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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In today's climate of Political Correctness, Helen, it's best to always avoid racial or National references of any kind, even if complimentary, as any such allusion, however neutral, will be interpreted by the PC crowd as pejorative and racist
dalehileman
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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in intercourse . . . ."
ooooh, aaaaaaaaaaahhh, ooh, yessss.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I would consider "tar-baby" to be offensive because, except in the Uncle Remus story, I have only heard it used as a racial slur. After decades of it's being used to offend I am surprised that an American politician would expect it to be taken any other way.
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veteran
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Quote:
I would consider "tar-baby" to be offensive because, except in the Uncle Remus story, I have only heard it used as a racial slur. After decades of it's being used to offend I am surprised that an American politician would expect it to be taken any other way.
Sure thing, Zed, if you don't mind rewriting history for the sake of cowardly politicians and disregarding conventional meanings on the outside chance that it might offend.
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990212 
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stranger
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I think perhaps you misunderstand me. I think Disney has good reason to keep Song of the South in a vault, but I'm not in favor of censorship of words, thoughts, literature, or films. I'm perfectly comfortable with the notion of Song of the South, The Anarchists' Cookbook, and even Mein Kampf being available in my local public library. They don't have a place on my personal reading list, but they're a part of the historical record of what was deemed appropriate to publish at various points in time. We need those records to understand the history of those times.
Surely you understand why the minstrel-like image of Uncle Remus offends so many people, even if you, yourself aren't offended? That's why I say it's problematic. I'm not trying to police what anyone says; I'm just trying to foster what I hope is an interesting discussion.
Ultimately, each person is responsible for their own speech acts. To one extent or another, when we write or speak, it's for the purpose of causing a change in our listeners or readers. The question I ask is simply to what extent we should consider how others might misinterpret our intent.
Sadly, I'll probably think twice before using the word "niggardly" or the phrase "tar baby" in the future, even though I think they're both perfectly acceptable turns of phrase. In the abstract there's no hate in either one of them, but as your indignation shows, no matter how careful a person is in what he says, there's always the possibility of being misperceived.
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veteran
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I've only heard it used one time with any frequency. When I was a teenager, a black woman at the end of our building always referred to her kids as tarbabies. I don't think she meant to convey any evil intent by it.
At the time, I had never heard the word used by anyone before. I had assumed she just made it up on the spot. I'm not sure whether it would occur to me to use this on other people, but I've thought several times about referring to my youngest daughter in this way, as she tends to get very dark during the summer.
OTOH, there are attempts to silence people from saying things on the basis that saying those things in those particular ways is necessarily racist. For example, if a white person were to talk about "asian mothers," she would almost certainly be met with ridicule and scorn. Any time my kids are talking with other asian or half-asian kids, an inevitable topic of conversation involving mutual mocking and commiseration, is their experiences with their asian mothers. If you look on the web, you might even find a few websites, including videos, of asian kids poking fun of their parents.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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themilum
Not sure I understand you. How was I "disregarding conventional meanings on the outside chance that it might offend?" I was surprised that a political figure would use a term that I thought had been used as a slur for decades and had therefore adopted this derogatory meaning as it's conventional meaning. It is hardly an outside chance or overly sensitive to be offended if someone uses a phrase that has often been used by others deliberately to offend. Given the wide variety available in the English language, surely a word or phrase without that connotation could be found. I would consider this simple courtesy not political correctness.
edit - I changed the above because on rereading it sounded rather strident and it wasn't meant to.
Last edited by Zed; 08/01/06 11:11 PM.
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veteran
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Quote:
themilum
Not sure I understand you. How was I "disregarding conventional meanings on the outside chance that it might offend?" I was surprised that a political figure would use a term that I thought had been used as a slur for decades and had therefore adopted this derogatory meaning as it's conventional meaning. It is hardly an outside chance or overly sensitive to be offended if someone uses a phrase that has often been used by others deliberately to offend. Given the wide variety available in the English language, surely a word or phrase without that connotation could be found. I would consider this simple courtesy not political correctness.
edit - I changed the above because on rereading it sounded rather strident and it wasn't meant to.
Yeah, Zed, you do that.
But in doing so you will fail to impart a small bit of history to the people that you feel you must protect.
I reached adulthood in the segregated South.
Never, I say, never, did I ever hear anyone refer to a colored child as a tar baby. Down South, you see, we love babies.
And, as well, back then no one would be so insulting to suggest to another human being (black or white) that he was incapable of making the distinction between a parable and an insult.
I think that this little tidbit of paternalism is a product of the North.
Too bad. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
never, did I ever hear anyone refer to a colored child as a tar baby.
check out Toni Morrison's or Salman Rushdie's usage of the Tar Baby imagery. They ain't talkin' about children.
Ooh Tar Baby yeah you got me stuck on you. Ooh Tar Baby and I can't get loose it's true. Come on Tar Baby won't you hold me tight, we can stick together all through the night. Ooh Tar Baby and maybe I'm in love with you. (from The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
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stranger
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Another article on this issue that appeared in the Boston Herald contains a few more reactions to Romney's statement: http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=150679One comment in particular caught my attention: Maurice Lewis, a former Boston television reporter who
is black, said of Romney’s choice of words, “I just think
it’s reflective of how he sees people who don’t look like
him. Words like tar baby and pickaninny are deeply rooted
in the segregation of America. They don’t have an
ever-changing, ever-expanding meaning.”What really made this comment stand out for me was the same thing that sparked my original post: the notion that the commonly understood meaning of this phrase is a slur. These comments, and those posted in this forum show that this is true for some, and not for others. Do dictionaries exhibit bias by not mentioning the negative connotation of the term? Perhaps the difference in meaning falls along regional lines, or perhaps it's racial, I don't know. I'd agree with Lewis that these phrases are deeply rooted in America's history of segregation and slavery, but I think the notion of any word having a static meaning is absurd. Some change more slowly than others to be sure, but language can be as fluid as a glacier, or an ocean.
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