Is "tar baby" a racist term?
I always took it to mean " a person or situation which appears to require help but turns into a trap. ".
2
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.@JeffMurray
Sorry. I inferred incorrectly. I thought that was what you were implying. That to ask the question made one subtlety or unknowingly a "racist".
Mooolah
Level 8
Feb 10, 2022
0
No implication from me. Just saying that people are really sensitive to everything these days. To be honest, I'm speaking from experience here. I call myself the real life Larry David, because I've been in situations too many times in my life where I'm technically right about something, but no one else cares about who's correct just how something looks or feels.
A company called "Tar Baby Roofers" was confronted by a black friend of mine. He thought it was offensive. I think it was ignorance & insensitive.
Mooolah
Level 8
Feb 10, 2022
2
I grew up in the deep South in the 1950s and heard every kind of vile racist slur imaginable, but I don’t recall ever hearing tar baby used to refer to black people. Maybe it was, but I didn’t hear it. I thought it was just a trap made out of tar, and tar is black.
skado
Level 9
Feb 9, 2022
0
The way I look at it, if you have to question whether or not something's racist, it doesn't much matter if it's actually racist. If you're questioning it, others are too and some have probably decided that it definitely is. Even if you're right, and it's not, is that really the argument you want to have? The hill you want to die on? It'll be a pyrrhic victory AT BEST. My crazy QAnon uncle who I stopped talking to years ago (you can guess why) got into a huge argument with his gay son and his gay son's black husband about how "Get your cotton-pickin hands outta there" was never associated with racism, it was simply a thing his Italian mother said to her Italian kids when they were into something they shouldn't have been. But even if you don't know it, or see it, if it is, or even seems like it might be, save yourself the headache and just use one of the hundred other ways the English language affords you to say what you want to say.
ChestRockfield
Level 8
Feb 9, 2022
4
@Gwendolyn2018
Did you read all of what you linked??
"The expression began life in the late 1700s and differs from the 19th century Dixie term, 'cottonpicker', in that the latter was derogatory and racist, whereas 'cotton-picking' referred directly to the difficulty and harshness of gathering the crop. This didn't extend to the specific expression 'keep your cotton-picking hands off of me'. [emphasis mine] This no doubt alludes to the horny, calloused (and usually black) hands that picked cotton."
So 1. The phrase as he used it likely was racist, and 2. You missed the whole point of my comment. It doesn't matter if it's actually racist. Having to argue the nuance of why something that seems racist isn't racist itself makes one look racist.
@Gwendolyn2018 Would you think that I would think that no white person has ever picked cotton? It's all still irrelevant to the point of my story.
@JeffMurray. Your first sentence says it All!!!!!
@AnneWimsey Thank you.
@Wangobango3 But you had the thought to ask. Why?
@JeffMurray Thinking & asking does not make one a "racist".
@Mooolah I didn't say it made one a racist...
" Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a black person, especially a dark-skinned black child. "
Diaco
Level 7
Feb 9, 2022
3
Everything in context. The word cracker for example typically isn't considered a racist term. But if you use it to describe a white person it is.
Tejas
Level 8
Feb 9, 2022
1
@Tejas. In what isolated hamlet do you live that the word "cracker" is not considered Incredibly offensive?
@AnneWimsey you must not spend much time around anyone who isn't white. People only now days start to see it as a racial slur. It didn't used to be much at all
@Tejas my first husband was almost shot in a bar in Eufaula Alabama in 1969 because the guy with the gun thought the ex called him a cracker. It was actually the guy standing next to the ex & the gun misfired......
@AnneWimsey cool story bro
@Tejas the "more" involves the gun-guy using it to split ex's head open with the butt, then the ex beating the hell out of me (again) when I hurt him trying to clean it...nobody wanted to have the cops show up, and Of Course there was no alcohol involved.....
Good times
Doesn't it depend on the colour of the woman who you are thanking?
FrayedBear
Level 9
Feb 9, 2022
0
Indubitably, from slave times used to make blacks feel ignorant or inferior.
LovinLarge
Level 8
Feb 9, 2022
1
@Wangobango3 There is differing info about its origin and subsequent use but its racist connotation in modern times is commonly understood. Generally I cite my source but in this case my source used the n word comparatively and it spelled out the n word so I'm not referencing it.
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