Perfunctory Outrage
This is one of those posts that I’m jotting off quickly simply because not writing it means I’ve become immune to the racist bullshit being spewed hither and yon.
I meant to write about this nonsense 5 hours ago, but I couldn’t muster up the energy. So I went to a bar run by a couple of French chaps and had some damn fine fajitas, and now, I’m fortified with beer. So here goes:
Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is opposed to Obama and everything he does. Lamborn wants to stay as far away from Obama as possible. Lamborn doesn’t even want to touch Obama because Obama is like a tar baby, and if Lamborn touches Obama, Lamborn will get stuck or get cooties or some horrifying combination of the two:
““Even if some people say, ‘Well, the Republicans should’ve done this, or they should’ve done that,’ they will hold the president responsible. Now I don’t want to even have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a, a tar baby and you, you get it, you know you’re stuck and you’re part of the problem now and you can’t get away. I don’t want that to happen to us, but if it does, or not, he’ll still get properly sowed the blame, because his policies for four years will have failed the American people.”
Shock! Outrage! Perfidy! Word Salad!
::yawn::
Here’s Ta-Nehisi Coates on the term “tar baby”:
Is tar baby a racist term? Like most elements of language, that depends on context. Calling the Big Dig a tar baby is a lot different than calling a person one. But sensitivity is not unwarranted. Among etymologists, a slur’s validity hangs heavily on history. The concept of tar baby goes way back, according to Words@Random from Random House: “The tar baby is a form of a character widespread in African folklore. In various folktales, gum, wax or other sticky material is used to trap a person.” The term itself was popularized by the 19th-century Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, in which the character Br’er Fox makes a doll out of tar to ensnare his nemesis Br’er Rabbit. The Oxford American Dictionary defines tar baby much like Romney used it, “a difficult problem, that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it.” But the term also has had racial implications. In his book Coup, John Updike says of a white woman who prefers the company of black men, “some questing chromosome within holds her sexually fast to the tar baby.” The Oxford English Dictionary (but not the print version of its American counterpart) says that tar baby is a derogatory term used for “a black or a Maori.”
Is Lamborn “a racist.”
Who cares.
Should he jump up his own ass and reside there?
Yes.
[via Think Progress]
[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]
Racist dog whistle – period. Judging from his age, I would bet my house that he knew exactly what he was saying/doing.
Doug Lamborn is an idiot. The country is full of them. When the going gets tough they gear into racist ratfucker mode.
Racist. Full stop. He didn’t get to be an adult, let alone elected to Congress, while not knowing the meaning of the term.
The one thing that irritates me most about racist speech like this is when people feel the need to rush in and explain why it “isn’t” racist. TNC should know better.
Just said this over at my place: As the direct target of white race-resentment phrases like “tar baby” and “coon”, there isn’t a person on earth capable of overriding my own ideas of how I must interpret or respond to these references, or insisting on what any Black person should feel about these terms.
Like ABL I could really give a crud if Lamborn is a “racist” (like he’d be the first one to ever come out of the Republican party. Please.) I do agree with eclectic brotha, too — screw the people who immediately rush out to monitor and stage manage people’s reactions to it. Especially Black people’s.
Nobody tells me how I’m supposed to respond to anti-Black bigot phrases.
I heard there were people a dkos defending this, saying it’s not racist. You know things are pretty bad when supposed” reality based” liberals defend scum like this. I guess their hatred of the president has some defending shit like this now.
As for Lambert, not surprising in the least. From the beginning, a lot of lawmakers can’t seem to hide why they won’t deal with President Obama. I’ve disrespect towards thismpresident has reached an all time high. Seems to be the cool thing now to find creative ways to point out the color of his skin without actually saying it. That way, you can have people rush in and defend you and you can play the innocent.
Should have read: The disrespect towards this president has reached an all time high.
I agree. The amount of energy expended by people defending all this racist bullshit is tiring, aggravating, and downright crazy-making. I’m so very tired of it.
Tar baby is not a racist term uberhaupt. It is only racist to folks who have only known it to be so, that is, used in a derogatory to describe a black person. This member of congress who used the term knew perfectly well the racist message he was sending, but he was also equally aware of the term’s usage in black folklore. But the fact that he was white and had that full-of-himself-whiteman glare in his eyes didn’t help his case, but he knew what he was doing. The minute I read what he had said I thought of the story of Anansi swimming in the King’s pool every morning and mucking it up. And the only way that sonofabitch ‘Nansi was gonna be caught was by the King making a tar baby to look like a woman, a naked woman. This of course leads to unexpected consequences, such as Compere Lion having a hot iron poker shoved up his ass and was surprised when he was instead expecting to dine on an entire barbecued cow all by himself and explaining how Anansi the original spiderman came to live in trees but not before shitting on Compere Lion’s head. Do you see how complex and layered this Tar Baby reference is? And I haven’t even mentioned Uncle Remus. This particular Tar Baby reference is from Trinidad and French Guiana. It is through these folkloric frames folks like my grandparents and especially my uncle from whom I learnt all these tales made sense of human action in the world. Sure the term tar baby is racist, but it is not only racist. Just because some white people muck shit up doesn’t mean we have to follow along and accept it as the way things are. But it’s probably to late for that kind of breezy optimism. Anyhow, I’ll stop.
So here’s a thing that mystifies me.
I mean, yes, why people still find it a worthwhile expenditure of their time to hate on black people in the year 2011 when there are airplanes and iPhones and whatever is the first thing that mystifies me, but I don’t think that’s getting solved today.
The thing that mystifies me AFTER we dispense with the above is whence the shit these people haul these slurs. I feel like Obama got elected and everyone immediately went running to their oldest racist relative they could find and was like “all right listen…we’re allowed to be mad at black people again,* I need to know all the old timey slurs so I can use them in public and look like a horse’s ass.” I mean, I guess the law of probability says SOMEONE was consistently using “tar baby” in everyday conversation for the past half century, but…seriously WHAT IS THIS?
* …apparently? Still not clear on this.
The great Sade Tar Baby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw63W7HBpgM
It sounds racist to me therefore it is racist. Just one more Republican racist, how cliche.
Just some more corniness. My attention span to this type of stuff is in gnat territory.
Was waiting for that quagmire shoe to drop. In a letter to the White House, Lambom now claims, in an apology of sorts, that he ought to have used the word “quagmire” instead of “tar baby.”
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/republican-congressman-apologizes-for-calling-president-obama-a-tar-baby.php?ref=fpb