Is "tar baby" in "All in the Family"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS cites go much farther back than I recalled.  The earliest:

1888 Gordon & Page _Befo' de War_ 76: An' I ain't gwine ter swallow dat tar
baby's lies.

1918 _Saturday Eve. Post_ (Jan. 19) 17: "Is there anything wrong with my
hearing," says Sam, "or has that tar baby got an English accent?"

1920-21 H. C. Witwer _The Leather Pushers_  19: The Kid rocks the tar baby
with a right to the body.

1945 Drake & Cayton _Black Metropolis_  502: My brothers and sister used to
call me "tar baby." That would hurt me.

Some of these may have gotten into OED online by now.

I didn't note any ex. from Archie Bunker, but that may simply mean that I
didn't need any from that period.

One nuance is obviously, "a very black person," not just a black person.

JL

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 10:32 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
> Subject:      Is "tar baby" in "All in the Family"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Great find!
>
> FWIW, we've been watching a few "All in the Family" reruns on DVD, and I've
> heard Archie use the terms "coon", "black beauty" and I think one more. I
> haven't (yet) heard him use "tar baby" (or, for that matter, "nigger").
> However, this show would seem to be a promising place to find racially
> derogatory uses of "tar baby" if it was at all common in the 1970s. Does
> anyone who's seen more episodes than I have remember Archie Bunker saying
> "tar baby"?
>
> Neal
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 11:54 AM
> Subject: Re: "tar baby" in HDAS (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> > Subject:      Re: "tar baby" in HDAS (UNCLASSIFIED)
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > Caveats: NONE
> >
> > But the term did appear in the "Word Association" sketch between Richard
> > Pryor and Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live from 1975.
> >
> > http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75ginterview.phtml
> >
> >
> >>
> >> The song "colored spade" from 60's rock musical "Hair" lists a bunch
> > of
> >> negative words for blacks.  "Tar baby" wasn't one of them.  The song
> >> wasn't meant to be derogatory I'm sure.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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