- Joined
- May 22, 2012
- Messages
- 104,387
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- Location
- Uhland, Texas
- Gender
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
Right.
Because the folks who are going to get offended by this probably have the intellectual wherewithal to research the etymology of the phrase "tar baby" and conclude, "You know what? This rich, white, southern, conservative lobbyist is on point using this quasi-racist term correctly in this case. Let's give him a pass."
Bottom line is the guy might be right, but he's still tone deaf.
The Republican Party isn't going to earn any friends among a growing minority electorate when its "star players" consistently piss all over that electorate.
This isn't about "being right". It's about winning national elections.
Which just happens to be a whole lot easier when your party is supported by the press. How hard could it be to include that etymology/definition in the story? What we seem to have is a "bad word" list that mainly (only?) applies to those "wrong thinking" folks that support the "other" party. Some folks can use redskins and not be labeled as bigots while others cannot - regardless of the exact same context (a sports team name). This makes political correctness simply amount to political bias.
This story is an example of one explaining the context, but not the etymlogy, of the use of the term tar baby:
GOP lawmaker Frank Ruff apologizes for calling Obamacare a “tar baby” - Salon.com