In Tony Snow's first appearance before the press he let his racist flag fly. Asked many times about reports that the government has collected records on millions, if not all, Americans, Snow finally responded, "I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program, the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny."
Reporters obviously surprised that the expression "tar baby" would be spoken from The White House podium, asked Snow to explain what he meant by the term. "Well, I believe 'hug the tar baby,' we could trace that back to American lore," Snow said. Snow's explaination raised more than a few eyebrows. If Snow knows how the term is used in American lore: Why would he use it?
Looking at how the term has been used, it is associated with a very dark period in America, the time of slavery. A "tar baby" is a troublesome, useless, unresponsive, disrespecting black person you cannot get rid of. And to use the term as a metaphor meaning just any sticky situation is seen as a racist, derogatory comment.
In American literature, Joel Chandler Harris employs the trickster myth as he spins the tale of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Tar Baby (1881). Brer Rabbit emerges as a most prideful character who is offended that the Tar Baby is ignoring "respectubble folks" like him; he immediately assumes a superiority complex. The Tar Baby character remains "unresponsive" which is integral "A caste system appears in the story of Tar Baby and Brer Rabbit, with the former "lower" than the latter on the "social order." This low rank may reflect the "lowest tier of plantation culture- the slave who has neither the education or the desire to assert himself in a white dominated world; therefore, he remains "naturally silent." http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictio ... r_baby.htm (http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/tar_baby.htm)
"There is no white equivalent of Tar Baby. America reserves its subhuman slurs for Blacks and Indians. Tar Babies are racist inventions, conjured up for the purpose of dehumanizing African Africans. It matters not one bit that Uncle Remus tales have roots in African folklore. Slavery reduced Africans to chattel, conveniences available to serve white people’s purposes. Over the centuries, white Americans have made full use of these privileges. " http://www.blackcommentator.com/tar_baby.html (http://www.blackcommentator.com/tar_baby.html)