Is "Tar Baby" a racial slur?

[pscot]

I would really like to know what Black DUers think about it. The term originated in a story by Joel Chandler Harris, about the war of wits between Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. The Tar Baby in question was a trap set to catch the rabbit. The tale appeared in a Disney film, The SONG OF THE SOUTH, which is no longer available, presumably for reasons of PC. The film mixed human actors and cartoons very cleverly. Uncle Remus, an old black man, befriends a lonely young white boy and tells him tales about the critters. Brer rabbit gets stuck to the tar baby because he's foolish and arrogant. His wit gets him out of the predicament. Seems fairly innocuous to me. Maybe I need sensitivity training.

[rocktivity]

1. It wasn't then, but it is now

It certainly isn't anyone's fault that tar is black, but there you are.


rocknation

[NMDemDist2]

2. yes n/t

[rzemanfl]

3. Is "niggardly?" Must we always say "penurious" instead? n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

22. Only if you are gay and work in the DC government

That episode really ticked me off...

[fishwax]

36. "tar baby" and niggardly are clearly different

"tar baby" (regardless of its origin) has a long and established history as a racial slur. "Niggardly" was never a racial slur, it just played one on TV.

[brokensymmetry]

4. I would never have thought that.

I thought it was one of the Bre'r Rabbit part of
the Uncle Remus stores. Truth be told, I rather
enjoyed the story.

Really, do you think it's become a slur? How sad.

[pscot]

6. I ask because of the dust up

over Mit Romney's use of the term. I guess my real question is, is this just white liberals over-reacting, or is the black community really offended by it?

[orleans]

29. uncle remus

song by frank zappa & george duke

"Wo, are we movin' too slow?
Have you seen us,
Uncle Remus . . .
We look pretty sharp in these clothes (yes, we do)
Unless we get sprayed with a hose
It ain't bad in the day
If they squirt it your way
'Cept in the winter, when it's froze
An' it's hard if it hits
On yer nose
On yer nose

Just keep yer nose
To the grindstone, they say
Will that redeem us,
Uncle Remus . . .
I can't wait till my Fro is full-grown
I'll just throw 'way my Doo-Rag at home
I'll take a drive to BEVERLY HILLS
Just before dawn
An' knock the little jockeys
Off the rich people's lawn
An' before they get up
I'll be gone, I'll be gone
Before they get up
I'll be knocking the jockeys off the lawn
Down in the dew"
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Frank-Zappa/Uncle-Remus.html

[MrSlayer]

5. Depends on how it's used.

"Get my fucking dinner tar baby!" referring to a person would be.

"We don't want to touch that tar baby" in reference to a sticky situation or the like would not be.

It's quite antiquated as a racial slur, I've never really heard anyone use it as such. The old word association bit on SNL with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase is the only place I've heard it in that context.

[pscot]

8. The only racial context

I know of is to suggest that someone has a touch of the tar baby, implying racially diverse parentage.

[MrSlayer]

21. That would fall into the slur category.

Referring to a black person as a tar baby.

[Jed Dilligan]

39. tar brush is what you're thinking of nt

[LostinVA]

7. *sob* not another tar baby thread

*whimper*

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. Tell me about it...

I was just searching for the other 5 thousand threads to PM to this person who must have just come out of a long coma.

**I mean that in a nice way.

:hi:

[rsr1771]

11. isn't it about context?

If I was talking to a black guy and said "hey you tar baby" then yes its a slur. But if I use it as a metaphor, its not. Why should political correctness ruin a good metaphor?

[orleans]

30. because the phrase *is* a racial slur

and you can just as easily say the phrase "sticky situation" without dredging up racial slurs and having your lister wonder if you're a bigot or assume you are a bigot

welcome to du

[karlrschneider]

9. No offense, but this was beaten to death here on DU 2 weeks ago

...

[pscot]

12. Sorry. I guess I missed it.

N/T

[karlrschneider]

20. No worries. Thanks for not taking offense.

:toast:

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. ...and a few months before that...

sheesh.

[Withywindle]

14. I just learned a few months ago that apparently it is...

...when that dustup over Tony Snow using it happened.

I had always heard it only as referring to the folktale, and it means a situation where fighting it only gets you stuck in it worse. That was the only meaning I thought it had.

I'd never heard of it being a racial slur and referring to a person before I read the discussion of the term here. So now that I know it's considered offensive, I won't use it anymore (pity, really, it's such a great metaphor/image).

Glad I learned from someone else's mistake instead of being yelled at for using it innocently myself (as I used to do rather frequently). Oops. :blush:

[LA lady]

15. Mental picture

It's been used by people on both sides of the aisle to mean a "sticky situation". Kerry used it. Depends on your feelings about the term, I guess.

[Igel]

16. Does intent matter? Does awareness of what others

will want to assume it's used matter? Does one have to be aware of what the person using the phrase mean by it?

The answers from some people are: yes, probably (not), yes.

The answers from other people are: no, absolutely, not at all.

The almost but not quite mirror image answers depend on who's most important to the person rendering the evaluation: the listener or the speaker. If you believe that the listeners job is to understand what the speaker is trying to say, then you're in the first group. If you believe that the speaker has to take into account anything you might know or believe, you're in the second group.

I consider the second group to be narrow minded: they have more information, both having heard what the speaker has said and being aware of their mental state; but they insist that the speaker be aware of their unspoken mental state and fashion his/her message accordingly. If the speaker doesn't know something, he's as guilty as if he did. No cooperation necessary on the part of the hearer; complete cooperation on the part of the listener.

The first group can be narrow minded or not. Some will say that they don't have to try to accommodate their audience; they're wrong, and are invariably either deceiving themselves or are bad speakers. Most speakers will try to take their audience into account. But to a surprisingly large extent humans don't--and probably can't--even take into account information they memorized when speaking off the cuff. The cognitive load is too high for most people.

[MsKandice01]

17. Regardless of the intent...

It's probably best to just find another way to say whatever you're trying to say without using that particular metaphor.

[ScreamingMeemie]

18. pscot, go here for rehash of this from months ago...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2630040

[bbinacan]

19. No n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

23. What about the TAR ball

No giving the answer away you geek types...

[Kahuna]

24. Yes it is! Regardless of its literary origins, racist KKK types used it

routinely as a racist slur against blacks. And for those who try to pretend that it is used anything other than a racist slur, your in denial and in need of remedial education regarding terms used to demean and denigrate black folks.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

33. I take it you always call a shovel a shovel, then?

What do you call the biscuits you eat with cheese? What about the cats from Maine, or the lowest/highest card of each suit, or the larger primates? Or a crack or crevice through which one peeps? Or an aubergine?

What about all the other words at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_slur

Just because something has been co-opted for use as a racist slur doesn't mean there's anything wrong with using it in its other senses.

[MadMaddie]

25. There are many words that have negative conotation towards

the black community...many of them originating during and after slavery and the rise of groups like the KKK...

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

Other Examples

Tar Baby
Coon
Monkey
Black Barbie-Refers to a black woman when she wears her hair and makeup to try and look like a white woman.
Blackie
Blue-Gummer-Refers to the blue tinge of the gums of some blacks/southern origin.

Bootlip-More or less self-explanatory, blacks tend to have big lips.

So yes I think it's racist...

[niyad]

26. how many times are you going to ask this?

[onenote]

38. Other than this thread, where has the OP asked this?

I did a search and couldn't find any other threads where this particular OP asked this question, so what exactly is the basis of your post?

[demosincebirth]

27. They took the Amos and Andy show off TV. I don't know why

It was hilarious.

[beaconess]

28. Yes

It started off as an innocuous phrase, but over time (thanks to the abuse of the term by racists), it has evolved into an epithet. It's enough of a slur that people with any shred of sensitivity avoid using it, even if they don't intend for it to be offensive.

People - especially those in public life - should understand that there are things that are deeply and painfully offensive to some people and that claiming that THEY didn't mean to offend is just not good enough.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of hearing people who get busted using racial slurs - either intentionally or unintentionally - trying to excuse their behavior by claiming that they didn't mean to offend and apologizing, not for their actions, but in case anyone took offense. Mel Gibson pulled that crap a few weeks ago and George Allen did the same thing this week. This makes clear that to the white majority the problem is not with their own biases, but that we minorities are just too damned sensitive and our uber-sensitivity is making the world much less fun for everyone else. If we just thickened up our skin, everyone would get along so much better. In other words, the burden is always on us to lighten up - white folks have no obligation to adjust their behavior.

Of course, just let someone even SUGGEST that a white person is racist (or even just less than sensitive when it comes to issues of race) and suddenly, the world explodes! "How DARE you accuse me of being a racist!!!" Obviously, being called mucacca, tar baby, being accused of causing all of the world's wars or having it suggested that if we abort our babies the crime rate will go down is no big deal, we have no right to object and, in fact, in objecting, we unfairly victimize the person uttering the offensive words - but being accused of racism as a result of saying any of these things is the absolute worst slur that anyone should ever have to endure!

Sorry for the rant, but this obviously sticks in my craw!

[Book Lover]

31. Please - you have a star. Do a search for this topic and then let it die!

Yes, it is racist. And no, I don't care to hear anyone's justifications anymore.

[onenote]

37. then don't pay attention to threads like this

and you'll be fine

[Book Lover]

40. self-delete

words fall on stony ground sometimes...

[VOX]

32. Yes. n/t

[noonwitch]

34. Toni Morrison wrote a book called "Tarbaby"

It's a novel about a light-skinned black woman involved with a very dark-skinned man, among other things.

[Odin2005]

35. I learned it as meaning "sticky situation," tar = sticky

[PlanetBev]

41. I have used the term when referring to the work I do

I'm a commercial property manager, which is an endless avalanche of problems. I always think of it as getting stuck in something and not being able to get out of it. I do remember the "tar baby" character in Song of the South, and I guess it's not a greatest idea to use that term.

[Greyhound]

42. The PC gang and the racists have perverted so much of the language

that I would have to say that now it is.