Hmm. In all these posts, I don’t see that anyone has told the full tar baby story, or linked to it. Here’s the story.
In a nutshell, Brer Fox (hoping to catch Brer Rabbit) makes a little person out of tar, the “tar baby,” and set it in the middle of the road. Brer Rabbit comes along and offers the tar baby a friendly greeting, but the tar baby “He don’t say nothin’.”
Brer Rabbit is offended at the tar baby’s rudeness. He again offers a greeting, but the tar baby “He don’t say nothin’.”
Brer Rabbit gets increasingly agitated until he finally hauls off and hits the tar baby. Of course he only succeeds in getting himself stuck to the thing. He swings again and gets stuck even worse. The more he struggles and fights, the more entangled he becomes.
Which is why the tar baby is such a nice metaphor for any situation in which you are slowly drawn into an ever-more-tangled mess.
As I noted in my earlier post, it makes a particularly nice metaphor for litigation.