Yet another word which must be stripped from American parlance

[Okla-homey]

Tar Baby

http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/8890/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatar babds8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Brer Rabbit confronts the "tar baby" ...it's a trap laid for him by his woodland enemies!

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/2153/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatarbab ytt7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
When Brer Rabbit becomes miffed because the tar baby won't acknowledge his greeting (because its not human and made of sticky TAR), he strikes it and gets hopelessly stuck!

Now look folks, the term "tar baby" has been in the American lexicon since these Uncle Remus tales were first published in the mid-19th century. They are part of the fabric of American culture. It's a perfectly descriptive metaphor for what happens when a person or group gets involved in something in which they subsequently become hopelessly entangled.

I've avoided use of the term because when I was in the USAF, someone once got p1ssy on me when I used "tar baby" to describe why I think we will remain engaged in Southwest Asia for a very long time. The complainant had not been exposed to these stories of Uncle Remus and thought I was making some sort of racist analogy. Seriously.

IMHO, people just need to chill about this sort of thing when the comment is not INTENDED to have racial overtones. But that's just me.

Anyoo, Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) is the latest victim of having use of the term "tar baby" turned on him to be beaten about the head and shoulders with it.


Gov. Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to the troubled Big Dig construction project as a "tar baby" during a fundraiser with Iowa Republicans, saying he didn't know anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet.

In a speech Saturday, Romney, a Republican considering a run for president in 2008, acknowledged he took a big political risk in taking control of the project after a fatal tunnel ceiling collapse, but said inaction would have been even worse.

"The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can," he told a crowd of about 100 supporters in Ames, Iowa.

Black leaders were outraged at his use of the term, which dates to the 19th century Uncle Remus stories, referring to a doll made of tar that traps Br'er Rabbit. It has come to be known as a way of describing a sticky mess, and has been used as a derogatory term for a black person.

"Tar baby is a totally inappropriate phrase in the 21st century," said Larry Jones, a black Republican and civil rights activist. "He thinks he's presidential timber," Jones said. "But all he's shown us is arrogance."

Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said the governor was describing "a sticky situation." "He was unaware that some people find the term objectionable and he's sorry if anyone's offended," Fehrnstrom said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow sparked similar criticism in May when he used the term in response to a question about government surveillance.

[colleyvillesooner]

Randall would be ****ed. He'd probably try and take it back. :D

[tbl]

Just like when somebody used the term "niggard". It has absoultely nothing to do with race at all, but they threw a fit over it.

[tbl]

However, I never understood tar baby to mean anything other than a black kid. If I heard him say that, I probably would have flipped out if I was black...

[opksooner]

He could have substituted the word "flypaper", but that would have infuriated flys worldwide.

[Okla-homey]

However, I never understood tar baby to mean anything other than a black kid. If I heard him say that, I probably would have flipped out if I was black...

I have never heard the term "Tar baby" used as a perjorative term for black children and I've lived most of my adult life in Southern states. I have heard "pickaninny" used as a derisive term for black children and I don't use it.


Pickaninny (also pickaninnie) is a pidgin word form which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino ("little") via Lingua franca. According to one hypothesis, pidgin has the same etymology.

In the Southern United States, it was long used to refer to African American children. This use of the term is believed to have originated with the character of Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin. The term was still in some popular use in the US as late as the 1930s, but has fallen out of use and is considered racist.

It is in widespread use in Melanesian pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, as the word for "child" (or just young, as in the phrase pikinini pik, meaning piglet).

In certain dialects of Caribbean English, the words pickney and pickney-negger (pronounced "pick-knee" and "pick-knee nay-ga" respectively) are used to refer to children. In Nigerian and Cameroonian Pidgin English, the term used is "picken". In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is "pikanin".

The term was also controversially used ("wide-eyed grinning picaninnies") by the British Conservative politician Enoch Powell in his "Rivers of Blood" speech on 20 April 1968. In 1987, Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona defended the use of the word, claiming "As I was a boy growing up, blacks themselves referred to their children as pickaninnies. That was never intended to be an ethnic slur to anybody."

[Flagstaffsooner]

From now on f-ups in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be known as Kennedy Babies.

[Okla-homey]

For the record...because I know my Sooner homey's like to know the truth.


The Tar Baby

The tar baby was a trap -- a human figure made of tar -- used to capture Br'er Rabbit in a story which is part of American plantation folklore. Br'er Fox played on Br'er Rabbit's vanity and gullibility to goad him into attacking the fake and becoming stuck. A similar tale from African folklore in Ghana has the trickster Anansi in the role of Br'er Rabbit.

In Southern black speech in the 19th century, the word "baby" referred to both a baby and a child's "doll." Thus, the expression "tar baby" meant a tar doll or tar mannequin.

The story was originally published in Harper's Weekly by Robert Roosevelt of Sayville, New York. Years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the tar baby in his Uncle Remus stories.

This story is credited with the invention of the word "segashuate."

[mdklatt]

From now on f-ups in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be known as Kennedy Babies.

I prefer "M*******".

[TheHumanAlphabet]

I wonder if people are confusing "tar baby" with "little black sambo"?

I have seen Tar baby used as a sticky situation, and I remember the Uncle Remus stories. I would use tar baby and never think racism.

Now, "little black sambo" is something different. Anyone remember the Denny's-like Sambo's restaurants? They had murials of Little Black Sambo on the walls depicting story scenes. This was in the early 70s, don't think it lasted much longer than that...

Sad when a perfectly good word - niggardly (Function: adjective
1 : grudgingly mean about spending or granting : BEGRUDGING (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/begrudging)
2 : provided in meanly limited supply
synonym see STINGY (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/stingy) ) - is usurped by ignorant people.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

From now on f-ups in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be known as Kennedy Babies.

I'm up for that...

[SoonerInKCMO]

I have never heard the term "Tar baby" used as a perjorative term for black children and I've lived most of my adult life in Southern states. I have heard "pickaninny" used as a derisive term for black children and I don't use it.

Weird... I grew up in OKC and never heard 'tar baby' be used as anything other than a pejorative for a black child.

But, I never heard 'Eenie, meenie, minie, moe...' end with anything other than 'catch a tiger by the toe'.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

Weird... I grew up in OKC and never heard 'tar baby' be used as anything other than a pejorative for a black child.

But, I never heard 'Eenie, meenie, minie, moe...' end with anything other than 'catch a tiger by the toe'.

Growing up in Mississippi, we used another word on the eenie, meenie, minie, mo and it wasn't Liger. He had to pay $50 dollars every day though... Said it all the time and never thought it was bad back in those days...

I wonder what kids use today as an eenie, meenie phrase?

[Sooner_Bob]

I wonder what kids use today as an eenie, meenie phrase?


inky binky bonky daddy had a donkey . . .