"Tar Baby"

[martinhollys]

How do you feel about this Romney snafu? Is this the fault of Disney for not releasing the culturally sensitive edition of Song of the South? Also, is snafu an obscenity? What about Romney?

Best,
MH

[JenLee]

I think Romney needs to meet Randall Graves from Clerks.

In all seriousness, though, while I can appreciate the vividness of that metaphor for an inextricably sticky situation, and while I don't for a second think that he used it out of any spite, there's just no getting around the really awful racial aspects of that term. Any educated individual -- particularly one in a public office -- should know better. Song of the South has nothing to do with it; "tar baby" would be an odious term with or without the movie.

I just feel kind of bad for the guy in that his ignorance is on display on a national level. If you or I were to make the same mistake, it certainly wouldn't be to as broad an audience, that's for sure.

[missbitesalot]

What I thought was funny was his prefacing the term "tar baby" with "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can,"

Obviously, the best thing for him politically would have been to STFU...oh wait, that's probably an obscenity.

[Professor John]

STFU=Stay Tuned For Updates!?

[kaledrina]

I think Romney needs to meet Randall Graves from Clerks.

I think the world would be a lot nicer if everyone met Randal Graves.

[jaclyn]

What makes this whole thing much worse is that Tony Snowjob just got a bunch of flack for using the same metaphor (twice in one briefing) a month or so back! So Romney really hasn't been paying attention.

[martinhollys]

So it's agreed, then. Ken has to become the first Mormon president. Sorry, KJ. Looks like you've got a busy schedule ahead of you.

[Budphrey]

So it's agreed, then. Ken has to become the first Mormon president. Sorry, KJ. Looks like you've got a busy schedule ahead of you.

Foreign policy platform: We refuse to participate in international fora unless all sides agree to respond to inflammatory statements in the form of a question.

Hey, seriously, that might just work.

[nrajeff]

The way I remember it, in the story the tar baby was just--merely--a dummy, made of tar, to be used as a trap. In time, the image of the rabbit stuck to the dummy became a metaphor for any regrettable situation a person got himself (or herself, so as not to incur the wrath of the obviously-present PC police) into.

How does any reference to that phrase--or any use of that metaphor--constitute an MSRB*? Or is my logic somehow flawed?

Let the flaming begin...


*Mortal Sin of Racism or Bigotry

[Till_We_Have_Faces]

How do you feel about this Romney snafu? Is this the fault of Disney for not releasing the culturally sensitive edition of Song of the South? Also, is snafu an obscenity? What about Romney?

Best,
MH

Does anyone else think that cultural sensitivity seems a little artificial? I do not care for the idea of a melting pot, where we all turn into a bland porridge of political correctness.

I'm not saying that being rude or mean or hateful is OK, of course it never is.

I just want to hear the message and the man, not hover like a grammar vulture looking so hard for a morsel that I miss the banquet.

[Till_We_Have_Faces]

So it's agreed, then. Ken has to become the first Mormon president. Sorry, KJ. Looks like you've got a busy schedule ahead of you.

How about just the first President with a sense of humor and irony? The Morman part wouldn't really matter much.

[jaclyn]

The way I remember it, in the story the tar baby was just--merely--a dummy, made of tar, to be used as a trap. In time, the image of the rabbit stuck to the dummy became a metaphor for any regrettable situation a person got himself (or herself, so as not to incur the wrath of the obviously-present PC police) into.

How does any reference to that phrase--or any use of that metaphor--constitute an MSRB*? Or is my logic somehow flawed?

Let the flaming begin...


*Mortal Sin of Racism or Bigotry

I'm not flaming. To be honest, I didn't really realize that "tar baby" has been used as a racial epithet. But I'm a white person who would never dream of using such an epithet, so I'm not up-to-date on the current list.

Regardless, it is a racially-loaded term. In a relatively quick search, I found this lovely example:
Tar Baby Outrage! Racism and Corruption at the Redstone Arsenal

To me, it was a much bigger problem when Snow did it, because he is supposed to be a professional communicator. Part of communicating is realizing that it's a two-way street. You can't just talk without thinking about how what you say will be perceived by your audience.

Romney is just a politician. This wouldn't have been near as stupid if the exact same term hadn't been in the news last month!

[Ken Jennings]

The weird thing is I hadn't even heard about this until I saw this thread. I get all my news from ken-jennings.com (TM)!

[nrajeff]

Thanks for the info, Jaclyn. As the South Park kid says at the end of the episode, "I learned something today." From the article:

"Webster’s second definition of Tar Baby is, “something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself.” At Redstone Arsenal, a Tar Baby is a Black person you can’t get rid of. "

Apparently it needs to be pointed out that just because there was one incident of the term being misappropriated, it does not mean that the term should never be used again, by anyone on Planet Earth, under penalty of being branded a racist or an ignoramus (or both) and summarily demonized. That kind of...quasi-McCarthyism just defies logic, IMO.

If standard dictionaries have an innocuous definition of the term, I don't see the sin in using the term in the way the dictionaries define it. If we all jump on the PC bandwagon, that's when we end up bastardizing our own language to the point of absurdity.

[Ken Jennings]

In other words, you're going to have to pry embarrassing racist epithets out of nrajeff's cold, dead fingers.

[LizLackey]

I'm not flaming. To be honest, I didn't really realize that "tar baby" has been used as a racial epithet. But I'm a white person who would never dream of using such an epithet, so I'm not up-to-date on the current list.

Obviously, you have never seen this Saturday Night Live sketch.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75ginterview.phtml

[JenLee]

Redstone Arsonal is hardly the originator of the negative aspects of that term! The fury over this issue is not a PC bandwagon, and it's not oversensitivity, and it certainly isn't another situation like the stupid "niggardly" brouhaha from a few years ago. "Tar baby" as a racist term may not be as widespread as other epithets, but that doesn't mean that it's any less offensive in certain parts. I grew up in Mississippi and I heard the term from ignorant nitwits more times than I care to recount.

One of Toni Morrison's novels is called Tar Baby, and she herself had an interesting commentary on the term:

Tar Baby is also a name, like "nigger," that white people call black children, black girls, as I recall. At one time, a tar pit was a holy place, at least an important place, because tar was used to build things. It held together things like Moses' little boat and the pyramids. For me, the tar baby came to mean the black woman who can hold things together.

- From an interview with Morrison by Karin L. Badt (1995)

Anyway, as pointed out upthread, people whose job is to communicate with the public shouldn't make this kind of amateurish, inflammatory mistake, regardless of how innocent their intentions were.

[Vorotyntsev]

I think you would have to be living under a rock not to know that "tar-baby" is offensive. OTOH, I once said to a friend, "I haven't seen you in a 'coon's age," and he thought that was offensive, although I thought it referred to a racoon, not, well, you know. Anybody here old enough to remember a Denny's-like restaurant chain called "Sambo's"? Complete with illustrations of Li'l Black Sambo on the menu. Which reminds me of a great movie, "Ghost World," with Scarlett Johannsen. Stop me before I do say something offensive...

[ecurbh]

Anybody here old enough to remember a Denny's-like restaurant chain called "Sambo's"? Complete with illustrations of Li'l Black Sambo on the menu.

I remember going there on occassion when I was a child, as well as my mother reading the original Little Black Sambo story to me at bedtime. And of course, I felt compelled to do a bit of Googling to find out more about the history of that restaurant's name.

The name derived from a combination of the original owners Sam Battistone and Newell Bonette who commonly were referred to as Sam and Bo. When they discovered the book "Little Black Sambo" written by Hellen Bartrum in 1899, they thought it was the perfect match. Today, this original Sambo's is the only one remaining in America. http://www.santabarbara.com/dining/a_stones_throw/sambos/default.asp

[martinhollys]

Apparently, in a coon's age has an innocent origin (as does tarbaby, I suppose), but it still can be taken as racist. Why don't we replace it with "in a Q's age" (with reference to the inhabitants of the Q continuum in Star Trek). That way, we can identify each other more easily at ComiCon.

-MH

[bobg]

I think you would have to be living under a rock not to know that "tar-baby" is offensive.

I've been told I'm pretty bright, and hip, and hep, and I can pull an awful lot of erudition out of my a-- er, head, but the offensive meaning of "tar baby" is new to me. (Hey, if it's not in that song from Hair...)

Nevertheless, the strongest association I previously had for that phrase was Song of the South, which is enough all by itself to let me know I should keep the phrase at arm's length when choosing my sensitive-white-guy words.

Cheers,
- Bob

[WendellWit]

In a nutshell, "The Tar Baby" predates Uncle Remus but definately originates in African-American folklore (let's face it, a child growing up in an all-white environment would never mistake a 'tar baby' for a real baby), and was picked up as an unfortunately appropriate racial epithet among white folk who did not want to touch black folk (ten-foot pole optional, but then, isn't that term considered offensive to Polish basketball players?)

Sorry, I thought I could remain serious for an entire paragraph...

[irene]

Anybody here old enough to remember a Denny's-like restaurant chain called "Sambo's"? Complete with illustrations of Li'l Black Sambo on the menu. ...

I think there is only one Sambo's Restauant left and that is the original one in Santa Barbara. My brother lives in Santa Barbara. that is how I know about it. It is located on prime real estate, right across from the beach. We've never eaten there and I am always surprised it survived, with that name and all.

[WendellWit]

The Truth About Sambo's Restaurants

For those of you who choose not to click, the name came from the two founders, "Sam" and "Bo", and the Sambo mascot was always depicted as an Indian (Hindu) boy, complete with turban, drawn in a much more Asian than African style. A whole different racial stereotype. (And before closing down, they tried renaming many locations "No Place Like Sam's"... no response from Bo)

[gameshowcongress]

Speaking of stereotypes - the Governor of Colorado this week got some flak from various sectors for this:

From http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4133434

Republican Gov. Bill Owens on Thursday defended former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm's remarks that Asians and Jews have more ambition than Hispanics and blacks, saying he wished his three children had more of a Jewish and Asian work ethic.

"There are many days ... when I wish they'd have more aspects of Jewish and Asian culture. I wish they'd get up earlier in the morning, I wish they would work harder and in many respects that's what we do see out of many of the Asian and the Jewish culture," Owens said on a talk-radio show.

Sounds pretty charged, to some, But here is the context:

The subject came up on 850 KOA-AM's "The Mike Rosen Show." Owens and Rosen were discussing the recently released CSAP [Colorado Student Assessment Program] scores, which Rosen said show Hispanic and black children don't perform as well in reading as Asian and white children. The subject segued into comments Lamm made last week.

In the currently PC leaning society, apparently you can't necessarily refer to facts even in a postive way and not get thrashed for it.