It would seem that a lot of people don’t know that it has been used as a racial slur. I’m not sure how ‘out of touch’ it is not to be familiar with every single slur in existence. It’s more out of touch to use them in their racist meanings and not realize how offensive that might be (as when a local politician here said he’d been jewed out of a buck at a city meeting…).
And hey…isn’t that kind of a good thing? A while back there was a big fuss over the old rhyme “Eeny meenie miny moe.” Most of the people on this board, and I would guess most people in the US under 40 or so, had never heard of the old, racist version of the rhyme (of those who had, only one or two had heard in used by actual people–most had read of it in adulthood). I think that shows some progress, that something as basic and integral to language as a schoolyard rhyme has changed so completely. It’s not so easy to do that as you might think.
Shouldn’t we be kind of happy that it is possible to be an American who is over 50 years old and ignorant of some of the more awful, racist uses of certain terms? Romney was familiar enough with old Southern folklore to be able to use the term in its original sense. I think it’s perfectly natural that he didn’t know the offensive use.
I was told about the racial implication of the term even as I watched Song of the South many years ago, and for years thought the story parodied the term. Of course, that explanation is problematic if no citation may be found of the term earlier than the recording of the story itself. However, it is true that the term has long been in use as a racial slur. It has come as a surprise to me how many people don’t know the term is racially loaded.
When I was working as a Reserves Librarian for a college library, we had a couple of black students come to the desk to check out reserves for a professor Berbrier. This reminded one of our student workers of Br’er Bear, and she turned to me and said, “I wonder if anybody asks about the tar babies in Berbrier’s class.”
gulp
She was the picture of innocence, nor did the black students seem to find anything offensive in the comment. I explained it to her later, and she was flushed with embarrassment. But neither she nor her fellow students realized how the term could have been taken. I mentioned the incident to my boss, just in case a shitstorm was brewing (which it never did) and he knew exactly what I was concerned about. I assumed it must have been an age difference. The new generation had never heard of the racial slur. But the recent controversies seem to indicate otherwise. I would also have chalked it up to a regional difference. I was from Chicago, but my neighborhood was well known for being lousy with hillbillies (some of them ‘kin to me,’ as the expression goes). The boss was bred in the hills of Kentucky. But these younger students weren’t familiar with the load on the term, and in this thread southerners are reporting in as having never heard of it either.
So, I can see being charitable on this point without pitching a fit about how this is political correctness gone crazy. I’m slightly less generous on this point given that it comes right on the heels of Tony Snow catching shit over the very same locution.
I guess it depends on your perspective. I’m less charitable regarding this nation’s record on race relations. The dominant American view from my perspective is that racism is a vestige of the past, things are 100 percent better now, and any discussion about it is unnecessarily stirring the pot.
It’s a poor analogy, but I liken it to how you might feel when someone habitually insults you, then gives a half-assed acknowledgment, and then wants to act like it never happened. First, you’re not certain that the acknowledgment is sincere. Second, you’ve experienced considerable harm because of the constant harassment… it still affects you and how you feel about yourself, and that person. Seems to me to move forward, that person who’s responsible for making the comments might need to truly hear the harm they’ve caused, and responsibility, and then - and only then - you could both move forward. Again, fairly inexact analogy, but that’s how I feel about US race relations. Same goes with sexism and homophobia… and my take is that it’s in the air we breathe… to address it and to even attempt to overcome it requires work.
For the record - I am not an outraged Black person who feels Romney is racist… not anymore than most people in this nation are, anyway. I think it simply shows that he’s not as aware as he could be. It wouldn’t affect how I evaluate his performance as governor or his potential for higher office. Hell, I am unabashedly an LBJ fan for his work on civil rights, but I don’t doubt for a second he said a lot of things that would cause me great offense. The idea that there is a sizable number of Black people mobilizing for the downfall of Mitt Romney is a little overstated…
…but if the Black leaders make an announcement and it’s time to rise up, I’ll let y’all on the SDMB know.
Anyone who is preparing to run for national office might take a peek at the papers and note what went down with Tony Snow’s use of the term a few weeks back… I’m in agreement with Johnny Angel there.
When I was young, about 10 years old, this was in the mid '70s, my family drove to California and visited relatives. For some reason, we took home a dog that my Aunt and Uncle had. I’m not sure why. Anyway the dog was a weiner dog that had the coloring you associate with dobermans. The dog’s name was Tarbaby. We didn’t her that, that was her name given to her by my Aunt and Uncle.
Over the years, my neighborhood turned from almost all white to predominatly black. (my family is white) but nobody ever said anything about the dogs name. Going out and calling “TARBABY!” when she got out in the front was never any problem.
And yet, I missed the whole Snow episode, completely. (Of course, I do not have cable, so I missed the astute commentary in The Daily Show.) In fact, the more evidence I see presented on this thread, it appears that there is more substance to my wild speculation that this is an insult inside the black community that really has not made it out into the general white population. (Obviously, some whites are aware of the potential insult, but it seems that the number of whites who are aware of it (much less who would use it) is quite small.) In fact, it almost seems to parallel the use of “Yankee” outside the U.S., where one finds any number of Brits, Latin Amricans, Ozzies, and others “insulting” the good folks of South Carolina and Alabama by calling them “Yankees,” wholly unaware that an insult may have been delivered.