8-!
Being a Northerner, I've heard "tar baby" used -- rarely, at that -- in only two contexts. About 75% of the time, it was an offensive term used to describe a black infant. I think it was used in the South to describe black licorice shaped like babies. That other 25%, the term was used as the equivalent of "quagmire." Let's Google ...
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
tar baby
NOUN: A situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle oneself.
ETYMOLOGY: After “Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby,” an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris.
Googling around some more, I see some usage of "tar baby" by pundits and newspaper columnists to describe the Iraq war, the Middle East in general, or some overly complicated inside-the-Beltway affair. Still, though, the audience is different.
"Tar baby" isn't like "*****rdly," though, which isn't based on or rooted in a similar sounding racial slur. "Tar baby" has a racial connotation in either context; the roots are the same. It doesn't just sound like a slur, but it
is a slur.
The PD's background:
Emrick, who has a master's degree in urban and regional planning from Auburn University in Alabama, was planning director in Asheville from 1974 to 1994. He later was planning director for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians from 1995 to 1997 and director of planning and development for the Orlando, Fla., Housing Authority from 2000 to 2002.
Until this spring, he was a senior planner for Keith and Schnars, an engineering and planning firm with offices throughout Florida.
He also is president of V. Emrick & Associates, a consulting firm that has worked for communities in several Southeastern states, and vice president of Osage Co., a family-owned company that designs and distributes rehabilitation medical equipment.
With that background (and a name like "Verl"), it's obvious he's a Southerner. He should know the term has an offensive meaning. If it didn't cross his mind when he uttered the term, he's either very ignorant, or he exhibited an extraordinary lapse in judgement.
I'm going to say this is a
huge "oops"; one deserving of a reprimand, but maybe not career-crushing condemnation. To use the term like a policy wonking pundit -- with no offensive intent meant -- Mr. Emrick created his own tar baby.
