The March MxEq newsletter contained the following sidebar:

 Editorial: Politically Corrected - We were contacted by a nice woman who read the February MAX EQUITY Newsletter. She gently complained that she had been offended by the term “tar baby”, which was used (in an article about real estate opportunities) to describe bank-owned income properties. She was offended because of the “pejorative connotation” toward people of the black race.

In our defense, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a tar baby as “something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself.” That was our intended meaning. Our apologies to anyone similarly offended.   JSC

This event was troubling to me for a couple of reasons. First, licensed real estate professionals are continually schooled in anti-discriminatory behavior. It is against state and federal law to discriminate based on a long list of characteristics, including race. I take this very seriously and make it as much a part of my profession, as a doctor would make the hippocratic oath.

But I obviously stepped in a briar patch here. I remember the story of Brer Rabbit from childhood, and that story feels to me like part of the fabric of our culture. Not because the story included black American characters, but because of the lessons to be learned from wily Brer Rabbit.

I did some research on the pejorative connotations the caller referred to, and learned that a woman author by the name of Tony Morrison wrote a love story about  two African-American people called "Tar Baby". In an interview after publicaton, the author said she thought tar baby was a name that "whites called black children, black girls...For me (Morrison), the tar baby came to mean the black woman who can hold things together". (quoted from Wikipedia: Tar Baby (Novel)

Does it make me a racist if I can't see how her statement is pejorative toward blacks? It seems to me that according to Tony Morrison's understanding, a tar baby was a real compliment to a black woman. Are we so over-protective that every use of the term is automatically a slam against black people?

Am I a white racist for even asking whether the use of the term "tar baby", used in the context of properties of which banks don't want to foreclose on, is somehow automatically about denegrating black people?

Further research shows that white men, including Tony Snow and Mitt Romney have also been condemned by the press and black community spokespersons for the same offense. I wonder if the same standard is applied to black people who use the term?

I'm a bit bewildered by this event. I'm not sure where to turn to get a full list of the terms and connotations that we can't use in common speech. It is now necessary to submit a writing to some board who looks out for the sensibilities of every race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, or family structure, to obtain clearance that you have not offended someone?

All I want to do is communicate without someone thinking that I have a social agenda, or want to undermine the exceptional progress acheived by black americans in my lifetime.

JSC