Tar Baby?

[truthpusher]

:puke:
what in the fuck is wrong with the GOP and WHY do they think this is ok??

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/14/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4097856.shtml

(The Politico) In a 20-page memo on GOP electoral woes, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) repeatedly misspells Barack Obama's name - it's one R, congressman, not two -- and then manages to use the racially charged term "tar baby" in a paragraph about Obama and immigration.

"Remember," Davis writes, "Hispanic voters are a swing group in this election and future elections. John McCain, being from a border state, may be out of sync with many Republicans but he has standing among Hispanics. Barrack Obama has not made the sale to Hispanic voters. Thus, this issue is a tar baby for anyone who touches it, with land mines everywhere."

Copyright 2008 POLITICO

------------------------------

Interesting that this term has come up often from the GOP side... on several occasions, there have even been apologies - here are some recent events:

John McCain's use and apology: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/16/mccain2/

Mitt Romney's use and apology: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/31/politics/main1851199.shtml

Tony Snows use and defense of that use: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/18/snow-tar-baby/

[SeattleGirl]

1. Sickening.

:grr:

[AZBlue]

2. What a disgusting, vile, reprehensible, loathsome piece of shit.

Now, let me tell you what I really think of him...

[berni_mccoy]

3. He will lose re-election for that.

[DemGa]

4. Tar baby

tar baby
–noun
a situation, problem, or the like, that is almost impossible to solve or to break away from.
Also, tarbaby.



Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tar%20baby

[PBS Poll-435]

9. NO!

We need the anecdotal definition!

[backscatter712]

17. Tar Baby comes from Song of the South

which in turn got the story from the Uncle Remus stories. Not exactly one of the most racially enlightened stories out there...

[PBS Poll-435]

18. I am familiar with the story.

Huh?

[backscatter712]

22. Wikipedia explains it better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_baby

The Tar Baby that Brer Rabbit kicks is pretty much portrayed as looking like a stereotypical black person, and yes, in various places (though not all places,) the term has been used as a racist pejorative.

[PBS Poll-435]

25. They were bunny-rabbits.

Seriously

[truthpusher]

40. ancient southern children's books - ok.... contemporary political stage - not ok.

[knight_of_the_star]

49. That part makes sense

But the concept works as well, here it might be used as a racist pejorative, but in other situations it would serve as a legitimate term I think for describing a tactic or something.

ie

"Abortion issues will be a tar baby for candidate X due to their outspoken position on the issue considering their private actions do not support their stance"

[TahitiNut]

20. My parents read Uncle Remus to me as a pre-schooler.

There was NOTHING 'racist' about it whatsoever.

[mcctatas]

39. There are others who share that opinion...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1639239/posts

If you do not think it's racist, then go scream it at the top of your lungs on a friday night on Chicago's south side...

or, just read this:
tar baby-
the doll smeared with tar, set to catch Brer Rabbit (1881); hence transf., spec. an object of censure; a sticky problem, or one which is only aggravated by attempts to solve it(colloq.);
a derog. term for a Black (U.S.) or a Maori (N.Z.).
something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself.
n. a "sticky problem" (20th century use).
A Black person (used in the U.S., 1940s).
A derogatory term for a Maori (used in N.Z., 1950s).
A Negro baby. Cf. Tar pot (sense 1) (U.S. colloquial, mid 1800s-present).
http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/tar_baby.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_slur

[lapfog_1]

52. Did you also read Little Black Sambo?

As written, by the author in India, about an Indian boy (tigers... India not Africa).

It wasn't racist at all for the context it was written for.

However, as ILLUSTRATED, it was racist as hell.

So racist that a 1100 chain of restaurants named "Sambo's" (no relation to the book, but a concatenation of the original two owners' names) closed down in large part due to the racist overtones of the illustration of a children's book and then subsequent adaptation by a certain segment of our population as a racial slur.

Uncle Remus was much the same way.

[GoesTo11]

59. Julius Lester reclaimed the Uncle Remus stories as part of the African American heritage

And my kids just loved them. Delightful for read aloud.

[TahitiNut]

11. That's right. The notion that it's "racially charged" is idiotic ... a recent invention

... by folks who've got too much time on their hands and not enough education in their skulls.

[PBS Poll-435]

28. Like West Virginians!

Remember?

:eyes:

[truthpusher]

42. I am 42 and this word has always been used as a racist term for as long as I can remember...

[Terran]

43. You realize, of course,

that you're defending republicans here? Do you?

[TahitiNut]

46. I'm being honest. Deal with it.

I'll be 65 next month and the term has been known to me for well over 60 of those years and NEVER (until recently on DU) knew it had a racial pejorative meaning to *some* people. (I'm hardly naive about such things, either.)

It seems to me that it's possible that ignorant bigots (are there other kinds?), unread and illiterate, MAY have hijacked the term NOT KNOWING ANY BETTER.

I'm probably one of the least racist folks on the planet and I could well imagine (inadvertently?) using such a term without the slightest intention of making a racial slur.

In my view, it'd be like the word "niggardly" being hijacked by some knuckle-dragging racists. English is a "living language" and even imbeciles can pollute it.

[last_texas_dem]

51. I agree

To me, "tar baby" is only a racist phrase in the same sense that "niggardly" and "picnic" are racist terms: based on misinterpretations of what the words/phrases actually mean.

I mean, OK, it would be racist if the Repug memo had said "When Barack Obama was a young 'tar baby'" or something like that, but the memo didn't say that. It used the phrase in its long-understood definition: describing a difficult or "sticky" situation.

[ekwhite]

56. I grew up in the South and Tar Baby was most certainly racially charged

I know of the Uncle Remus stories, I read many of them. I've even visited the Uncle Remus Museum in Georgia (Joel Chandler Harris' old home). I also grew up hearing blacks called 'tar babies' by my racist kin, when they weren't calling them worse names. To call the idea that the term is racially charged "idiotic" is in itself idiotic.

[chascarrillo]

34. It's times like these when I am so frickin' glad I moved away from Georgia.

[DemGa]

36. So why tell me?

Besides, I'm sure they have dictionaries wherever you are.

My point in posting a standard definition was to provide that perhaps the man is not guilty - assumptions can prove incorrect.

[chascarrillo]

48. I sure do! The Oxford English Dictionary says it's derogatory, and I think it's authoritative.

Plenty of slang dictionaries also describe it as derogatory.

[Forkboy]

57. I wish you'd give Obama the same benefit of the doubt that you're giving to a Repub.

[myrna minx]

54. Thank Gawd we have a infamous H supporter excusing this.

Tomorrow is another day, right DemGA? :puke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVeFyV0iLrk

[Name removed]

5. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ruby slippers]

6. I wonder what Imus thinks of that remark?

[stahbrett]

7. I'm not defending this idiot, but when exactly did "tar baby" become racist?

I ask because when I was younger, tar baby was simply a metaphor for a sticky situation that only gets stickier when you try to fix it, from the old Br'er Rabbit tale. But in recent years, any use of it seems to generate charges of racism...

[ej510]

10. Well when I was a kid tar baby was used as a racial slur about skin color.

[OzarkDem]

14. It actually refers to a fable

from Uncle Remus and refers to getting tricked into grabbing hold of something you think you want and finding you'll get stuck in a problem you can't get away from.

[stahbrett]

30. Well, if this idiot had said that Obama was a tar baby, it would fit with your childhood memories

But as it stands in the OP, he said: "this issue is a tar baby", which fits with the definition many of us have of the term.

(Dammit, I just defended this idiot after all!)

[redstate_democrat]

37. Well, I guess if he has said,

"Senator Clinton doesn't have much standing with Hispanics. This issue is a bitch no one wants to touch."

I can see how that wouldn't be a problem...

:sarcasm:

[KittyWampus]

8. Tar baby isn't a racially charged term unless you are an extremist who cares nothing

about cultural context.

[TahitiNut]

16. Agreed.

That one just has me shaking my head every time it's brought up. It's been a metaphor for a "sticky problem" since I was a kid in the 40s and before.

[la la]

44. uh-

where did you grow up?

I grew up in PA and it WAS used in a derogatory way---back in the 40s, too.

[TahitiNut]

50. Born (1943) & raised in the Detroit area.

NEVER heard it that way ... and ya hear damned near EVERYTHING around here. Lived in Mobile, Alabama, for a year and a half in the 50s... and never heard it that way that I can recall.

I always understood it as "an attractive, sticky problem."

[casus belli]

21. Oh...really?

Is that why Roy Disney had the good sense not to release the story in the 40's because of the possible racial implications? This isn't new. If you aren't aware that this has been used as a derogatory term for African Americans, then you haven't been paying attention.

Did he mean it in that context? Probably not. But given the infrequency of the term in the language of current times, it should raise eyebrows that he not only chose to use it, but chose to use it in a sentence in which he's speaking about Obama.

[OzarkDem]

12. You aint seen nothing yet

If Obama makes it to the GE, you'll see far worse than this.

Fasten your seatbelts.

[Forkboy]

13. Just a slip of the tongue. And I'm sure the Hillary supporters already on this thread agree.

[MonkeyFunk]

15. "Tar baby" isn't racist

come on guys.

[FredScuttle]

19. Ah....more lessons on racial sensitivity from the Hillary C. Wallace crowd

[TahitiNut]

27. I'm FAR from being a Hillary supporter AND I'm appalled at her campaign's 'dog whistle' race-baiting

... but there's not a damned thing racist about the term "tar baby" at all except in the hyperventilated imaginations of some people who want to make it that way.

Gawd ... how many times must we go over this shit? :eyes:

[last1standing]

31. It really depends on where you grew up and the people you associate with.

My family in Flat Rock, MI used "tar baby" as a racial slur all the time. Most of the people I knew growing up in the 70's did as well. Others wouldn't have had that experience so mileage may very.

[TahitiNut]

32. Well, I grew up here in the Detroit 'burbs in the 40s and never heard it used racially.

I damned well heard vitually EVERY racial epithet around and THAT was merely a "irresistable, sticky problem."

[last1standing]

35. I really think it depends on the suburb you're from.

Flat Rock was a major "beneficiary" of White Flight in the late 60's and early 70's so that had some influence. Also, My family moved to Flat Rock from the mountains of Kentucky and I imagine brought that little euphemism with them. Either way, it was pretty common in our all white neighborhood.

[redstate_democrat]

38. I've also heard the term "tar baby" used as a racial slur and I live in St. Louis.

The term may have a legitimate meaning, but it, as other archaic terms, have been used as racial and sexist slurs.

Bitch = female dog

n**ger = uneducated person

tar baby = sticky situation

cra**er = a saltine

and on and on and on....

[last_texas_dem]

53. I agree; I've lived almost all of my life in heavily racist East Texas

and the only place I've ever seen "tar baby" used/interpreted as a racist term is here on DU.

[LowerManhattanite]

58. This classic SNL bit from 30 years ago shows it in it's super-pejorative use...

Millions of people have seen this and are quite familiar with it...

http://crackle.com/c/Funny/Richard_Pryor_and_Chevy_Chase_Word_Association/978468

[FredScuttle]

33. Try to follow this....

A) Repuke uses the term "tar baby" in reference to Obama
B) Democrats here rightfully call him out on the racial insensitivity (whether you agree or not) of using such a loaded term
C) A Hillary supporter defends the use of the term
D) An Obama supporter, tired of the Clinton campaign's descent into George Wallace-type dog-whistle race-baiting calls him out on this

[la la]

45. ack-

tahiti said *shit*

[Thrill]

24. Go ask a black person if it is or not

And see what answer you get.

This is one of the names that came up in South Carolina a few yrs ago when talking about McCain's adopted daughter.

[LowerManhattanite]

55. The original usage in the “Br'er Rabbit” tales skates along the edges...

...of it but is NOT inherently racist itself.

However, the open slur “Tar Baby” most certainly is.

My family hails from the south, and calling someone a “Tar Baby” is straight-up fighting words.

Along with damn near every one of the other epithets Chevy Chase threw at Richard Pryor in their infamous “Word Association” sketch.

[earthside]

23. Davis is an Idiot, but ...

"Tar baby" is not a racial term.

Read "Br'er Rabbit" ... understand what is going on in the story and you'll clearly see that the term is not racial.

Now, if you call someone "sweetie" on the other hand, well, you must be a sexist pig.

Right?

[redstate_democrat]

41. What IS a racial term?

Most of the words used as racial slurs have various meanings.

Think of the sickest racial slur, and you will find, through a little research, the origin of the word and its original meaning is something totally different. Not until the word is used as a pejorative does its use become infrequently used, eventually becoming widely recognized as a slur with only one meaning.


See "niggardly"

[Cali_Democrat]

26. The GOP won't be able to contain themselves during the GE

They're so racist. Hopefully America will finally recognize this.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[galledgoblin]

47. initially? no, tar baby was not a racist term

it was a part of a cute children's story, and the "tar" was PINE tar, which is more of a clear-golden color.

add 125ish years of culture interpretation? it's totally a racist term.

it will remain so for at least another 125ish years, until bullshit like what the GOP is pulling in the OP comes to a stop.

[HuffleClaw]

60. what a load of fake outrage

but fake outrage IS effective these days