I’m angry at the press for their shameful rolling over on the term “tarbaby”.
I’ve been following the furor over the recent “tarbaby” comment by Bush’s Press Secretary Snow. Everyone is taking the term out of context as a racial slur, when many of them know that there is a real-world application for the term.
As much as I distrust Snow, he was using the term in its definition as trap. Brer Rabbit encountered a “tar baby” out of pitch crafted by Brer Fox. He was enraged by the “person’s” impoliteness (it didn’t greet him) and tried to hit it, trapping his fists.
That is the definitionTony Snow meant. A tar baby is something that looks innocuous but is a trap.
I don’t like the guy, and everyone knows I despise his boss, but Snow was not being a racist, and this is a non-issue.
I know there are some who hate words that sound offensive, but if we abandon every word that has a questionable interpretation to those who don’t have a deep grasp of the language (how often has the word “niggardly” been used lately without the user coming under threat of unemployment?) we will beggar the language and reduce our level of expression to the most simple terms.
One aspect of “1984” is the creation of Newspeak, a language purged of nuance as to render it impossible for the dissatisfied to express unapproved thoughts. The entire “PC” language issue springs from exactly the same motivations, from those who think that if we eliminate any language that sounds bad, people will stop being bigoted.
What can I say, I hear you and I agree
Stop this nonsense.
Why do you distrust Snow? Do you have a real reason, or just that he is a Republican and worked for Fox News and you dislike both.
Is it illegal to distrust the mouthpiece of an administration I feel is taking the country in the wrong direction?
I pointed out my dislike of the administration to underscore my position on this as not coming from any desire to defend Snow. I am defending the language, and like the ACLU, I can’t always choose the people I defend along with the principle.
I am defending the language, and like the ACLU, I can’t always choose the people I defend along with the principle.
Powerful words. Well put Alix.
What is with you and racial insensitivity? Yesterday, there was that link to a site dominated by the neo-Confederates at the Washington Times. Today, you are defending ‘tarbaby.’ What’s next, ‘macaca’ is just a fun word, too?
Mass. Governor Mitt Romney apologized for saying “tar baby” too, while speaking about Boston’s Big Dig.
Here’s the article.
My question is how was the original term used “back in the day”? Was it always a racial word or did it start off as a legitimate phrase that was adopted by racists?
For my two cents…I am 31 and I have always considered it a racist thing to say, even when I heard it when I was a kid and learning about these things (7 or 8 years old, maybe?)
So are you saying that a term that had one meaning a long, long time ago, can’t gain a new meaning in later years? Are all terms locked in their original meaning?
I don’t think Snow meant anything racist by using the term, but that doesn’t mean the term isn’t racist.
When Senator Allen used the word “Macaca” (do a search if you aren’t up on this issue), did he mean it as a racist remark? Who knows. But does that not mean it isn’t a racial slur? Does it matter that in France, Macaca is a racial slur for darker-skinned North Africans? And does it at all matter that Allen’s mother was French-Tunisian? . Does it matter that Allen also speaks French?
See all of these things sure do make it seem like Allen used the word in a negative and derogatory way. It’s something he learned growing up in the deep south with a mother who likely used the term herself.
Now, back to Snow…. Who knows what his meaning was. But that doesn’t change the fact that, like the term Macaca, tar baby today has something of a racist connotation attached to it. The man speaking for the President, no matter how lacking in intelligence his boss may be, should at least have enough intelligence not to use words that offend….
I mean, gosh… next thing you know we’ll hear Bush talk about the Iraq war as a crusade……
Everyone walks around with this enormous chip on their shoulder, daring you to say anything they interpret and then use as a weapon against you, and everyone else in ear shot. BTW “niggardly” caused a huge calamity not long ago, please look up the famous speech by Charlton Hesston.
Among the guilt we are required to carry around has become “ I may of had a racial thought”. Born or transformed from the old “ impure thought “ fanatics. As long as people walk around with this racial attitude anything you say can and will be used against you! And any one assonated with you.
If you are white you are already a suspect, you have these impure thoughts and it will be proven you do. As soon as you slip or say anything that can be shoveled out to the un educated masses as racism.
Is it illegal to distrust the mouthpiece of an administration I feel is taking the country in the wrong direction?
I don’t believe I said it was illegal, and you didn’t answer the question, so I guess its just blind hate of anything Bush. Typical.
Sorry for the misquote, it should be.
Charlton Heston: Winning the Cultural War
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/charltonhestonculturalwar.htm
And is well worth a read or re-read.
The swastika was a buddhist symbol, now it’s known as the Nazi symbol. The confederate flag was the flag of the south, now it’s white power. The tar baby was a trap. And Snow fell into it by just not thinking. If that fine upstanding Press Secretary didn’t know the most common connotation of the phrase, well, he’s just dumb enough to make president some day.
You are all right. For example, once upon a time “gay” meant happy. Just because words change does not mean we can’t drag our feet. Of course language changes. But why do words have to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness?
Snow didn’t even use the word in a racial context, he used it consistent with the definition. He didn’t want to be trapped, but his vernacular trapped him in a different way.
#5,
As for racial sensitivity, my father was a Haitian immigrant who worked his ass off until he died to provide me and my sisters with shoes, clothes, food, shelter, and a private education so we could live better than he did. I have gobs of understanding on the condition of people not white in America.
If you wish to be a language cop, I claim the minority right to use racial words. (Which is of course only supporting my original point. Everyone should be able to use a word.)
#10,
Aside from my initial comment about the source of the comment, I haven’t brought the Bush administration into this in any way. This is a post on language. As I pointed out, I made that statement so readers wouldn’t mistake me for a conservative (if they’ve read my comments on this site often they wouldn’t, but not everyone reads everything here).
This is a post on language politics, not current administration politics. Why are you trying so mightily to make it so?
unfortunately meanings change over time. Think of a typical knee-jerk when Billy is studying “fairies” for literature.
Language is there to express oneself. If people don’t understand you, then they must not hyperventilate, but give you a chance to explain.
Snow comment not racist, not pc.
I’m celebrating my agreement by smoking another fag and cooking a faggot.
Dear Sir,
I wish to quote you.
“we will beggar the language and reduce our level of expression to the most simple terms.”
How insensitive to the unemployed can you be?
Doug
Your reference to Apple’s “1984” commercial, the greatest TV ad of all time, brought to my mind that most people don’t know what the Master on the screen is actualy saying. In today’s world these words sound all too much the same as the discourse coming out from Iran and other parts of the radical Islam world.
Text of “1984”
“Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”
I was referring to the book, but the point is the same.
Hell, the “tar baby” story is far older than the B’rer Rabbit stories. The story is African, mixed up with Anansi the trickster spider legends. The B’rer stories are based directly on the old African tales, brought to the United States and the Carribean.
I agree with your disgust. The corruption of the meaning of the word “tar baby” shows amazing ignorance of the simple meaning of a phrase, ignorance of an ancient culture (even from those who should know better), and an inability to use a library card or a search engine.
It’s good to know that a century and a half after JCH cranked out the Uncle Remus stories in a divided nation and many generations have had chance to learn a lesson from that work, we still can’t agree on anything, even over terms from his work about the pitfalls of disunity.
This blog post has made me gay….. uh I mean happy.
WKW,
You are correct that Snow should have thought about the meaning of his words to the general public. However, he did use it in the proper context as trap, not in the context as racial reference. So while Snow was being insensitive, he was not being racist.
As Catbeller pointed out, the story is older than our society and managed to survive use through some of the most racist times this country has gone through.
I find it ironic that I am defending Snow, because this brouhaha (one day they’ll take that word from us, too) is fomented by people who will do anything to discredit the President (I am of the camp that feels the administration does enough on its own to discredit itself).
If it was good enough for Slaves to use in centuries of storytelling, with all the racial overtones (they knew you could use it as a slur back then too, they weren’t idiots), why isn’t it good enough for us today?
Well heck, I already knew that part. I agree with you on that completely. But the undertone is that the racial slur overpowers the proper usage, and that is what saddens me.
…in this case, however, I think Snow using the term Tar Baby, is just another sign of the administration’s arrogance.
Or the listener’s illiteracy. If I can defend Clinton’s use of the word “is”, I can defend Snow the same.
It is technically correct to call the child of unmarried parents a “bastard” but would you? I was called a “tar baby” as a child it hurt then and it’s use still stings. A person of Snow’s position should know better.
i believe it has been mentioned, but the one of the greatest fighters ever to step in the ring and was repeatedly denied the belt was sam “boston tar baby” langford. he climbed into the ring over a 21 year span more than 600 times, which is an about once every 12 days. at the age of about 45 and half blind he won the championship that had been denied him so many times before…i would say that the nickname “tar baby” is an honor.