In a classic children's story, now considered too non-PC to be widely read, Joel Chandler Harris created a fictional character with the name of Uncle Remus.
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia's West End, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books.
Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from Southern United States blacks. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine. Uncle Remus is a kindly old slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him.
The Post-Reconstruction South made those tales charming and informative for American's who knew little about the "real" slave culture, and were easily seduced by children's stories delivered in a nonthreatening (for the 19th century) template.
The wit in these tales has been largely lost as we have moved to reject, wholesale, the demeaning dialect and falsely idyllic nature of the classic African wise man in the guise of the happy slave. That loss is tragic, given the wisdom in those stories. They still carry a message for our time, and need retelling.
The stories are told in Harris' version of a Deep South slave dialect. The genre of stories is the trickster tale. The term "uncle" was a patronizing, familiar and often racist title reserved by whites for elderly black men in the South, which is considered by some to be pejorative and offensive. At the time of Harris' publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation negro dialect.
One of the classic elements of Chandler's stories was the character of Br'er Rabbit. A character so irresistable that Walt Disney made the famous film "A song of the South", based on the characters and released in 1946.
Br'er Rabbit("Brother Rabbit") is the main character of the stories, a likable trickster prone to getting into trouble who is often opposed by Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a lump of tar and puts clothing on it. 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 Tar Baby's lack of manners, kicks it, and becomes stuck. Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless, but cunning, Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch," prompting Fox to do exactly that. As rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes. Using the phrases "please don't throw me in the briar patch" and "tar baby" to refer to the idea of "a problem that gets worse the more one struggles against it" became part of the wider culture of the United States in the mid-20th century.
"Please don't throw me in the briar patch" became one of the standard phrases when begging some one to keep on doing what they are doing as it can only benefit me.
Well, it seems that the Republican Party is about to kick the tar.
Republican strategists trying to game Sen. Barack Obama's choice for a running mate are focusing more and more on the possibility that he might pick former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, a friend of labor and blue-collar workers. "Gephardt is the one we're most afraid of," said a key GOP strategist and Bush ally.
They are going to have a very difficult time painting Barack Obama as "too Liberal". Particularily given the stances he has taken since the general election campaign began. So they are talking up the value of the Former Majority Leader as a VP choice.
Dick Gephardt would be just the tar baby to lure the 527's and every other slime machine, to attack Obama as too Liberal. (It wouldn't be true, of course - but that has never stopped them) Having mangled Gephardt in the past, they probably have the ads all cued up.
They are obviously trying to play Br'er Rabbit to Barack's fox. It will not work of course. But, I am entertained by their attempts.
