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In reply to the discussion: John Kirby on genocide. [View all]Uncle Joe
(65,127 posts)The Tar-Baby is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1881; it is about a doll made of tar and turpentine used by the villainous Br'er Fox to entrap Br'er Rabbit. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes.
In modern usage, tar-baby refers to a problematic situation that is only aggravated by additional involvement with it.[1]
A story originally published in Harper's Weekly by Robert Roosevelt,[volume & issue needed] features Br'er Fox, who constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and dresses it with some clothes. When Br'er Rabbit comes along, he addresses the tar "baby" amiably, but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the tar baby's lack of manners, punches it and, in doing so, becomes stuck. The more Br'er Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the worse he gets stuck.
Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Br'er Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless but cunning Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Do anything you want with me roas' me, hang me, skin me, drown me but please, Br'er Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch", prompting the sadistic Br'er Fox to do exactly that because he gullibly believes it will inflict the maximum pain on Br'er Rabbit. However, as rabbits are at home in thickets like the brier-patch, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes.
Years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the Tar-Baby in his Uncle Remus stories.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar-Baby