What Is It about Politicans and 'Tar Baby' References?

Is there a Political Science course somewhere in the country where Uncle Remus is required reading? Are our elected officials (and their hirelings) so profoundly stupid they grasp for racist metaphors without even understanding their meaning? Tony Snow, Mitt Romney, and now St. John McCain have all got caught up in the "tar baby" that is the Tar Baby metaphor.

I'm of the same generation as Snow and Romney and way, way younger than McCain. I was exposed to the Uncle Remus stories as a kid through the Disney movie, "Song of the South." Uncle Remus was the creation of a white man in the 19th century, Joel Chandler Harris. Uncle Remus was an old slave on a southern plantation. In the fashion of Aesop, the fictional Uncle Remus told stories to the white children of his owner.

I remember seeing pieces of the movie on television (probably on the Mickey Mouse Club). I really remember that song, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. I never got into the Uncle Remus stories as a child because the thick slave dialect used in the stories was difficult for me to read. As an adult I could see the racist panoply of the stories. Like Little Black Sambo, these are stories from a time when Jim Crow ruled the south and blatant racism ruled the north. They are obsolete relics of a sad past.

The Tar Baby was a small black child made by a fox to trap a rabbit. The rabbit hit the black baby and found himself stuck in the tar. As a metaphor it is rather useless since few people under the age of 40 are aware of the Uncle Remus stories. Especially since the phrase, "sticky situation" works just as well without all of the racial overtones. Why politicals insist on getting stuck in a tar baby of their own making is a mystery to me.

Here is the original Uncle Remus story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
I love the comment to this posting because it made me think.

Within the United States culture the Tar Baby story is inexorably tied to the Uncle Remus stories. Neither Tony Snow, Mitt Romney, nor John McCain draw upon African folklore for their metaphors.

The foundation of Uncle Remus is a white man's recasting of the oral story telling of African slaves in the United States for the entertainment of white people. In this, it the same as the black-face minstrel shows of the 19th century. They were based upon the musical traditions of plantation slaves and, going back far enough, on African music. Again, for the enjoyment of whites.

In both instances, the milieu was dishonest. The Happy Darkie myth is the clear context of the Uncle Remus stories as well as the black-faced minstrels. Slaves singing cheerful songs and telling heavily dialect stories is a white figment of black life in the 19th century. That said, there is room, I dare say a need, for preserving African-American folklore of the 19th century, just not the white caricature of that folklore. A personal benefit of this is I will be seeking out Toni Morrison's novel, Tar Baby.

It is also true that all of the above is way over the heads of American politicans. They just like the metaphor because ... damn, I don't know why they like it. But, they do.

FINAL MUSINGS
McCain was a child when "Song of the South" was in the theaters; Romney, Snow, John Kerry (who used the phrase in 1992) and I were probably first exposed to the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby while watching the Mickey Mouse Club on television.

Most white Americans over the age of 50, underwent segregationist enculturation as children. Watching the "Song of the South," reading Little Black Sambo, singing "Jump Jim Crow" was a common experience of white youths in the Forties and Fifties. Americans under the age of 40 have, for the most part, escaped the burden of those lessons. This enculturation is deeply rooted. To freely grab a metaphor steeped in the culture of segregationism shows a failure to understand the errors in those youthful lessons. It displays, to me, a lack of self-awareness at best. At worst, it displays a longing for the "good old days" when people of color knew their place and stayed there.

I would be willing to cut someone slack if they made a practice of using African-American folklore as metaphors. None of the politicans in question have shown anywhere near that level of erudition.