The term “tar baby” is a very provocative term, unduly so, to the point that it is unfamiliar to many people because those who do know it are afraid to use it. But I am not. I use all sorts of fables and stories from around the world, and those produced by slaves—given the cruel circumstances forced upon them—are no exception. I don’t use it here to create pain in the hearts of people, nor do I use it in some cavalier manner.
I truly believe that at my <ahem> somewhat advanced age, I have reached a point of equilibrium in my heart and mind concerning race. As a white male, I won’t say that I am colorblind because I don’t think we should strive for that status. To do so would somehow ignore the fact that discrimination and racism still exist today. Striving to be “colorblind” would put me in a mindset of denial. Nor do I pretend that I am immune from shameful thoughts on occasion. Aristotle suggested in Book IV, Chapter 3 of Ethics that false modesty is as bad as arrogance, both being vices. So, like any potentially harmful impulse (e.g., desire, hate, anger, jealousy, etc.), I try to focus on the positive to the exclusion of the negative. “Be angry, but sin not” might be a good way to explain it.
I’m a liberal, and I support and have taught equal opportunity and affirmative action. I also vote for candidates sympathetic to and patronize businesses who support DEI. I believe that because much has been given to me, much will be demanded—demanded by God, not by government. My parents, who were German, were liberal as well.
When I was maybe five or six, my mother took me to Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan. On this occasion, a movie was playing called Song of the South. It was a children’s film, with cartoon characters and live-action people, sort of like the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The setting of the movie was Georgia during Reconstruction. A young white boy named Johnny (about my age when I saw the movie) is sent to live with his grandmother. He runs away and encounters a person named Uncle Remus, who is entertaining the children of sharecroppers (both black and white) with stories of talking animals. Each story has a moral message. Johnny quickly makes friends with a black child his age named Toby and a poor white child called Ginny.
The stories Uncle Remus tells include three principal characters: Br’er Fox, Br’er Bear, and Br’er Rabbit. Br’er Fox is the antagonist in the fables, who is crafty and cunning. He plays the role of Wile E. Coyote
to Br’er Rabbit, who is something akin to the Road Runner. Br’er Rabbit is clever and intelligent, playful, and able to survive absent the brute strength that other animals possess. He is also brave and charming. Br’er Bear is the fox’s dimwitted sidekick. Thus, throughout the several stories in the movie, the recurring theme is Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear attempting to catch Br’er Rabbit.
Image credit (right): Chronicle (Alamy).
One way Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear thought of catching Br’er Rabbit was by using a tar baby. Now, a tar baby is a lump of tar molded to vaguely resemble a person, possibly with some article of clothing belonging to another critter that the intended victim (the pigeon) knows. Tar is very sticky; if the pigeon touches the tar baby, he gets stuck to it as if it were made of flypaper or tape. The more the victim struggles, the more stuck he becomes. This is precisely what happened to Br’er Rabbit. When he tried to talk to the tar baby and it would not answer him, he touched it. In the words of author Joel Chandler Harris:
“Brer Rabbit keep on axin' 'im, en de Tar-Baby she keep on sayin' nuthin', twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis', he did, en blip he tuck er side er de head. Right dar's whar he broke his merlasses-jug. His fis' stuck, en he can't pull loose. De tar hilt him."
Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear closed in for the kill. All Br’er Rabbit could do was use his wits at that point. He basically pleaded with the fox and the bear to do whatever they wanted to do with him, but please, please don’t throw him into the briar patch. Br’er Fox said to Br’er Bear, “That’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll throw him into the briar patch.” But little did they know that Br’er Rabbit lived in the briar patch, and as soon as he landed among the thorns, he freed himself.
Tar Babies Today
The world is full of tar babies. A good working definition of a tar baby is “any situation that becomes more complicated and inescapable the more you try to address it” (Perplexity). One example is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The incumbent president of the U.S. thought of it as a real estate deal. You could increase the cost to Moscow of controlling the country of Ukraine or just buy Russian President Vladimir Putin out. As someone familiar with the real estate market, Trump figured that Ukraine had a certain dollar (or ruble) value. He would find out what it was and then offer Putin perhaps twice that. If someone’s house is worth $500,000 and another person with cash offers a million dollars for it, provided the owner moves out by the end of the month, many people might take that offer. But President Putin did not, because there are many different reasons for Russia to be in Ukraine. Now, Ukraine is a tar baby for President Trump and President Putin. President Trump can’t just walk away. Nor can he negotiate because Putin refuses to do so. Trump cannot get Ukraine to sublet half of their country to Russia, which has already stolen a quarter of it. Were Trump to act against Russia’s interests, he might invite unintended consequences, even war between the U.S. and Russia.
Tar babies you might encounter
More common and closer-to-home tar babies might deal with what to do with your car or truck when it reaches 75,000 miles and you need a new transmission. Maybe your vehicle is worth $22,000, but you owe $25,000 on it. You are what they call upside down. Do you trade it in and come up with $3,000 to break even? A new vehicle might be too expensive, given the currnt interest rates, tariffs, your credit score and so on, Do you get another used vehicle? It might be cheaper to pay $5,000 for a new transmission, in which case you might be able to drive it long enough to pay it off completely. Or, after replacing the transmission, something equally serious may occur soon after. Your vehicle could become a black hole, sucking what little money you have down the drain. It might become a tar baby.
Marital and family relationships, wills, decisions on flood insurance, whether to rent or buy a house, or whether to buy a house “as is” and save money earmarked for the inspection are all potential tar babies. Finances are also ripe for problems. You owe $25,000 in credit card debt at a high interest rate, and you receive notice that the balance is in collections. You receive an unexpected bonus or inheritance of $18,000. Do you use it to pay down the debt, or do you save it for an emergency? Or do you split it between the two concerns, and how do you decide what percent goes where?
If trying to fix a situation only makes it worse or increasingly complex, or if it arouses anger or impatience in you, you should step back, pause, and reflect on the circumstances. What is the goal? What realistically are your options? There is a saying I learned in the military: if the choices you have in front of you are equally bleak and there is no clear, preferable choice, then you are better off standing still.
Dealing with tar babies of your own
Regarding Ukraine mentioned apoveand the Middle East, as well as the perceived threat from China concerning Taiwan, it is important to have an exit strategy; otherwise, you may face what is called “mission creep.” For example, twelve to twenty years ago, there was a devastating earthquake (7.0) that struck a country overseas. For several reasons, the U.S. provided humanitarian relief. The U.S. Navy sent a hospital ship where earthquake casualties could seek medical attention and surgical intervention.
After arrival and holding clinics for several days, if I remember events clearly, a mother came forward with her baby who had hydrocephalus. This, today, is a fairly straightforward procedure involving a shunt placed under the skin to allow the excess fluid pressing on the brain to be deposited in the abdominal cavity, where it will be naturally removed by the body. It was an interesting case that Navy doctors did not often see, and they were ready and able to help. However, they could not get permission from their superiors to treat the child because the child’s condition did not arise as a consequence of the earthquake. Additionally, treating the child would create a commitment to future follow-up with the family. Consequently, the child did not receive treatment. While this scenario may not be the best example of a “tar-baby,” if there had been a post-operative complication, it would definitely meet the criteria.
Speaking of medicine and surgery, I know from working in hospitals that many examples of “tar-babies” can arise. While I cannot offer medical advice, the general rule of thumb is that if you need surgery—whether orthopedic, neurological, bariatric, cancer, or any other type—it is always a good idea to go to a hospital, particularly a university or specialty hospital like MD Anderson or Sloan-Kettering, where the surgery is performed frequently enough that it becomes routine. While more than a few hospitals can separate co-joined twins successfully (depending on how they are joined, of course), fewer hospitals in the U.S. can provide the necessary isolation facilities to deal with the Ebola virus, as we learned the hard way in 2014.
Don’t rush or allow yourself to be pressured by time as you seek a solution. If you do, you may easily overlook a potential remedy. Don’t escalate situations, especially when arguing with a significant other; it will only make matters worse.
Don’t force things. Think of times when you may have been tightening something, like a bolt or a screw, only to have the head of the bolt shear off or the threads of the screw become mangled. When something goes awry, ask yourself why it happened. Pause. Collect yourself. Take a break.
Know your personal limits when dealing with a situation. For example, I once had a plumber at my house who was as old then as I am now. He accidentally removed the pipe to a kitchen faucet before shutting off the water to the house. Fifteen minutes and two inches of water later, he located the outdoor shut-off valve. Consult with others who do not have a “horse in the race.” In other words, they have no incentive to lead you down a certain path other than what works best for your interests.
Sometimes you need professional help, like an accountant or an attorney. Before you decide to open up your living space by knocking down two walls, get an engineer or building inspector to come to your home to ensure you are not tampering with a load-bearing wall.
Challenge your assumptions. If you want to quit your job because you believe your boss dislikes you, be sure your conclusion is based on more than a subjective feeling. If you quit on a hunch and your hunch is unfounded, you have created the problem.
Think outside the box. We value people who follow routines. We expect the pilot of our airliner, taking us to our vacation destination, to preflight the aircraft using an approved checklist. You don’t want a pilot who says to the co-pilot, “We’re running late; let’s just skip it,” or “I have a better idea.”
The Uncle Remus controversy
Why is the movie Song of the South, as well as the publisher of the Uncle Remus fables, Joel Chandler Harris, so controversial? Harris faced a great deal of criticism in his day. It was very unpopular among fellow whites, even after the Civil War, for a white Georgian to be so immersed in the freedman community. Black individuals often wondered why and how he was able to learn as much as he did, as former slaves were generally reticent to share their culture with a white outsider. Nor was Harris particularly prosperous as a journalist. However, as something of an outcast for being an illegitimate child while growing up, Harris found that the Black families around him embraced him, while others of his own race might not have been as welcoming. Thus, I’m convinced that he had a love and appreciation for freedmen in the South. He was a historian and a writer who had found his genre to write about when no one else cared to do so.
When Walt Disney decided to make a movie based on the characters that Harris wrote about, he hired a well-known Black personality to serve as an advisor to the project, since Disney personally knew next to nothing about Black culture and sensitivities. The African American author and performer Clarence Muse was hired as a consultant, and actor James Baskett was cast to play the leading role. Baskett subsequently won an honorary Academy Award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus. Muse had a falling out with the movie’s screenplay writers over the selection of Baskett for the role, believing they needed a person more dignified than Baskett. When his advice was not taken, Muse started a letter-writing campaign criticizing the movie for its pejorative treatment of Black people. Consequently, the film was made and released under a cloud, which persists to this day. Some have speculated whether Muse was merely unhappy that Baskett was offered the role while he, Muse, was not. Muse was 55 at the time, while Baskett, who played Uncle Remus, was even younger at 42. In our own day, distinguished Black authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison among others have continued to criticize either Harris, Disney, or both concerning Uncle Remus. Perhaps part of the ongoing controversy includes the perceived romanticization of antebellum and postbellum culture and society. Or the misappropriation of something near and dear to the hearts of people today, especially those who have ancestors who suffered the indignities and brutality of slavery.
For my part, if I have offended anyone, I sincerely apologize.
