Words matter. It’s one of those basic life lessons we’re supposed to learn by the time we leave kindergarten. Of course, some people never learn that lesson — and then you wind up with talking heads perpetuating casual racism on live television. Today’s lesson comes to us in the form of former New York Times journalist, Judith Miller.
(Tar) Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Judith Miller, widely known (and despised) for her role in the Valerie Plame scandal, is now a contributor on Fox News.
In a discussion about the Russian hacking news that broke on Friday, Miller said:
“President Obama isn’t going to let it go away because his full intelligence review guarantees that this tar baby is going to be delivered to Mr. Trump as a ‘welcome’ present to the White House before inauguration on January 20.”
Wait, did she just say “tar baby?”
Yes, yes she did.
Now, I will grant that I don’t think Ms. Miller meant the phrase as a racial slur. She is using the term in the context of the Uncle Remus story, written in 1904, in which Br’er Fox attempts to trap Br’er Rabbit with a “tar baby” — a doll made of tar and turpentine. That context refers to a situation that just gets worse the more one fights it.
There is, however, another side to the term.
Contextual Healing
In 2006, Mitt Romney used the term and took quite a bit of flak for it. In response to that situation, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about the phrase for Time magazine:
“…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.”
Later, Coates notes that the next version of the Oxford American Dictionary would have the definition updated. That was ten years ago. And yes, it was updated.
There are any number of words Ms. Miller could have used in lieu of “tar baby.” An “albatross.” A “sticky situation.”
That she chose that phrase tells me that she is simply ignorant of the history.
That, or she knows and doesn’t care. Which would then take us back to the kindergarten lesson that words matter. And a journalist, in particular, should know better.
Watch the discussion here:
Featured Image via screenshot from YouTube video
