i don't think referring to a "tar baby" is necessarily racist. i've seen it used in contexts where the speaker mainly had in mind just the idea of touching something and then not being able to get rid of it, which, if we're not going to say "tar baby" for that, what else are we gonna say? if mst3k had been slightly more popular we could say working with obama is like working with a carlo lombardi doll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mamY1vEQaAE

that said, what the republican guy said doesn't really make any sense in the "touching-something-and-then-not-being-able-to-let-it-go" definition. it seems to just be about obama's race. and that's iffy, to say the least. as for pat buchanan, don't we pretty much just know he's an out-and-out racist?

Darn, Max, I was going to post that.  What a j***off

i don't think referring to a "tar baby" is necessarily racist.



Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.
guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

I suppose if you only knew "tar baby" as a synonym for "sticky situation," you would have no concept of its racial connotations.  However, Doug Lamborn is 57 year old lawyer from Kansas.  It's hard for me to believe he's never heard of the B'rer Rabbit stories or "Song of the South." 

"Tar baby" has been used as a pejorative for African-Americans in the same manner as "porch monkey." 

McCain and Romney, both Republicans, have also used the term "tar baby" to describe political traps.

Furthermore, in 2006, Sen. John Kerry (D. Mass.) said,  "McCain is trying to throw the big tar baby out there." 

The difference is Lamporn used it in reference to President Obama, a Black man.  To wit, "I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away.”  It is a damn sight more denigrating to bind the image of the "tar baby" from B'rer Rabbit (which is the first thing I think of) and a dozen Jim Crow nasties with that of Obama.

I know this is in bad taste, but it serves the argument:
http://oldtimestore.flyingcart.com/images/tarbabyfe41b.jpg

i'm conscious of its racial connotations, i just am not sure why they always have to be the operative interpretation of intent whenever the term is used. if there is a perjorative definition of a term, and a non-perjorative definition, why does the perjorative one always have to take pride of place when we're interpreting people's motivations? and then the people who use the term get punished as though they must have intended to use it in the most perjorative sense possible, regardless of what their actual intent was?

bear in mind i COMPLETELY do not support lamporn's use of it, but i think the way he used it vs. the way mccain/romney/kerry is used it are distinct and that distinction shouldn't be obfuscated in an emotionally charged reaction of repulsion to the term itself.

Yes, it is.


No it isn't.

The answer to the question of "Is a reference to 'tar baby' inherently racist" may be something like "Do you refer to carbonated beverages as 'soda', 'pop', or 'Coke'?", but across generational as well as geographical lines.

I grew up in a locale (and at a time) in which my only encounter with the term was from the animated version of Walt Disney's "Song of the South".  In which it referred to the African folkloic tale of "a thing which, when attacked, serves only to frustrate the attacker", and the moral of the tale was its generational equivalent of "Don't feed the trolls", or Admiral Ackbar saying "It's a TRAP!"

Now, that soap bar wrapper posted by @maxwellsmart?  If you lived in an area (or a time) in which that soap bar was actually available on a retail shelf - and now that I'm older and more cynical about humanity, I have no doubt that such places and times existed - well, you've earned the right to scream:

http://donttrysohard.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/thats-racist.gif

Just don't be surprised when some people go "WTF?" in response.  There's room on both sides for learning.  Growing up when/where I did, I wouldn't have believed that "Tar Baby" soap had ever existed if I hadn't seen it through the eyes of the Internet some 30 years after first encountering the term in the context of the original folk story.  

That, and Darlie toothpaste, which I've also never seen outside of the Internet, but which - as an old, cynical bastard, I also believe existed/exists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHqt3xxG-WI

might as well reopen this festering sore! the host, who i quite like, sums it up pretty nicely when he speaks of the word as having "devolved" and implying that its use in the original story wasn't problematic. you also might want to stick around for a tangential discussion of the word "wigger," which is quite a bit more unambiguously offensive as hell.

I think the election of a black POTUS has served to enable the racist elements who inn the past were more circumspect.  On the one hand simply because they are totally enraged that Obama won, and on the other because his election  suggests that racism has disappeared, and so has the need for politically correct language.