Hateful Racism? Not the Way I Remember It
I’d always understood that the phrase “tar baby” referred to a problem from which it was difficult or impossible to unstick yourself. It turns out that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has caught hell for using the phrase, attributed to African-American folklore, actually is a derogatory term for an African-American! Those who are complaining of “racism” sound rather like the pot calling…er, no, that might not do….. Well, it sounds like people who have race on their minds much too much and would eagerly read every reference to a dark cloud as evidence of racism.
Well, “Song of the South” actually WAS racist, so…maybe a bad choice of picture. But on this specific issue, you’re right. I’m guessing the only people who are offended by this already have much bigger grievances on their plate. For example, you can’t really endorse a big minimum wage hike, then complain about an incidental “tar baby” remark, and be taken seriously. Plus, even Toni Morrison apparently wants to “liberate” the word: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/07/toni_morrison_f.shtml.
People accused director Peter Jackson as a racist because his movies featured orcs and giant apes. For some reason, the “anti-racists” immeditately associated African-Americans with fictional monsters or animals.
I saw both movies and thought “hey look at the scary monsters and ape, what cool special effects!”
The good (white) liberals saw the films and thought “look at that savage creature holding a spear, he looks just like my limo driver. That Peter Jackson is such a racist! And now a giant, scary ape is destroying NYC, he looks to me just like Denzel Washington. What a racist movie!!!”
In the political correct environment there are benefits in race politics. These benefits may include publicity, political favoritism, public position, and money.
I sincerely doubt the governor’s comment was meant to be racists. In this day and age, it is political and societal suicide to make these positions public. And I also sincerely doubt that my fellow ordinary African American citizen would give a hoot. The ruckus behind this outrage is more than likely to be the left leaning African-American politically elite and their allied institutions with a motivation to demand some type of restitution from the state.
Racism and bigotry are sins and a lack of virtue, not crimes. Although it is sad that people will make shallow and unfair comments, not in this case however, over a person’s skin color, still there is no violation of liberty. And again, in this case, racism was not intended.
I used to listen to that Brer Rabbit record all the time when I was a kid…
I had a brief take on the film last year after an announcement (which apparently didn’t stick) that Disney was finally releasing it:
http://www.shrubbloggers.com/archives/20050220.html#e20050224-1213am
A better take on the film can be found in the comments section of a Hit & Run entry from June:
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/06/minstrel_show_1.shtml
Scroll down to the comment by “Garrison” to read it there. It jibes with what I’ve read about context for the film elsewhere, but I’ve never seen it summed up so well, and so briefly, in any other place.
The author is effectively anonymous, which makes it difficult to credit a source — but the comment is perhaps worth quoting here all the same:
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Song of the South isn’t an historically accurate portrayal of life in late-nineteenth-century America, but it really is a fairly misunderstood film. I don’t have much time here, but a couple of points.
Milieu: The film is set during Reconstruction, not in the antebellum South. There are a number of clues throughout the story (e.g. Uncle Remus leaving the plantation and going to the big city, since slaves couldn’t, um, leave plantations, unless they were freed or sold). When the film was released, the MPAA (or its 1946 equivalent) said that there needed to be a disclaimer before the film stating this explicitly, but it was not included.
Daddy’s trouble in city = being a progressive (read pro-Union) journalist (This can be gleaned from a conversation at the very beginning of the film). Daddy returns to plantation because Johnny has been gored by a bull, not because his problems have been solved.
What is significant about the film is that when it was released, Coal Black and other cartoons were the norm. SOTS is fundamentally about racial reconciliation; Uncle Remus is treated as an equal to the whites, and it is his return and storytelling (not the return of Johnny’s father) that give the boy the gumption to survive.
SOTS had one of the largest black casts of any film to date, and when compared to other period pieces of the era (e.g. Gone With the Wind), one is amazed by how much stronger and how less stereotyped the SOTS characters are.
Most of the stories by Joel Chandler Harris had been passed down by generations of slaves, some of them dating all the way back to Africa. Bre’r Fox, Bre’r Bear, etc generally represented white men and slavemasters, and the stories were a way of communicating what they were doing, among other things.
Disney actually captured this fairly well (especially for a film aimed at children), drawing the appropriate parallels between Fox/Bearand the two mean white children (the only villains in the piece, btw).
What the history of this film reflects, I believe, is how progressive Disney was, compared to the rest of America at that time. The Academy gave James Baskett a special Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus (special because, presumably, he was black), and although he was the star of the film, he couldn’t attend its premiere because he was black.
Try to think of another film from the 1940s which had a primarily-black cast, a black hero, white villains. To the best of my knowledge, none exists, at least in mainstream Hollywood.
It is easy to look backward sneeringly at how “off” Disney’s portrayal of “slavery” was, but aside from the fact that he wasn’t portraying slavery or slaves. He was making a children’s film which, compared to the rest of popular output at the time, elevated black people (albeit naively at times) and promoted hope for racial reconciliation.
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Didn’t some DC staffer get fired (or forced to resign) for using the word “niggardly” a few years ago? (He might have been rehired, eventually)
It seems that many people care less about the truth of the intent than about the potential for mistaken offense.
Watching court rulings over the last years we seem to have begun to define right or wrong by the way a message is received not by what is intended. Look at work place harrassment suits. The “recipient” defines what was said by what it “felt” like to receive it. Upon hearing a statement if I find it offensive it is offensive regardless of what was intended. We are heading for a situational defintion of truth.
“Song of the South isn’t an historically accurate portrayal of life in late-nineteenth-century America”?
You mean cheerful rabbits who were born and raised in a briar patch didn’t spend their time having adventures and occasionally foiling the evil fox and his slow-witted, ursine sidekick?
I’m sooo disillusioned.
“You mean cheerful rabbits who were born and raised in a briar patch didn’t spend their time having adventures and occasionally foiling the evil fox and his slow-witted, ursine sidekick?”
No, that part was historically accurate — it’s just that animals didn’t start wearing clothes until the early 20th century.
I recall once hearing an interview with a woman who was a censor for a private foundation that looked for signs of racism in film. She pointed out that a film in question (I don’t recall what what it was) had racist overtones because all of the taxis in it were yellow, suggesting something negative (she didn’t specify what) about the Chinese.
The interviewer seemed unconvinced and asked her if she’d ever seen a film that she didn’t find racist. Of course she replied “no.”
I’ve been reading about how the Amos & Andy TV show was pulled from the airwaves. I’ve been lucky enough to download a few episodes – it was the first TV show with an all-black cast, portraying blacks as doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, cops, managers, etc. After cancellation, these actors didn’t really find much work else other than bit parts as janitors, maids, etc (I looked ’em up on IMDB). Black cinema suffered too because of the “do-gooders” and pressure groups worried about stereotypes.
Much has been made of the speech used in the show – Kingfish’s malaprops were used for comic effect, just like they were in the Bowery Boys (white kids). If you ask me, Kingfish and Andy spoke much better English than most contemporary hiphoppers.
I plan to get the 74-episode box on eBay. I believe the shows are in public domain now.
I agree that an off the cuff remark should not be viewed as evidence of rascism. Still race is very much on everyones’ mind. Numerous studies have shown that the first thing westerners take note of is race. It should come as no surprise then that the phrase in question should invite criticism.
As for the unfortunate District employee, he should have realized that telling a room full of “important” black folks they were niggardly would not engender him to them, whatever the dictionary definition.
While in theory whites have legal incentive for compassion towards nonwhites in practice they have none other than their personal attitudes. We need not worry whether the governor will find work, but a black man who speaks of “white elephants” or “white lies” may well find himself out of favor and a job.