Conservative MP defends use of term "tar baby" (Canada)

[Clintonista2]

Tory MP Pierre Poilievre came under fire in the House of Commons on Friday for using the term "tar baby."

The controversy arose as Poilievre accused Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff of distancing himself from the carbon tax policy initiated by former party leader Stéphane Dion.

"On that side of the House, they have the man who fathered the carbon tax, put it up for adoption to his predecessor and now wants a paternity test to prove the tar baby was never his in the first place," said Poilievre, the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister.

The Liberals and the NDP later asked Poilievre to withdraw the comment and apologize, saying the phrase carried racist undertones, but Poilievre refused.

"Tar baby is a common reference that refers to issues that stick to one," he said.

While that is a dictionary definition of tar baby, the term has also been used as a slur to describe black children.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/29/tar-baby.html

== ==

This is the same MP that said natives are "lazy"

[MADem]

1. Didn't we go through something similar here a year or two back? nt

[smalll]

2. Yes we did. At least he didn't say "niggardly" (n/t)

[YOY]

3. What's wrong with "niggardly"? It's not a vulgar word. It just "sounds" like a racist epithet.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggardly

It means "stingy". Not exactly even remotely associated with any stereotype I have ever heard of.

[smalll]

5. I'm on your side. Just as "tar baby" only SOUNDS racist for people who don't know Uncle Remus --

At the same time, despite the fact that we're both on the same side in defending literary legacy against modern barbarism, even you say racist "epitaph" rather than racist "epithet."

Civilization is doomed.

[YOY]

6. That would be 2 in the morning and I cannot sleep + spellchecker.

If you want to blame the end of civilization on that...go for it.

We can write the epitaph on its gravestone...:)

[MADem]

4. That word doesn't mean what people seem to think it means.

I remember some guy in the DC government got nailed for that--unjustly. The word predates the N word by EONS.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1725/is-niggardly-a-racist-word


...the origin of "niggard" is unclear, but not its timeline, which predates the N-word in the English language by a couple hundred years at least. "Niggard" comes up as early as Chaucer, late 14th century. The most commonly speculated origin is Scandanavian nig/Old Norse hnoggr, meaning miserly. Don't know how much faith you want to put in Indo-European roots, but one meaning of the root ken- is conjectured to relate a family of words with a connotation implying closing, tightening, or pinching (the family of related words is hypothesized to include such n-words as nap, nibble, nod, nosh, neap, nip). The racial slur "nigger," on the other hand, doesn't enter the lexicon until the 1500's, first as "neger" or "neeger," obviously from the same root as the French negre and Spanish negro, words for the color black, which are derived from the Latin niger.

Likely, your conversation on the word occurred about the same time as much of the country's, when poor David Howard made the national news for use of this term. Howard, head of the Office of Public Advocate for D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who described his own administration of a particular fund as "niggardly" in the presence of two of his staff members. He has since been quoted as saying he "immediately apologized" for making what might be misinterpreted as a "racist remark," but the damage had been done. Rumors circulated that he had in fact used a racial epithet (one attribution claimed he said, "I'm tired of all these niggers calling me with their problems"), and he eventually resigned. Eventually the mayor, after determining the facts, asked him to rescind his resignation, and he rejoined the administration, albeit in another position....



It was Mitt "Strap the Family Dog To the Roof Of the Car" Romney who used the tar baby term...now I remember!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/31/politics/main1851199.shtml

[Greyhound]

7. We are supposed to restrain our speech to protect the ignorant from their ignorance.

As everybody knows, if you use "big words" or make literary references, you're an elitist snob.

Not sure if that's left or right, but it is thoroughly American.

[Morning Dew]

8. Oh boy, remember the Texas black hole controversy from about a year ago... ?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/071008dnmetofficialsspar.3b884727.html

[aikoaiko]

9. Its funny how the correct use of the phrase tar baby has become a tar baby.

Its a perfectly good, non-racist metaphor when used to denote something that gets "stuck" to you after you "embrace" it.

[BigBluenoser]

10. I move that we change "tar baby" to "toffee baby"

Still sticky, but more 'nummy, an 75% less likely to give offence.

If that is still too melatoninally charged - I move to "Snow drift baby". Like the kind you get your car stuck in. Not nearly as sticky, but very very wonder bread.

[Fla_Democrat]

12. toffee is brown

someone will still get twisted over using the term. Maybe pine sap baby. No, pine sap is yellowish. How bout tile mastic baby... no, it's kinda greenish/brown. I like snow drift baby, but it is regionally offensive. 'What, it's only a Northern thing?'

Silicone caulking baby, no, silicone is slick, not so much sticky, and it may offend the surgically enhanced members of society.

Georgia red clay baby..... no, Georgia (see above about region) red... need I say it? clay... brings up American idol and all that again. :eyes:

Ahhh, Aesop, you had wisdom for the ages. :evilgrin:

[Canuckistanian]

13. I agree. And the MP is from Quebec

They're the least racist people in Canada as a whole. If I ever heard a Quebec politician using the "n" word, I'd be shocked.

[marmar]

11. Thanks for posting Clintonista....too bad about all the semantics-obsessed responses.

If Canadian Liberals are offended by the use of tar baby, I think that's their right. But the anti-PC brigade seems to think that only the denotative meaning of words and phrases are of any importance.

[aikoaiko]

14. Yes, its makes perfect sense to be offended by spic, chink, and spade too.

but not when the context is clearly nonracist like saying:

My home is spic and span.

There is a chink in the chain.

I used a spade to dig a hole.

It's about context. Yes, the phrase tar baby can be used and has been used as a pejorative for people of very dark skin, but this is not the case in the OP. If someone used my three examples to refer to a person's ethnicity/genetic heretige, then that too would be offensive.