# Is the term "Tar Baby" an ethnic slur? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 3, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270 "2011-08-03T03:20:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/41 "2011-08-03T22:17:38Z")
personally i don’t think it’s a HUGE deal, but it is in bad taste. at most it’s a “lolz, what!?” on par with Jessica Simpson asking if tuna was fish or poultry, but really nothing too shocking. an unfortunate choice of words, but ultimately not terribly malicious. we can’t get too worked up over every single passing, POSSIBLY racist term being thrown around. as long as overt racism and institutionalized racism is eliminated, who cares about a few unfortunate turns of phrase? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/42 "2011-08-03T22:50:08Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > There is no white substance that is the equivalent of tar. If I were advising a politician, or anyone else, for that matter, I’d suggest using “flypaper” as the metaphor for something difficult to get rid of once touched. ---
**Author:** ![Monstera\_deliciosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monstera_deliciosa/32/109_2.png) [@Monstera\_deliciosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstera_deliciosa)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/43 "2011-08-03T23:21:47Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > There is no white substance that is the equivalent of tar. \*\*For the sake of story-telling, the tar baby had to be black, because he was made out of, you know, _tar_, and there isn’t another substance one can substitute. \*\* It’s a childrens’ story, but there are always those who choose to find offense at most anything. Hell, Mickey Mouse is black. Does that imply that black people are rodents and Disney was a racist? bolding mine Don’t be silly. There are black mice. I saw one in my backyard the other day. I’m not offended by the existence of the tar baby story, and I don’t think that I implied that I was. In fact, the whole story is derived from an African folktale\*. The point of my post was pretty much the same as your bolded sentence. The tar baby had to be black, therefore it had to be an imitation of black person, so race is not totally irrelevant to the story. (By the way, It is kind of ridiculous, but the quickest way to offend me is to imply that I’m the kind of person who takes “offense at most anything.” The fact that I do not find the story to be racially neutral is not the same as finding it offensive.) \*[Tar-Baby - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_baby#Related_stories) ---
**Author:** ![Monstera\_deliciosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monstera_deliciosa/32/109_2.png) [@Monstera\_deliciosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstera_deliciosa)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/44 "2011-08-03T23:32:16Z")
Too late to edit: > [@Monstera\_deliciosa](#): > > Tar is black, ergo the tar baby has to be a black person. Tar is also blacker than a natural skin tone, so it is similar to some of those broad caricatures of black people employed in the past, with the ink black skin and the big red grins. Whether this was _intentional_ in the story I cannot say. Upon reflection, the fact the story is derived from an African folktale suggests that caricature aspect I referred to was not in the original intent of the story, but is used that way by people who deliberately use the term “tar baby” as a racial slur. ---
**Author:** ![LurkerInNJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed655f/32.png) [@LurkerInNJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkerInNJ)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/45 "2011-08-04T00:56:44Z")
It was an unfortunate choice of a phrase considering how pc most Americans think they are, but I’m sure he didn’t mean it as a racial slur. It does mean a sticky situation that keeps getting worse, but I think many people are just convinced it is a racial slur because they aren’t familiar with the background. Kind of like saying niggardly (miserly) and the resulting OMG you called someone a nigger chorus. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/46 "2011-08-04T03:05:34Z")
> [@LurkerInNJ](#): > > Kind of like saying niggardly (miserly) and the resulting OMG you called someone a nigger chorus. The difference is that niggardly is a pretty uncommon word, and I think a lot of the reaction about that was that people assume “niggardly” IS a racial epithet. It, however, isn’t. At all. It never has been, has a different etymology, and is still used amongst wordy people without concern. But “tar baby” _does_ have racial connotations. It’s used as an epithet. Heck, it’s largely been popularized in the latter half of the twentieth century by a Disney movie particularly famous for racial concerns. Hiding behind erudition doesn’t help in this case, because the erudite should be aware of alternate meanings and the baggage associated with the term. I really doubt this shows that Lamborn is a secret racist who’s decided to “come out” to the press. But it’s an incredibly dumb thing to say. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/47 "2011-08-04T03:08:46Z")
Let’s just call a spade a spade and admit that Obama’s a shitty President. That’s totally not racist because I’m clearly referring to the gardening tool. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/48 "2011-08-04T10:33:20Z")
I’ve heard it used as both. I’m of the opinion that the guy didn’t mean it in a racist way. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there. But it’s an incredibly poor word choice when addressing the media. If you’re a politician and you’ve been paying attention to the world over the last couple of decades, you’d have to know that “tarbaby”, kind of like the word “niggardly”, is best not said in front of a microphone. Even if your intentions are innocent, you are bound to come out looking like a racist. Especially when referencing a person. It would be different if he’d been talking about the negotiations in general, without referencing the president and the president alone. I was talking to my boss today about press conferences yesterday and what to say and what NOT to say. Take home message: Do not give the press anything that will give them a bad headline. They don’t care about what you’re saying. They just care about having a story and will glom on to anything that gives them that. They _live_ for moments like this. So not necessarily a racist, but certainty not a smooth move for a politician. One could even suspect that he threw that line in as a wink to those who would enjoy hearing the word being used in the bad way, while taking advantage of the other meaning as a way to play the misunderstood literary allusionist. We have no evidence of this, but worse things have been done. So for being dumb and potentially smarmy, he gets little sympathy for me. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/49 "2011-08-04T12:13:19Z")
I don’t see it as racist, but it seems others can, so it seems an unwise term for a politician to use. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/50 "2011-08-04T13:42:52Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Let’s just call a spade a spade and admit that Obama’s a shitty President. Yes, these are definitely dark times for the US. ---
**Author:** ![LurkerInNJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed655f/32.png) [@LurkerInNJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkerInNJ)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270/51 "2011-08-04T14:35:51Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > The difference is that niggardly is a pretty uncommon word, and I think a lot of the reaction about that was that people assume “niggardly” IS a racial epithet. It, however, isn’t. At all. It never has been, has a different etymology, and is still used amongst wordy people without concern. I don’t think it’s all that uncommon a word. Less common than ball or cat, but hardly out of the reach of someone with a minimum of a high school education. Same with Uncle Remus. However, it seems that when niggardly is used publicly, even amongst wordy people, a public outcry follows. > **[Controversies about the word niggardly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22)** > > In the United States, there have been several controversies involving the misunderstanding of the word niggardly, an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", because of its phonetic similarity to nigger, an ethnic slur used against black people. Although the two words are etymologically unrelated, niggard is nonetheless often replaced with a synonym. People have sometimes faced misplaced backlash for using the word. > Niggard, arising in the Middle Ages, long predates nigger, which arose in the 1... Best quote: _“You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people’s lack of understanding”_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-tar-baby-an-ethnic-slur/591270.md?page=2)