialect of his region and his era. Far from being racist, he was trying to capture the reality of his world. Does that make Jim any less human as a character? Any less moving?

Sometimes the intent of an author can be to insult, but readers should be astute enough to see the motive and judge accordingly.

I got a bad grade and was told my spelling was poor. When I explained I was trying to emulate Twain, the teacher simply said I shouldn't have done it without offering any reason why. I didn't get it then and part of me still doesn't now but I'm sure there's a good debate in there somewhere that would include elements of classism, racism, principles of grammar, and when is it okay to break rules and why.

They were NEVER used in a demeaning or racist fashion whatsoever. Like Aesop's fables, they stimulated imagination and an appreciation for human behavior.

When I was little, I had Brer Rabbit books and went to see a Brer Rabbit movie in the theater. You could never see Brer Rabbit anymore! People would say it's too racist. It's a little fuzzy now, but I was thinking Uncle Remus was a completely positive figure with an anti-racism overtone and the stories had positive messages.

Brer Rabbit stands for the black person who outwits the whites....so at least I learned from folklore readings from such people as Alan Dundes (a famous black folklorist)

the Uncle Remus tales were written by a white who had heard them from one of his family's black slaves......the Uncle Remus setting made them palatable to whites and enabled white culture to appropriate black and slave survival stories......in the process many blacks lost another tie to their past....................so at least I learned from folklore readings from such people as Alan Dundes (a famous black folklorist)

"street-smarts".. Perception is EVERYTHING.. Thta's why books matter.. The person writing them has one idea, and everyone who reads them puts their own nuance into them..

In the OLD south, downtrodden people used a lot of codes to speak their minds when overt speech would have gotten them killed..

Another example was quiltmaking. Quilts draped over clotheslines sent a "message" to others. The masters probably never caught on.,.

It was an underground of sorts.. literature, art and music...

............................................................................................


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I think he used it to say that the issue is too sticky to deal with and he's not going there.

IOW, ongoing investigation. yadda yadda yadda.

"Tar baby" is a reference to an old Brer Rabbit story.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/remus/tar-baby.html

It is entirely "appropriate".

It's about as bad as it gets.

What's inappropriate about it? It's a story about getting stuck in a situation and how your own stubborness and refusal to admit your mistake can make it much worse. If anything it's a story we need this administration to read more.

because it is in the Bible by your standard.

How damn brave of you to take the "I as a white person didn't know about the way you feel about this term therefore I am absolved of being a racist by my very ignorance of 'your culture', even though we live in the same land."

Someone who is not in your skin feels badly and you say it is Okay and we should all take your point of view rather than listen to the person this is actually about.

That is called white privialge and you are being a little bit of a whiny biggot by even insisting on having that benefit of the doubt, one that you are not extending to those offended.

The story is a parable about deception and trickery, not a racist slur.

the "uncle" of uncle remus was an often pejorative slang word for old black males; "tar baby" is considered a pejorative slur of african americans; the uncle remus stories were originally collected as a reconstruction-era defense of slavery; and written in so-called black dialect that has long been considered derivative and demeaning by the black community, perhaps you can understand why some people might be offended at the reference?

While the phrase might certainly have been considered common and acceptable in the 50s, its definitely a strange thing to pull out in his first press conference.

i had all the brer rabbit stories when I was young but 'tar baby' as far as I understand, originated as a racial slur and then was put into fiction. wow.

tired of Americans on the left getting offended at the wrong things.

If anything, the Tar Baby is symptomatic of what has happened to the left over the past 25 years. Getting wrapped up in battles against a phantom when they ignore the real enemies lurking in the bushes.

Not to mention it shows people are unfamiliar with context, can't tell a racial slur from an idiomatic expression, just like Brer Rabbit was apparently blind to the difference between a person and a doll.

I bet you will find that "tat baby" is about as bad as "nigger" or "spear-chucker".

Stop making excuses...if blacks think it is a racist slur, you should stop using the term around them.

it may be appropriate in his mind, in the mind of the average American "tar baby" has a new meaning now. And it's considered derogatory.

If anything, it shows how dated and backward this group is, which is no good either.

Which is more than I can say for the majority of Americans these days. He's dated only in thinking that his audience is culturally literate, which obviously can't be assumed any longer.

This is like that tiresome outrage over the word "niggardly", which has no relation to the "N" word, but makes people hysterical because of the phonetic similarity.

I love the story but the word has taken on new connotations. I would never use it.

is now a derogatory term.

Times change, and language changes. And a fag is not a cigarette in modern America, either.

35 other words to refer to black people instead of their original intended meaning of the words...

...because you let them.

Thats how PC works. It is a weapon to emasculate people on the left.

MKJ

So let's go to a San Francisco Home Depot, and pick up some faggots to kindle our burning man fire.:eyes:

Language is alive. Lingo changes. Move foreward.

1. Improper analogy. "Faggot" is a noun that in Britain refers to a cigarrette. Like any noun it can have multiple meanings.

"Tar baby" is an idiomatic expression, not a simple noun. Its meaning cannot change except in the context of how people understand the fable it originates from, because usage of the phrase "tar baby" by people unfamiliar with the meaning of the phrase is ignorant and incorrect, period. That goes for ANY LITERARY REFERENCE, as I'm sure your English teacher told you. For instance, if I used "Bush's Ring of Power" as a reference to the scum around his toilet bowl, you would correct me and say that I was misusing a literary reference, in this case Tolkien. The same would be true 2,000 years from now, as we have seen when ignorant people misuse references to Aesop's fables, etc. Misuse of literary or mythical characters does not become standard unless the original literature is completely forgotten, which you seem willing to facilitate.

2. How is it "moving forward" to embrace the postmodern notion of constantly shifting meanings where those in power can pick and choose whatever semantic definitions they want, use code words when and how they want using and abusing other people's cultural and literary signifiers, and generally control the discussion??

What yould you say about the cafe (owned and operated by an african american woman, in a black neighborhood) that has Aunt Jemima salt and pepper shakers on its tables?? Insulting? Or smart response to this ridiculous PC "move on and forget it" nonsense whenever the other side picks up a shiny new object and attempts to use it as a divisive label?

...literature", but those of us who have lived in the South know exactly what is meant by "tar baby", and know exactly how it gets used, and who is most likely to use it.

It is a racial slur, pure and simple.

239. Brer Rabbit stories are African-American slave stories

Brer Rabbit stands for the black person who outwits the whites....so at least I learned from folklore readings from such people as Alan Dundes (a famous black folklorist)

the Uncle Remus tales were written by a white who had heard them from one of his family's black slaves......the Uncle Remus setting made them palatable to whites and enabled white culture to appropriate black and slave survival stories......in the process many blacks lost another tie to their past....................so at least I learned from folklore readings from such people as Alan Dundes (a famous black folklorist)

******

Disney's Song of the South (which I loved as a kid) further cutesifies the Brer Rabbit stories and futher distances the stories from their survival use by black slaves

And would not have survived if they had not been written down.

America lost its oral history when it became an industrial, literate (and remarkably regimented and straitjacketed, as we have seen) nation.

That includes black people, even more so than white people since they were forcibly separated from their community and families.

Of course, try finding white immigrants who know jack about their ancestor's European (much less early American) folklore.

I'm relatively young (26), and remember when I was in 1st grade or so, we went to the public library and they told us this story.

When he brought the term up, I knew where it came from, but I couldn't make sense of why he used it since I completely forgot about the story.

When I read this thread, I was actually surprised that it was supposed to be such an antiquated story.

Here's a link with the Tar Baby story...

http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/texts/remus.htm

They were folk tales. First recorded by Robert Roosevelt (Teddy's Uncle) and then Joel Chandler Harris who made them famous.

as the previous poster said. The stories predate uncle remus, who is the narrator harris invented for his collection of tales.

were folktales and NOT the invention of Harris OR Roosevelt. They were revamped African stories that had acclimated to the antebellum black society.

If you have information refuting this, I would love to consider it.

invented by Harris, and yes (as you said) these are all folk tales that predate Harris or Roosevelt.

Uncle Remus and the stories are not the same. Uncle Remus was the narrator in Harris's collection, who told all these folk tales.

The stories existed long before Harris, Roosevelt, or any of the other writers who adapted them in the late 19th century. I agree that brer rabbit et al were folk tales not invented by white authors.

Uncle Remus, however, was invented by Harris, afik. Uncle Remus was not, himself, part of the folk tales that Harris, Roosevelt, and others had adapted. He's the one who told the stories in Harris's collection of these folk tales, thus drawing them all together.

in their introduction to joel chandler harris:

"It is Harris's painstaking reshaping and retelling of these stories through the shrewd and inventive persona of Uncle Remus that is his most important contribution to American Letters."

So that, in The Wonderful Tar Baby Story, when Harris writes: " 'Didn't the fox never catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus,' asked the little boy the next evening." Uncle Remus and the little boy represent Harris's inventive framing of folk tales Harris himself heard told by slaves.

Norton seems authoritative enough to me, but of course it isn't online. Here's some brief info about how Harris created his fictional narrator (and it even has an .edu):

And you'll find that their own lives & experiences color their work. "Can the anthropologist be a neutral observer?" Modern methods may be purer, but I'm glad that the "impure" took the trouble to record the old stories.

However, I wouldn't use "tar-baby" in the wrong context. It CAN be a racist slur.

is to embrace your enemy. figuratively.

It's to become ensnared.

The tar baby was a trap, and Snow is simply indicating that he can't be tricked.

His days are numbered. Even white folks won't be able to let that slide, methinks.

:rofl:

We should cut him some slack. It takes a while to adjust to the real world.
Maybe we should tell him Sambo is a no-no too.
:rofl:

:rofl:

In all honesty, I kinda feel for white folks - it's SOOOOO hard to know what's off-limits....

but then again, we are talking about a former Faux anchor so no-brainer is probably the appropriate term.

Interviewing Rumsfeld back in 2003:

Rather: Mr. Secretary, just this week there have been quotes in the paper, rank and file Americans, saying are we into a tar baby situation? Are we into quick sand? Is this going to be another quagmire? This is the way people talk around coffee in the morning. I want to give you an opportunity to respond to those deep concerns.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/05/eveningnews/main571901.shtml

The standard for him is different. Rather also reinforced what he meant by following up with 'quicksand' and 'quagmire.' I wonder if he knew that his first description could be misinterpreted and that's why he was careful to follow up with other equivalents. I tend to think it was standard repetitive blather from
him rather than well thought out.

if you admit A, then you cannot avoid admitting B.

lets not loose our shit here

pick up on that. It's bullshit and it shouldn't have been invoked in the conversation IMO.

The fact that the doll is made of tar? The fact that it's put in the mouth of Uncle Remus?

This is as stupid as the people who jumped on the DC mayoral aid for saying "niggardly"

TOO many racist jokes and slurs, and tar baby, as well as others have been mentioned in those slurs and jokes. Stop being uppity like you're so damn clueless. Have you never heard tarbaby referenced as a racial slur?

Maybe you shouldn't assume it's racist until you've actually read it? The important part of the tar in the story is that it's sticky, not that it's black.

I grew up in Mississippi, I have heard more racial slurs than I can count but I've honestly never heard "tar baby" used in any context except "a troublesome situation that one's own stubbornness and refusal to admit errors is making worse". Which I'll reiterate is something that really should be on this administration's mind right now.

but I know those terms have racist conotations.
I have heard tarbaby many times as racial slur. Apparently one of the reporters in the room has also heard the term and asked Snow to clarify.

Making himself look "bitter and argumentative" because he misinterpreted an ordinary phrase simply because Tony Snow said it.

Not the way you want to go about demonstrating his reputation as a partisan hack (instead of an embattled soldier of this administration or a simple nebbish) Really, Dems need to learn which arguments put them in the best light. "I haven't heard that word used in any other context except passionate denunciations on campus of a few racists in alabama! Are you trying to tell me it's a literary reference? C'mon! You must be a racist!"

...Is not one of them.

but I know the term has connotations in Freeperville.

Why do you guys continue to insult us all by calling people "DUer"????

i read the b'rer rabbit story as a kid, in fact the edition with the illustration earlier in this thread. i grew up in a racially diverse environment, attended a public school with 60% black population, and had a mildly bigoted grandpa. but i never heard a black child referred to as a tar baby.

it wasn't in the south, though. maybe its more common there.

he used it in the b'rer rabbit context. it may be insensitive, but its probably the way they talk at FoxNews. they don't know no better. let's not TAR & FEATHER him over it.

referring to the similarities to the dilemma of the character in the children's book, 'Little Black Sambo'?

Would that be offensive, or would it be an appropriate reference?

the Tar Baby of B'rer Rabbit was AN INANIMATE OBJECT MADE OF TAR. was Sambo inanimate?

stop trying to TAR me with Tony Snow's bigotry!

I don't see anything less offensive about a reference to an inanimate object. Many slurs reference inanimate things.

not Africa, hence the tigers, which are indigenous to India. It has nothing whatsoever to do with negroes.

http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/picaninny/

Little Black Sambo
Arguably, the most controversial picaninny image is the one created by Helen Bannerman. Born Brodie Cowie Watson, the daughter of a Scottish minister, she married Will Bannerman, a surgeon in the British Army of India. She spent thirty years of her life in India. She regularly wrote illustrated letters with fantasy storylines to entertain their children. In 1898 there "came into her head, evolved by the moving of a train," the entertaining story of a little Black boy, beautifully clothed, who outwits a succession of tigers, and not only saves his own life but gets a stack of tiger-striped pancakes.11 The story eventually became Little Black Sambo. The book appeared in England in 1899 and was an immediate success. The next year it was published in the United States by Frederick A. Stokes, a mainstream publisher. It was even more successful than it had been in England. The book's success led to many imitators -- and controversies. Barbara Bader, a book critic, summarized the events.

All American children did not see the same book, however. Though the authorized Stokes edition sold well and never went out of print, a host of other versions quickly began to appear from mass-market publishers, from reprint houses, from small, outlying firms unconstrained by the mutual courtesies of the major publishers. A few are straight knock-offs of the book that Bannerman made, without her name on the title page; the majority were reillustrated -- with gross, degrading caricatures that set Sambo down on the old plantation or, with equal distortiveness, deposited him in Darkest Africa. Libraries stocked the Stokes edition, and a few others selectively. But overall the bootleg Sambos were much cheaper, more widely distributed, and vastly more numerous.12

Was Bannerman's Little Black Sambo racist? The major characters: Little Black Sambo, his mother (Black Mumbo) and his father (Black Jumbo) used standard English, not the bastardized English then associated with Blacks. Stereotypical anti-Black traits -- for example, laziness, stupidity, and immorality -- were absent from the book. Little Black Sambo, the character, was bright and resourceful unlike most portrayals of Black children. Nevertheless, the book does have anti-Black overtones, most notably the illustrations. Sambo is crudely drawn, an obvious caricature. Some Bannerman supporters claim that Sambo is not even Black, that he is actually Indian (South Asian, not American Indian). This seems unlikely. Bannerman could have drawn an Indian character if that was her intention, the Little Black Sambo character is very dark, has a broad nose, and the stereotypical exaggerated red lips and rolling eyes found in Black caricatures. His only South Asian feature is the hair, which is black but not kinky. The little hero is Black, not South Asian. Black Mumbo is drawn as a stereotypical American looking mammy, though she is not obese. The caricature of Black Jumbo is softer, though it is similar to the Dandy caricature. The names Mumbo and Jumbo also make the characters seem nonsensical at a time when Blacks were routinely thought to be inherently dumb.

The illustrations were racially offensive, and so was the name Sambo. At the time that the book was originally published Sambo was an established anti-Black epithet, a generic degrading reference. It symbolized the lazy, grinning, docile, childlike, good-for-little servant. Maybe Bannerman was unfamiliar with Sambo's American meaning. For many African Americans Little Black Sambo was an entertaining story ruined by racist pictures and racist names. Julius Lester, who has recently co-authored Sam and the Tigers, an updated Afrocentric version of Little Black Sambo, wrote:

When I read Little Black Sambo as a child, I had no choice but to identify with him because I am black and so was he. Even as I sit here and write the feelings of shame, embarrassment and hurt come back. And there was a bit of confusion because I liked the story and I especially liked all those pancakes, but the illustrations exaggerated the racial features society had made it clear to me represented my racial inferiority -- the black, black skin, the eyes shining white, the red protruding lips. I did not feel good about myself as a black child looking at those pictures.
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/spillman/sambo.htm

http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/picaninny/ (scroll down)

He fled from tigers. The tigers turned into ghee. It's a story about India. Why the illustrators made the images of him stereotypes of Africans is beyond me, but the story is about a little boy in India who outwits a bunch of tigers who are trying to eat him.

you want to ignore that, change history, fine. But you can't ignore the fact that it was used to hurt. In my time, in my own life experience, btw.

I occurs to me that you aren't appreciating the impact here in America of the version we were all exposed to. I have two original copies of each version, the Indian boy, and the carcaricture of a black boy. Most Americans were exposed to the latter, in keeping with the popularity of the stereotypes within among the majority of whites in America at that time. Read the article, it explains it well. I just remember the stereotype. All of the history and so forth were lost me in my youth. It was an accepted image that was perpetuated above the realistic portrayals of Blacks we enjoy today. There has been a backing off of the availability of the images today and that may have something to do with the lack of understanding about it's impact. But, this type of association was very prevalent and pernicious.

Tigers are indigenous to India, and do not roam Africa at all. "Black" was a term (yes, a derogatory term) the British used in reference to Asian Indians. NOthing to do with Africans or African Americans.

And you're right--the strongest hint is tigers turning into butter (ghee). Obviously about India.

nice of you to revise history to fit your view of 'Little Black Sambo' and completely ignore the decades that it was used as a slur, including in my own life experience.

Tigers, ghee, nothing either African or American there. Tigers are indigenous to India, not found in the wild in either Africa nor the Americas. It actually was racist...but "black" in this context was a British reference to Asian Indians.

Everything isn't about you.

to deny that the story of little black sambo has been used as a racial slur is simply wrong. To imply others are ignorant or self-centered because they are aware of the cultural history of sambo in america would be laughable if it weren't sad.

though the original book takes place in india, the illustrations (caricatures carrying obvious racist overtones) were likely indirectly inspired by the american practice of blackface, via the golliwog doll which was inspired by blackface and was popular in europe at the time the original sambo book was written. The word "sambo" has a long history in this country as a racist slur (and might have predated the original indian story as a stereotyped name for black characters), and the history of racist caricature like that used to illustrate the story has a long and complicated history as well.

India. The whole point in mentioning LBS is the way an innocuous story is used as a slur. You can't change that history, tigers or no

as there aren't any tigers in Africa.\ (Or North America).

http://www.ishipress.com/sambo.htm

even without that alteration it was still questionable as outlined in the article I provided in the post above about pickaninnys and the expolitation of the term, and the use of derogatory images of Blacks.

It's not the tigers which the American public was focusing on when they referred to Blacks as 'Sambo' I realize that may not have been part of your life experience, but you should know that 'Little Black Sambo' was not presented to most Americans as an Indian book.

"Little Black Sambo served as the boiler plate for a spate of other versions, many of which used mean-spirited racist drawings and dialogue. The vulgar reprint versions were symbolic of Black-White relations. Little Black Sambo's popularity coincided with the crystallization of Jim Crow laws and etiquette. Blacks were denied basic human and civil rights, discriminated against in the labor market, barred from many public schools and libraries, harassed at voting booths, subjected to physical violence, and generally treated as second class citizens. The year that Little Black Sambo came to America a Whites-initiated race riot occurred in New Orleans. It was effectively a pogrom -- Blacks were beaten, their schools and homes destroyed. Little Black Sambo did not, of course, cause riots, but it entered America during a period of strained and harsh race relations. It was, simply, another insult in the daily lives of African Americans.

The anti-Little Black Sambo movement started in the 1930s and continued into the 1970s. Black educators and civil rights leaders organized numerous campaigns to get the book banned from public libraries, especially in elementary schools. In 1932 Langston Hughes, the Black writer, said Little Black Sambo exemplified the "pickaninny variety" of storybook, "amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at." In the 1940s and 1950s the book was dropped from many lists of "Recommended Books." By the 1960s the book was seen as a remnant of a racist past."

http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/picaninny/

the illustrations resemble the golliwog doll, a doll that was popular in europe at the time of the book's publication and which was inspired by blackface.

The fact that the story takes place in india doesn't negate the racism of the original publication nor the racist connotations of the word.

That was another "fictional" character from the Lil Rascals, and not Indian as some suggest Sambo was.

That was on relatively even terms with the white characters (and more famous than most of the other Rascals to boot.) Of course, the characterization was demeaning... lynchings were still going on back then...

What's interesting is I learned about Buckwheat from black kids in my elementary school class. They used to make buckwheat jokes. I didn't know who or what the heck they were talking about.

Racist.

Don't you know that expression has direct connotations of lynching?

Just kidding :evilfrown: I have similar experiences to yours, in terms of background, only my family was from a VERY racist part of the south (we're talking Delta area) and the only thing "tar baby" ever referred to was a thing, not a person.

For any actual good old boys, (admittedly except for the ignorant white trash that get educated on Mein Kampf at neo-nazi survivalist camps and are unfamiliar with most childrens' stories, and I suppose there are plenty of those down South...) using it as a racial epithet would make about as much sense as using "boll weevil" as a racial slur against whites.

After all, cotton bolls are white.

On Edit: If people want something to post 350 times in one thread about, what about the city of Waco, TX's refusal to apologize for the mass lynching that occurred there 80 years ago? They're actually still "DEFENDING THE HONOR OF THE WHITE WOMAN" that was allegedly killed by the (mentally disabled) lynching victim. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. "We need to remember the victim here was Ms. so-and-so," one of the elected officials recently said.

(not really -- pipes contain TAR which is bad for you altho not necessarily in a racist sense)

It's from a great American parable. Have you never read American folklore?

waste your "beautiful mind" considering such things. :eyes:

Why not call them on their ignorance?

Most guys in the inner city, if they knew that alot of truly murderous rednecks out on the edge of town -- the ones that refused to go in and help people in the "bad neighborhoods" in the aftermath of Katrina -- if they knew that these people used "homey" as a racial epithet, they would probably laugh and consider them ignorant crackers.

Or maybe they'd stop using it and condemn anyone who did. :eyes:

Cracker, homey, redneck, 'cunass' (Cajun) and other terms fall into that interesting category of words that are only an insult if used by someone outside of the group in question. (I think "Grunts, Jarheads, and Zooms" fall into the same category.)

"tar baby", and other terms that are literary in origin fall into a separate category of ignorant people trying to impress each other by labeling people using literary references they don't understand.

What's that scene in Three Kings where the Iraqi interrogator tries to intimidate the captured American by asking him what is the problem with Michael Jackson, as if the American soldier is supposed to feel embarrassed? Another example of a misplaced cultural reference used as an insult.

In short, I don't think people should transfer their hurt feelings into words, esp. misuse of words by racists who don't know any better because they don't know what a "tar baby" is. I'm sure they call blacks "niggardly" all the time, too... just shows their ignorance of English.

And they want to make it the official language!

I read somewhere that "Ebonics" is closer to Early Modern English than the california-speak that is considered standard today.

und das NERVT MICH. HÖR AUF MIT DEM SCHEISSE, DU!!! :spank::spank::spank:

The original topic has to do with the *WHITE* HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY using what could easily be considered inappropriate language. I'm QUITE familiar with the subtleties of white "coded language" and

YES, TONY SNOW is a dyed-in-the-wool RACIST by my definition:

ProfessorBainbridge.com: Tony Snow Replies
So Sue Me," Tony Snow sent along this email (and kindly authorized me to post it: ... Once elected, he continued the policy he had attacked as racist and ...
www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/09/tony_snow_repli.html

Tony Snow: Jesse Jackson creates the “most dangerous problem” we ...
Racism is bornout in the drug war. The drug war and its secondary effects ... 1) It seems that tony snow kept making the assumption that the black people in ...
www.callingallwingnuts.com/2006/04/19/tony-snow-jesse-jackson-creates-the-most-dangerous-problem-we-face/
My opinion Tony Snow: Bling fight tarnishes blacks' image | www ...
He was branded a racist on the odd theory that gangsta culture expresses ... Tony Snow, broadcast talk show host and nationally syndicated columnist, ...
www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/opinion/100003.php

Clueless
... host Tony Snow said, "Trent Lott isn't a racist or a segregationist. ... But Byrd has largely repented for his past racist associations and offensive ...
www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021230&s=trb123002

The term "tar baby" falling like melted butter from HIS lips, in HIS POSITION, PLUS his usage of the verb "segregate" in light of his history DO instinctively cause my antennae to extend. They're MUCH TOO SENSITIVE, ya know... Ya know what else? It don't matter one fuckin' bit coming from the likes of me! After all, Rita Cosby STILL has her job.

I can think of several seemingly innocuous words which have been used to hurt and divide, which would offend different folks or groups.

I just did and she was STUNNED that tony snow said that.

Yes, it is VERY offensive.

All of them black and all of them find the term "tar baby" racist.

In fact, I am going to have to quit asking. I am starting to get some strange looks. LOL

The origins of the folk tale the Tar Baby and the Rabbit (Aarne-Thompson Tale Type 175) seem to be African. Joel Chandler Harris heard the tale as a child on a Georgia plantation and put it in his collection of tales centered around the fictitious storyteller, Uncle Remus.

There is nothing racist about Harris' work, although I would be surprised if Harris himself were not some kind of White supremacist. Nevertheless, I have a tendency, some would say unfortunate or politically incorrect, to forgive White men born in Georgia prior to the Civil War for thinking like White men born Georgia prior to the Civil War.

Like many modern folklorists, Harris attempted to capture in print the oral flavor of the story telling experience. This meant that he would try to capture the speech patterns of Afro-Americans who lived on Georgia plantations during the middle of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain said that no one did this better than Harris.

Here is the text of tale as retold by Harris.

I don't care which story people try to relate it to. As a black person I always find it offensive.

As a white person I find it very offensive.

Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby is a wonderful story and an excellent example of African American culture's contribution to American culture as a whole.

If Shrub had been read the story as a child he may have realized that *he* was doing exactly what the rabbit was doing, only he's doing it in the oily tar of Mesopotamia and with the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

It is very unfortunate that Snow would choose such a phrase.

Once I was surprised when I was reading something and the word 'ballast' came up. It could only mean "any heavy material used to stabilize a ship", that's the only way I had ever seen it used, or used it. I grew up on the shore. But the person was using the word to mean some part of a fluorescent lamp. Not a water-going fluorescent lamp, either.

I realized that the definition and use of the word 'ballast' wasn't what I would have expected. I could have asked what the writer of the instructions meant, or I could have assumed I knew what he meant.

I've seen people argue that any definition or use of a word they don't know or haven't experienced before must be incorrect, and show the speaker's ignorance of something everybody knows to be true. After all, I didn't use the word 'ballast' in a way that could apply to fluorescent lamps, and nobody I knew used it that way, either. My response to the person who wrote the description of a fluorescent light should, by that reasoning, have been to write to complain that the person was obviously inept and an idiot, he clearly misused a word, possibly wilfully showing his ignorance.

But instead I gave the speaker the benefit of the doubt: Perhaps he had a different experience, or perhaps the word was regularly used in some other meaning by some other group of English-speaking Americans, so that it had more than one meaning. "What other use does the word 'ballast' have?", I asked myself, humbling acknowledging the possibility of a limitation in my knowledge. And I learned something: 'ballast' also means 'an electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps'.

The writer was justified in his use of the term, a use unknown to me because I had little experience with fluorescent-lamp construction. To have accused him of misusing the word would have both shown my limitation as well as my unwillingness to think that I was limited and could learn.

:eyes:

and haven't heard anyone complain. In fact, Rep. Watson, an African-American Democrat from California used it in reference to iraq. http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ca33_watson/pr050628.html

Folks should chill out over this, but I know that they won't.

onenote

And let a bunch of people tell me I'm overreacting when I find something offensive. Just because you or a million other people don't find something offensive has nothing to do with how I react to something.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Seriously, I'm waiting... C'mon, where's your outrage?

I'm defending language and cultural references that used to be commonly understood. I'm defending a metaphor from American folklore.

I don't give two-bits for Snow, and he may indeed be a racist, but this was not a racist reference. He was not making a point about race, he was making a point about trickery and entrapment.

And then they try to say that anyone who would be offended is ignorant or uneducated. I find the majority of this thread offensive and unbelievable.

http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/reading/remus/images/1950tarbaby.htm

Race relations should be symmetrical.

"Rule #1 for black folks: if anything by ANY amount of gerrymandering can POSSIBLLY be interpreted as racist, than that kludge racist explanation MUST be true. It MUST." In this case, however, it's not a kludge. The term was used for a few generations before it was politicized.

If a term's intended to be derogatory, it is; if it has a non-derogatory use, it's not. I've gotten in arguments where people argue (a) that those offended get to unilaterally decide what is offensive and what users of certain words must mean; and (b) that those offended have absolutely no right to decide what is offensive, and how dare they dictate what users of certain words must mean. The difference has always been that (a) includes people of color, and those agreeing with them; (b) includes people of non-color. Of course, examples of inter-non-color-ethnic disparaging creates confusion until a victimization scale is adequately worked out; then the one laying claim to having suffered greater victimization always is in charge of what Chomsky and many others, in talking about language, defines in terms of consensus.

To quote another, 'piffle.'

The relevant part of the story, so that you may understand what was said and what was intended, having already concluded otherwise:

"Brer Rabbit keep on axin' 'im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin' nothin',
twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis', he did, en blip he tuck
'er side er de head. Right dar's whar he broke his merlasses jug. His fis'
stuck, en he can't pull loose. De tar hilt 'im. But Tar-Baby, she stay
still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

"`Ef you don't lemme loose, I'll knock you agin,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, en
wid dat he fotch 'er a wipe wid de udder han', en dat stuck. Tar-Baby, she
ain'y sayin' nuthin', en Brer Fox, he lay low.

"`Tu'n me loose, fo' I kick de natal stuffin' outen you,' sez Brer Rabbit,
sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nuthin'. She des hilt on, en de
Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low.
Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don't tu'n 'im loose he butt
'er cranksided. En den he butted, en his head got stuck. Den Brer Fox, he
sa'ntered fort', lookin' dez ez innercent ez wunner yo' mammy's
mockin'-birds.

"`Howdy, Brer Rabbit,' sez Brer Fox, sezee. `You look sorter stuck up dis
mawnin',' sezee, en den he rolled on de groun', en laft en laft twel he
couldn't laff no mo'. `I speck you'll take dinner wid me dis time, Brer
Rabbit. I done laid in some calamus root, en I ain't gwineter take no
skuse,' sez Brer Fox, sezee."

Text: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anatar.html
Brief analysis: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anatar.html

I can't help but wonder how accurate the representation of dialect is. http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/brasch.html seems to say it's not bad, but I haven't looked at the book and Google turns up too many useless hits; I know from Russian and Czech literature that dialect is often stylized, however, with no ill effect--unless there's a community that feels slighted by it, then suddenly how *their* speech, and nobody elses, is presented is suddenly of earth-shaking importance. Retroactively, especially.

Sheesh.

And in this case people are trying to say asymmetry in one direction is not only ok, it's the best of all possible worlds.

I don't like being insulted, and try to use common sense when I hear an expression that I might possibly construe as insulting. When I ask the person and find out that s/he mispoke, or I misunderstood the context, I stop being upset. I don't seek to impose my will on the other person and dictate what s/he thought when she spoke. Others apparently think that they have a greater right to be offended, and to decide what others mean. That's foolish, and there's no skin-color or ideological defense for that sort of foolishness.

The problem is that here people are trying to label somebody a racist who may very well be a racist, but they're using completely specious evidence. And, when the speciousness is pointed out, they cover themselves with a mantle of self-righteousness and indignation, false victimization and ignorance. They may be victimized at times, but that doesn't mean every time they might be victimized they necessarily are being victimized.

I don't like it when whites do it; I don't like it when Xians do it; I don't like it when blacks do it; and I don't like it when Muslims do it.

just another white republican using the term "tar baby".

God those negroids are fools.

:sarcasm:

You can try to contextualize it away all you want - the fact remains that whatever shred of decency the word may have had has long since vanished because of racist white folks.

for a while now. So you're far from original, and far from witty.

The amount of ill-will expressed by supposedly progressive people exulting in ignorance is amazing.

They so believe that they are the end-all and be-all of English comprehension they cannot conceive that a word can have a non-racist use that they personally have not authorized. And, if they change their mind, all those whites--who they apparently believe are so intellectually superior--must automatically know it. Foolishness.

I know what I think words mean. You know what you think words mean. Words mean precisely that. I assume we share meanings; but if that breaks down, I'm not going to call you racist or stupid because of it, especially if the difference in understanding results from a difference in experience. Or perhaps only one set of experiences are proper for people--thus making all others the equivalent of slugs. Truly a humanistic view, worthy of an enlightened human member of the reality-based community, with progressive values.

So, let's assume you--and others--are right. "To hug a tar baby" is merely a demeaning way of saying "to hug a black child." Please explain to me what the similarity is that makes not addressing questions about a program similar to hugging a black child, and especially show how the racist attitude plays into it.

Perhaps Snow didn't want to address the question because both the program and the child would be black? Small? Room temperature? Inanimate? Do you really think Snow thinks all black children are sticky? That would be tacky of him. Perhaps he thinks the program and the child are racially or intellectually inferior?

Come on--you're the one saying that 'tar baby' can only be a derogatory word for 'black child', since context doesn't matter. Back up your implied assertion. I don't think you can: in context, the reference must be to a pitch-covered doll because the only relevant property between the program (the program as a topic) and the 'tar baby' is one not shared with actual AA kids. So to assert equivalence in meaning is to reduce the sentence to nonsense, which is clearly not the case.

malicious, freepers, or just totally lacking in empathy.

But I guess the likeliest explanation is that they don't want to change a situation
that has always worked so well for them.

any more than quoting Mark Twain is racist; both books had racist characters. It's from the Uncle Remus stories. The rabbit sees a tar baby and kicks it, tries to pull his legs out with his hands, and tries to pull his hands out with his face. It's a great image for a quagmire -- probably the last image the administration wants to bring to mind right now, though...

top of the list of subjects in people's minds.

An obscure, old-fashioned reference. This group is out of touch.

means to be unable to extricate oneself from a terrible situation. It comes from the Brer Rabbit stories, which came from African American folktales.

I doubt that he will emerge from this all spic 'n' span.

This will create just one more hole in the leaking dike of the Bush administration.

that I didn't post this kind of thing before you did. :D

:headbang:

a reporter asked him to clarify.

Im sure the reporter knows very well that without clarification many people would be extrememly offended.

Other than the briar patch the other famous brer rabbit story is brer rabbit and the tar baby. When you hug the tar baby it sticks to you and is impossible to get rid of. Brer fox tries to capture brer rabbit (for dinner) by getting him ensnared by the tar baby.

Note also that there are deep racial overtones in the brer rabbit stories, all of which came out of the underground slave culture of the south. Who know what the heck Tony Snow (Asshat, False News/GOP Productions) meant?

I suppose 1/2 of DU will go all apoplectic. Apparently there aren't any real problems left to deal with.

that make it more racially overloaded. Look - if we can put Snow on the defensive right from the start, why not do it? These guys are under seige right now and the best thing to do is to attack attack attack attack.

than making shit up. I try to behave honorably. I'm a little old fashioned.

... I think that things like this are better left unsaid, even if there is no harm intended... There are a myriad of meaning to everything nowadays, so either he is too stupid to realize that, or he tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, that they might "get" the reference.

On another note...

If anyone should be insulted by the "Sambo" thing, it might be the East Indians.

The racial view of the term came from the children's story, originally titled, "Little Black Sambo". In an attempt to be more racially sensitive, the title of the story was changed to "Little Brave Sambo". If One remembers the story, it was about a tiger or two that chased Sambo around until He climbed into a tree, and they eventually turned into butter... The key here is Tigers... See... Tigers are indigenous to Asia, not Africa, so "Sambo" was east indian...

The depictions of "Sambo" in Sambo's restaurants was of an East indian Child, not and African one.

btw... The Name Sambo's for the restaurant chain was an amalgam of the names of the two that started the chain... Sam Battistone, and William Bojanski... They should have thought of another name IMHO>

tar baby
n.

A situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle oneself.

quagmire . . .

Pathetic because he expected Americans to know enough about their own culture to interpret this reference correctly.

Bad enough we don't know anything about other cultures, but ignorance about our OWN culture never ceases to amaze me.