Joel Chandler Harris -> Uncle Remus -> Brer Rabbit -> Tar Baby

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

A little history from the web on where this all came from:

Well in advance of the twentieth-century development of folklore studies and cultural anthropology as academic disciplines, Joel Chandler Harris gathered the dialect tales he had heard in his childhood told by slaves. He placed them within a narrative context that made them available to a large white audience, sharpening the effects of their regional details and the age-old wisdom by which the enslaved secretly outwit their masters. Through his work with the Uncle Remus tales, he would introduce Ame ricans to the basic patterns and rhythms of southern African-American speech. Because of Harris' accomplishments, American mainstream literature featured a memorable new character, Uncle Remus, as well as a new literary tradition.

the way had been hard for Harris as a child in Georgia. His day-laborer father deserted his mother just before his birth. Helped by the local people of Putnam County, the mother and the child made do until young Harris went to work for a newspaper at fourteen. Harris soon contributed humorous pieces to several Georgia papers, and he quickly gained a reputation in the newspaper world. In 1876 he joined the Atlanta Constitution in the city that became his permanent home. During this Period d Harris divided his time between editorial writing (urging southerners to "reconstruct" their habits and to rise above the conflicts of their past) and the dialect tales, which began to appear in print under the guise of Uncle Remus, the old slave.

His first collection of folk poems and proverbs was published in 1881 as Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings. Further collections included Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), and Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1905). As the titles suggest, relationships are important; they develop between the wide-eyed audience (likened to a little white boy from the main plantation household) and the narrator who acts as "best friend"-whiling away the hours with a seemingly endless supply of tales. The lasting impression of the Remus stories on readers of all ages and from many countries (there were translations into twenty-seven languages) stems from the force of their slave lore.

Harris insisted that his sources were genuine and that his documentation of the plot and dialect was accurate. In this way, Uncle Remus goes back in time to African models, as well as to the animal tales of Aesop and Chaucer. Harris helped inspir e other writers in the vernacular through his adroit use of narrative forms, his excellent ear for the subtleties of dialect, and his ability to emphasize the universal nature of these classic standoffs between the weak and the powerful.

Excerpted from The Harper Anthology of American Literature: Volume Two

I would suggest a reading of "Why the Negro is Black" for an insight into Chandler's views on race. It contains the "N" word so be warned. You can read it here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/negro.html

If you have trouble getting through the style, you might try reading it aloud phonetically.

[goclark]

1. I don't have to read about it, we had to live through

all the images and the Sambo Restaurants and the dialects.

It was and still is racist!

[Recursion]

2. Gah!

Whom did Snow call a tar baby?

To whom was he referring?

[rpgamerd00d]

3. NO ONE, HE USED THE TERM PROPERLY TO REFER TO

NOT WANTING TO GET INTO A STICKY SITUATION.

[Recursion]

5. that's my point nt

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Whatever you want to believe...have at it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. There's is no proper way to use the term.

That's like saying the term "nigger in the wood pile" is OK, if it's simply being used to describe ancestry.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

16. He called no one a tar baby. He used in in a phrase

as in I'm not going to hug that tar baby.

A referral to a literary allegory.

[karlrschneider]

4. That is an asinine and ridiculous claim.

...

[goclark]

8. I'll consider the source

I've heard Whites try to tell us how to feel all through my life.

No one tells me how to think.

[karlrschneider]

11. I'm not telling you HOW to think, I'm asking you TO think.

But I suppose I'm beginning to understand those poor persecuted Christians.

[goclark]

12. I have a Masters Degree and I have been THINKING for my entire life

I THINK that you need to give up waiting for me to "think" like you think.

I grew up in the Civil Rights era, we were able to easily identify people that wanted to force us to DO as THEY told us to do.

Sorry!

End of conversation.

[karlrschneider]

15. Well, I marched for civil rights in the 1960s so lay your guilt trip on

somebody else. You can ignore history and you can ignore me but you can't ignore facts. So bugger off. I don't give a shit whether you're white, black, yellow, brown, pink or heliotrope...I support your right to be ignorant in any case.

[KoKo]

49. Karl...see post #48 for a reply to you...posted mistakenly to another

poster on this thread........

[AspenRose]

54. How rude.

IG-nore.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. Do you believe Huckleberry Finn is a racist work as well?

Twain also used vernacular and contemporary terminology.

"I don't have to read about it..."

Sorry you feel that way.

[KoKo]

46. And...your credentials and say...should be recognized...why not? n/t

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

47. Maybe I'm a little slow on the uptake here, Koko, but that went right over

my head?

[KoKo]

48. Oh Drat...sorry...was replying to another poster....sorry.........

:-( I think it was Poster Karl Schneider...I'll see if I can fix...

[KoKo]

29. Are you talking about the "Gullah" dialect? It's a legitimate dialect

and the roots go back to Africa. If you find some old time white folks on the Sea Islands of SC & GA you will find that they also spoke in much the same dialect picking it up from the African-Americans they lived and worked around.

There are some wonderful books on the Gullah dialect which Uncle Remus spoke.

[Joe Fields]

55. You should read it. You may change your mind.

I found Harris' stories to be uplifting and inspiring metaphors for the struggle to break free of slavery.

[trof]

9. I read Uncle remus as a child. Had trouble with "bimeby".

I was young enough to not know how to read 'dialect'.
Bime-bee?
Years later I figured out bye-em-bye.
Bye and bye = Later on.

As an adult I've enjoyed Harris's tales as a latter day Aesop.
And a southern one at that. Something I do enjoy.

Racist?
I don't think so.

[trof]

10. On the tar baby:

No racial slur in the story.
The tar baby was something that, once you had grabbed aholt of it, you couldn't let go.
A sticky situation.

[Jacobin]

13. Yep. I was read Uncle Remus stories as a child

I remember the tar baby story and its moral to this day.

I see nothing racist in all this hoopla.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. Myself as well. And in later life being a rare book dealer

revisited Harris's telling of the folk tale and it's history.

Also, another trivia that's been lost to the ill-read is Bannerman's Sambo who was originally Indian.

(From Wikipedia)

Helen Bannerman (1862--1946) was the Scottish author of a number of children's books, the most famous being Little Black Sambo.

She was born in Edinburgh and, because women were not admitted as students into British Universities, she sat external examinations set by the University of St. Andrews and attained the qualification of LLA (Lady Literate in Arts). She lived for a good proportion of her life in India, where her husband was an officer in the Indian Medical Service.

The heroes of many of her books are recognisably south Indian or Tamil children from the illustrations. However, despite the plots having no really racist overtones and usually celebrating the intelligence and ingenuity of the children, the name Sambo has become a slur against people of colour and the books have often been banned or censored.

[kineneb]

18. I never thought Sambo was racist

maybe because I always thought of him as an Indian (as in Hindu). Ny grandparents raised me to belive all people are equal, until proved otherwise.

[KoKo]

28. Our school library had a beautifully illustrated edition of "Sambo."

But it was titled "Lil' Black Sambo" and the character was blac and not Indian. I later read the stories were based on Indian characters and the tiger was certainly a clue even to us little kids who read the book that this was not an American tale. It was a very tiny book and would almost fit in the palm of an adults hand.

I'm not sure if the racial stereotyping was because the illustrator portrayed the character as a little African-American boy...but when I read it around third grade or so...I just thought the illustrations were so beautiful and the story of Sambo didn't strike me as poking fun of a group of people. That racists made the Sambo book a way poking fun at African-Americans later on was something I didn't see when I was a little kid with my fellow elementary schoolers. And, I suspect that it was much later that it became a racist way of hitting back at fellow citizens during the Civil Rights Movement that caused the book to be so controversial. I don't know whether or not the illustrator had that intention at the time...which would be a very bad thing.

[Critters2]

30. We had a beautifully illustrated version as well

Sambo wore a turban with a ruby in front. His skin was dark, but not black. I remember especially the picture of the tigers running in a circle.

Racist, I suppose, in that "black" was a British term for Asian Indians. But nothing to do with African Americans.

[trof]

38. Some Indians are very dark complected.

I think that was why he was L'il BLACK Sambo.
When the tigers run around and around the tree until they turn into ghee (Indian for clarified butter, I think) you know it's an Indian tale.

[Critters2]

39. Yep

on both counts. Not many tigers in the American South.

[fishwax]

44. the illustrations were likely influenced by blackface caricatures of

African Americans. There was a doll called the golliwog that was popular in europe at the time of the book's publication. The doll was based on blackface presentations.

[KoKo]

27. Yes...even as a little kid that seemed to be what the Tar Baby was....

that I thought when I read the books. And tar was a substance used in the South that would glob up into balls. Where Chandler may have gotten the idea for "Tar Baby." It would stick on folks shoes and maybe at the time folks made up funny names for globs of tar. Just speculating...but I live now in the "Tar Heel" state.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. The only thing this controversy shows...

is that there are a lot of shockingly ignorant people who are far too quick to perceive racism in innocuous phrases in which there is no actual racial slur either implied or overt (cf. 'niggardly' and 'call a spade a spade'). The amount of self-righteous indignation this seems to have generated has me shaking my head in consternation.

[bobbieinok]

19. so all those blacks + whites who say they've only heard 'tar baby'

used as a pejorative term for blacks are liars????

And 'we' should never listen to blacks when they say something is racist or to women when they say something is sexist????

Why not accept that there are 2 meanings for the term and that the meanings MAY be the result of different generational or geographical experiences???

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. No, they're ignorant (which is what I said, I think).

And as is the case with any other term with more than one meaning, context is always the clue as to which is meant (and 'tar baby' certainly wasn't used as a slur here).

And as to your second argument, anyone who says 'tar baby' in the sense of 'a situation from which it is difficult or impossible to extricate oneself' (which is the definition given by EVERY online dictionary, if you care to check) is a racist term is obviously at best ignorant, and at worst an idiot, whatever his or her skin colour (as is anyone who says 'call a spade a spade' is a racist phrase).

I'm sorry, but I don't see an inability to draw fine distinctions, discern meaning from context, or admit ignorance as being defensible.

[Katarina]

21. 'xcuse me

Been awhile since I've posted here but I grew up with a racist step-father and I know how the word tar baby was used in our house. I'm not ignorant, I KNOW how it was used and it was a racist phrase along with many others.

So while you may disagree with someone please don't call them ignorant. Everyone has different experiences. Mine was obviously different than yours.

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. I'm sorry...

but if someone thinks that the only meaning of the phrase is as a racist slur, then they quite obviously ARE ignorant (ignorant means 'not knowing', and it's not an insult, it's a statement of fact).

[fishwax]

45. no more ignorant than those who argue that the phrase is simply

an innocent reference to a children's tale.

[Jack Rabbit]

53. Clearly, it is both

However, the real point of this thread is that it was a folk tale before it was a racial slur. Moreover, the folk tale has nothing to do with the racial slur and is not, in and of itself, racist.

Many of us enjoy folk tales (me, for instance). The Tar Baby is among my favorites; indeed, Joel Chandler Harris' work has an honored place on my bookshelf. And, I should add, my screen name has more than a little to with my admiration for the protagonist of these stories.

I will assume that Mr. Harris, a White man born in Georgia in 1848, was at least passively a White supremacist; there weren't very many White people born at that time and in that place who weren't. However, his retelling of the plantation stories that he heard as a child have preserved an Afro-American oral tradition that would otherwise have been lost. Reading these works gives one an excellent sense of the story telling experience. While Harris portrayed plantation life for elderly blacks perhaps more idyllically than it actually was, he meant no disrespect to those who made up the composite character of Uncle Remus. The Uncle Remus stories are a preservation of a great part of American culture: homey and unadorned, yet something through which the nobility of the common man shines bright.

Accordingly, while no one should make apologies for a racial slur, neither should that fact that tar baby has been appropriated by some for misuse and abuse keep any of us from telling or enjoying this tale.

[Elidor]

56. What Jack Rabbit said

These are some of the best stories of the ages, timeless little windows on a vanished past. And our culture has obliterated far more cultures and their treasures than we have managed to preserve. I thank god for people like Chandler Harris and the men and women who told him their stories. If every town in America had a cultural archaeologist/linguist/storyteller, this place would be a paradise tomorrow.

Well, almost.

[Critters2]

33. So, your step-father was ignorant of American culture

No need for you to follow in his foot steps.

[KoKo]

31. It's always about how the words are used that causes the harm and the

pain. Words that in themselves weren't written that way but were seized upon by those who would misuse them.

Our Repugs are masters at that. Turning phrases around to hurt people. Swift Boating a hero into a coward. We on the left are not immune but I see it more from the Right.

[kittykitty]

23. "Song of the South", a film we'll never see resurrected

I was singing, "Zippedy Do Dah" yesterday for some reason, and I said to my husband, that's a film we'll never see brought back by Disney. (I think Disney did it).

I remember Uncle Remus sitting and singing "Zippedy-Do-Dah"--"there's a bluebird on my shoulder" and animated blue bird fluttered around his shoulder. And then he told the story of B'rer Rabbit which was animated. I remember it was a real 'feel good' film for kids--but politically incorrect now.

[cmkramer]

24. James Baskett

He won a special Academy Award for playing "Uncle Remus" in the movie.

[LostinVA]

25. Disney won't put it out on dvd for that very reason

[KoKo]

26. Yes....it was censored. It's a shame because it was a beautiful film and

also gave much to think about. Unfortunately what was viewed as "racial sterotyping seen in some of the characters" and a view that the movie seemed to portray plantation life as a good thing for slaves caused the movie to be considered racist.

I don't know whether that was a bad or a good thing or just a sign of the changing times in viewpoints and not judging.

But, I grew up with the Uncle Remus stories, saw Song of the South in in a re-release back in the 60's and I'm a liberal Democrat who supported Civil Rights Movement with all my heart because of what I saw growing up in the Segregated South. As a child maybe one gets out of reading something very different than what the popular culture at the time would suspect. I didn't find either the movie or the Remus stories racist. But, as I said it's in the eye of the beholder and the changing views of the times. Both movie and Chandler's stories had an Aesop's fables quality. One could see what they wanted to in them...but they were views of life that go deeper than sterotypes. Maybe it was the fable quality that appealed to many.

[Critters2]

34. Exactly

Beautiful stories, with a subversive tinge to them...the slaves were creating these deeply wise tales under the noses of masters who saw them as little more than animals. Much food for thought.

[KoKo]

37. yes....

It's amazing that wherever people are "oppressed" they will find clever ways to portray ways to deal with the oppression. Whether through stories, music or art. And there is a commonality of "life lessons," to be learned in fables that teach if one is open to learning.

Makes me wonder how we are dealing today in Bush World...those of us who are oppressed. Perhaps the internet is alive with it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. I don't remember Uncle Remus being portrayed as a slave

From what I recall of the way the children were dressed, the movie seemed to take place in the early 1900s.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. I'm not sure which is worse.

Pretending that what's rather obvious racism isn't, or people defending Tony Snow.

Sure "tarbaby" is part of our "culture" and was a part of a beloved children's book. The same way Lawn Jockies are simply ethnically diverse garden gnomes. And minstrel shows were just innocent performances of old slave tunes.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

41. Did the OP say ANYTHING about Tony Snow?

The word tarbaby was not used toward another person or group of person. It was used as a noun. IMHO, the assignation of the allegory to a racist term is quite a stretch.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

42. Did I say anything about the OP?

And pretending it's not racist is quite a stretch.

[Nederland]

36. Why is it

That otherwise intelligent people have a hard time grasping the idea that words have multiple meanings and that the meanings of those words frequently change over time?

:shrug:

[SeveneightyWhoa]

43. This whole "controversy" shows..

..me that there are a whole lot of unbelievably stupid people on DU.

We'll never be that far from FreeRepublic on the one-track-mind ignorance, will we.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

50. I'd rather believe that they were just literature-challenged than "stupid.

[Jack Rabbit]

51. The origins of the Tar Baby Story are West African

That shouldn't be any surprise. That is from where the ancestors of the black slaves from whom Joel Chandler Harris heard the story came.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

52. You are right.

Thanks.