The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[scaeagles]

Gov. Romney of Mass. apologized for using the term "tar baby" when talking about the Big Dig.

I know squat about Romney except that he has Presidential aspirations. Is "tar baby" really that big of a deal to say? Seems like people are way too sensitive, but I admit to not knowing the whole history of the term. Why does saying something like that automatically make you insensitive or a racist?

[wendybeth]

Why not wander down to the local gang hangout in your town and yell it out? I'm sure no one would mind.

[Alex]

What are your thoughs on porch monkey?

Tar baby is one of those sticky wickets. It has a large geographic variation in usage. In many parts of the country it is used primarily to refer to a sticky problem you can't get away from once you're involved. In other parts of the country it is used primarily as a racially derogatory term. Personally, it has enough taint that even though I grew up in one of the former areas I'd probably never actually use the phrase unless talking about a literal tar baby (as seen in Song of the South, for example).

What is particularly bizarre about Romney's usage is that Tony Snow got into trouble for it just a couple months ago during one of his first press conferences as Press Secretary.

[scaeagles]

Context is everything.

[Gemini Cricket]

Romney should have steered clear of the term, period. Whether or not it's offensive is up in the air. But who doesn't know that it could potentially piss people off to use it? There are tons of other ways to describe the Big Dig failures...

[scaeagles]

I just get fed up with it all, really. If I say "he has a chink in his armor", will all the Chinese people be offended? I don't know...I just way too much is made of stuff like this when the context is not racial.

[wendybeth]

From Mavens Word of the Day:

The tar baby is a form of a character widespread in African folklore. In various folktales, gum, wax, or other sticky material is used to trap a person.
The folktale achieved currency in the United States in written form in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, a collection of stories based on African-American folklore, narrated by the fictional Uncle Remus, a former slave. In the story "Tar-Baby," the character Brer Fox makes a doll out of tar, which he places by the road to entrap his enemy Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit talks to the doll, and when it doesn't answer, he hits it, and gets stuck in the tar. The more he struggles with it, the more he is entangled in it.
This story has led to the figurative use of tar baby in the sense 'an inextricable problem or situation', sometimes with the nuance 'something used to entrap a person'. Both the examples cited in the question show the use of this sense, which appears to be first used in the early twentieth century.
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.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I just get fed up with it all, really. If I say "he has a chink in his armor", will all the Chinese people be offended? I don't know...I just way too much is made of stuff like this when the context is not racial.

"Chink in the armor" is a different example. While it's a homonym, that use of chink has nothing to do with the racial slur.

How about another example. In high school wood shop, I refused to let one of the other students have a piece of the wood I was using for a project that I was helping another teacher with. He said, "C'mon man, don't Jew me." Now, he didn't know I was Jewish. And I could tell that he probably didn't have much of a connection in his head between the phrase and the religion. Does that make it okay to use the term, just because he didn't intend it to be racial?

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

"Chink in the armor" is a different example. While it's a homonym, that use of chink has nothing to do with the racial slur.

I was being sarcastic and taking the whole thing to an extreme.

Regarding your other example, GD, I think there is a difference between ignorance and racism. Once someone is educated as to the connotations and still continues to use it, it moves from ignorance into racism.

Edited to add: It isn't that hard to think the "chink in the armor" thing could become a controversy. A while ago, and I don't recall the exact location or context, but I think it was some city council meeting somewhere....a councilman used the word "niggardly", which basically mean stingy or petty in giving small amounts. Some woman who had no idea what the word meant raised all sorts of hell because of what it sounds like and it became a pretty big story and this guy was having to defend himself for a long time.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I was being sarcastic and taking the whole thing to an extreme.

As an amusing aside. When I first started working at the cannery in Kodiak, Alaska, I was told to do something and then needed directions and was told "it's over by the chinks" and he pointed to where a bunch of Filipinos were at work.

I was appalled and later confessed to a coworker. That is when I learned that the machines they were working with are called chinks for reasons compoletely unrelated to the race of the people operating them. So I forgave the person who said this. It was only later I learned that in his parlance the chinks were operated by gooks (which isn't even a correct use of the term since they were all Filipino). So I had to unforgive him.

And there is no way Romney should have been unaware of the connotations for some since it was so publicly discussed just a couple months ago with Tony Snow (and George Will also got in trouble for it a few years back).