Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to Boston's troubled tunnel project as a "tar baby" during a fundraiser with Iowa Republicans. He said he didn't know that anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet.

Romney, who is considering a run for president in 2008, said earlier that it was politically risky to take control of the project after a fatal tunnel collapse. "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can," he said.

Not surprisingly, black leaders were quick to criticize. There's always someone to take offense at innocent statements.

Cases abound. In recent memory there is Air Force football coach Fisher DeBerry, who had the audacity to say that some black players "can run very, very well." And there is Lehi High School basketball coach Craig Gladwell, who at practice told all his players to "get your butts in gear, you lazy cotton-pickers."

While the dictionary acknowledges that the latter has a connection to slavery, it also notes that over the years the phrase has lost its racial overtones. It is generally accepted now in the language merely as an "intensive," used for emphasis, as in "you're out of your cotton-picking mind."

Then there was the brouhaha in 1999, when a top aide to Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony Williams resigned under pressure because some city employees were offended that he used the word "niggardly" in describing his approach to budgeting. Williams rehired the man when it came out that the offended people simply didn't know what they were talking about. The word has no connection to the racial "n" word. Niggardly just means miserly.

Now we have Mitt Romney's "tar baby" in Massachusetts. And a similar lack of education comes into play.

The tar baby was the literary creation of Joel Chandler Harris, a post-reconstruction journalist in Atlanta. It was part of his "Uncle Remus" tales, a series of books about plantation life that first appeared in 1881 and were adapted to film by Walt Disney in 1946.

In "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story," the antagonist, Brer Fox, designs a way to capture Brer Rabbit. He makes a little figure covered with sticky tar that sits mute in the road. When the tar baby won't reply to his greeting, Brer Rabbit gets mad and smacks it in the head, sticking fast in the goo. Brer Fox captures Brer Rabbit, who then uses his wits to escape by begging the fox not to throw him into the briar patch.

While the phrase "tar baby" may have been used since 1946 as a racial slur, its older and far wider use is as a metaphor for personal or political entanglements to be avoided. Romney was using this ordinary meaning, and it was perfectly innocent.

In fact, the tar baby itself does not symbolize race at all -- Brer Rabbit does, according to acclaimed literary critic Houston Baker, noted for his landmark achievements in the study of black literature and culture. Brer Rabbit finds ways to outwit the power structure, represented by Brer Fox and his dopey companion Brer Bear.

The misplaced reaction to Romney's tar baby remark reminds us of one other sad misreading in literature -- "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriett Beecher Stowe. Today, a black person who is called an "Uncle Tom" has received a severe insult because Stowe's Tom is said to have kow-towed to the white man in degraded servility.

But those who take this view apparently didn't read the book, or didn't understand it. In fact, Uncle Tom is a towering example of moral humanity, a man who chose to live a life of peace and godliness amid the worst possible circumstances.

Wouldn't it be nice if one day political correctness would fade away and good people could all go back to using the English language without fear of backlash?

There is hope. With each new generation, it seems, racism recedes just a little. Today's teens often treat race as irrelevant, thanks perhaps to a steady melding in the media, beginning with TV's racially diverse "Star Trek" in 1966, which coincided with the civil rights movement.

Perhaps it is time for the older generation to quit telling youngsters that they need to be offended, very offended.

We're not yet beyond all need for sensitivity in America, but let's not go out of our way to pass old stereotypes down to our children.

Let the contention fade away. Race need not be a tar baby.