Context is everything.
Virginia state Sen. Frank Ruff (R) had to apologize for painting Obamacare with a “tar baby” brush.
Ruff opposes using federal money to extending the state portion of the Affordable Care Act. And he said so publicly this week.
Ruff reputedly compared reliance on promised funds to provide health insurance for thousands of low-income Virginians to a “tar baby.”
He said doing so would leave the state unable to later detach itself from the program if its terms become unfavorable for Virginia, several people at the meeting claimed.
What is a tar baby other than a metaphor for a “sticky situation”? Well, Mitt Romney found out in 2006, according to TIME.
[According] to Words@Random from Random House: “The tar baby is a form of a character widespread in African folklore. In various folktales, gum, wax or other sticky material is used to trap a person.” (emphasis added)
In American stories, the tar baby has a starring role in The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story. The author is Georgian Joel Chandler Harris; the fictional storyteller is a former slave, Uncle Remus. In the tale, Br’er Fox makes a doll out of tar to snare his nemesis Br’er Rabbit. (Think Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.)
If you’re southern and of a certain age (like Rep. Ruff: the man was born in 1949 in Bedford County, that’s seriously rural Virginia) then you heard and/or read these tales as a youth. There’s no mistaking their origin: Uncle Remus speaks in dialect. And is black. The tar baby is black.
To any southerner who claims “tar baby” just means something sticky, I say Hooey!
And to use this phrase in southern state while speaking of a program advocated by a black president … and then plead innocence along with the apology? There are days that I really miss my mother and her colorful opinions of politicos like Ruff.
Georgia State University tells us that as a child, Harris “befriended elderly slaves George Terrell and Old Harbert who entertained him with trickster tales about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and the other critters in the Briar Patch.” As an adult, he secured their place in history.
As for Rep. Ruff, these are not the fifteen minutes of fame he wanted to see.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com