"Tar baby" a racially offensive term?

[Pseudolus]

(please vote before reading the story)

This was a new one to me.

Governor Mitt Romney yesterday apologized for using the expression ``tar baby" -- a phrase some consider a racial epithet -- among comments he made at a political gathering in Iowa over the weekend.

``The governor was describing a sticky situation," said Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's spokesman. ``He was unaware that some people find the term objectionable, and he's sorry if anyone was offended."

In his first major political trip out of the state since a ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel killed a Boston woman on July 10, Romney told 200 people at a Republican lunch Saturday about the political risks of his efforts to oversee the project.

``The best thing for me to do politically is stay away from the Big Dig -- just get as far away from that tar baby as I possibly can," he said in answer to a question from the audience.

The expression ``tar baby" has had different meanings over the years.

A definition from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary traces the expression to the tar baby that trapped Br'er Rabbit in an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris, which became popular in the 19th century. The dictionary now defines the expression as ``something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself."

But it also has been used as a pejorative term for dark-skinned blacks.

In 1981, author Toni Morrison published a novel titled ``Tar Baby," and she has compared the expression to other racial epithets. She says it's a term that white people used to refer to black children, especially black girls.

Reached at her home near Princeton University, where she teaches, Morrison called the expression ``antiquated" and one that's ``attractive to some people, when they begin to search for hints of racism."

She described it as a ``forbidden word" that she sought to restore to its original meaning, one that illuminated an old African tale about the connection between a master and slave.

``How it became a racial epithet, I don't know," she said. ``It was my attempt to rescue the phrase from its low meaning. I wanted to annihilate the connotation and return the meaning to its origins. Apparently, I haven't succeeded."

She added: ``I suppose it should be avoided because it could be offensive to some people."

I only knew about the Br'er-related, "sticky" meeting.

Oh, and apparantly (from further in the story) we're not supposed say "black sheep of the family" anymore, either. That's a term I wouldn't use in a context where it might be interpreted racially (for instance, referring to the only black person in a group, even if the "black sheep"ness I was talking about had nothing to do with color), but not one I would drop all together.