Tony Snow and "Tar Babies"

I officially declare this thread to be pure bullsh!t.

However, using a word that is commonly and clearly used as a slur against the Black race was not very smart.

If it takes an internet search to find the original meaning for a phrase that is insulting to Blacks in order to demonstrate how it's use was "fine," then someone went wrong somewhere.

Ask any 10 people on the street what "Tar baby" means. See how many say it comes from a story that was written a hundred years ago. Here's a hint: the answer will be "few to none."

"Tar baby" is also a name, like [n-word] (my substitution), that white people call black children, black girls
as I recall. Tar seemed to me to be an odd thing to be in a Western story, and I found
that there is a tar lady in African mythology. I started thinking about tar. At one time,
a tar pit was a holy place, at least an important place, because tar was used to build
things. It came naturally out of the earth. It held together things like Moses's little
boat and the pyramids.

I officially declare this thread to be pure bullsh!t.

A Stearns County commissioner is being criticized for his choice of words at a recent public meeting. Commissioner Leigh Lenzmeier described the St. Cloud Human Rights Office as a "tar baby." Lenzmeier says he used the term to describe a "sticky" situation. But some leaders of the African American community have complained, saying the phrase is also considered a racial slur.

It is noteworthy to me that those outraged by Snow continue to be mute on the subject of Colin Powell having been referred to as a spear-chucker.

Quote:

CBS REPORTER: Why not declassify [the NSA's call records database]? I mean, the President did talk about the surveillance program a day after the New York Times broke that story. This would seem to affect far more people and it did sound like the President was confirming that story today when he was answering questions.

SNOW: If you go back and look through what he said, there was a reference of foreign to domestic calls. I am not going to stand up here and presume to declassify any kind of program. That is a decision the President has to make. I can't confirm or deny it. The President was not confirming or denying. Again, I would take you back to the USA Today story to give you a little context. Look at the poll that appeared the following day [...] something like 65% of the public was not troubled by it. Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program... the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm or deny.

I asked Judd at Think Progress about it and he agreed. TP then explains to Tony the problem with using that term:

Based on the context of the term, we believe you meant tar baby to mean: "a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable."

But in "American lore," the expression tar baby is also a racial slur "used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people." Use of the term has resulted in people being fired.

As Random House notes, "some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context." Now that you are no longer at Fox News, you may want to take them up on their advice.

Link to article and video


Ok, I know the Bush apologists are going to claim that the word has another meaning from older times. But come on. 99% of the time that phrase is used now, it's used as a racial slur. The White House press secretary should know better than that. Yeah. It was used, over a hundred years ago, in another context. A context that no one you know has heard it in. Do you really want to go with that phrase, Mr. Snow?

You assert that it is commonly and clearly used as such--you haven't proven anything.

You apparently don't have great reading comprehension skills. I pointed out at the outset what tar baby meant to me and why. I didn't have to search the internet for anything--i did those searchs to point out how idiotic this thread is.

As i already knew the reference, i'd have no reason to ask someone on the street. I see you have made no comment on the person who referred to Colin Powell as a spear-chucker. Did you exhaust your outrage on Snow?

Obviously, the journalist did something stupid and unecessary.

I loved your latest update in which you refer to the great mass of people as "sheeple". I think this country is so far gone that only someone like Reinhard Heydrich could clean it up. It would be necessary to turn every large American city into a concentration camp with gas chambers running 24/7 to get the job done. I was reading your account of what happened after that tar baby was killed in Norway and I think that many of the problems the world currently faces were a direct result of Hitler's failure. My relatives are real Germans and anytime something like the Norway incident or the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo occurs they immediately say "please not that again, we have already been through all of this", I guess the fact that my grandfather was a Hitler bodyguard when Hitler was giving his Reichstag speeches also has something to do with my relatives dislike of displays of nationalism.

As long as sheeple continue to be awed by Holocaust movies like Spielberg's "**** list" and war crimes trials of 98 year old men racism will continue to be a dirty word. I was a grad student in History and the University I attended actually had an annual "Holocaust Conference" which the professors would insist their undergraduate students attend. The faculty chairman was a nasty Jew and there were a few Eastern European Professors who dig up some old holocaust losers to talk about their terrible experiences and if it were not for the Jew chairman I am sure the conference would not continue to be an annual event. Look forward to reading your next update.