diff --git a/v2/ansible/parsing/yaml/objects.py b/v2/ansible/parsing/yaml/objects.py
index fe37eaab94a..33ea1ad37e4 100644
--- a/v2/ansible/parsing/yaml/objects.py
+++ b/v2/ansible/parsing/yaml/objects.py
@@ -19,14 +19,17 @@
 from __future__ import (absolute_import, division, print_function)
 __metaclass__ = type
 
-class AnsibleBaseYAMLObject:
+from six import text_type
+
+
+class AnsibleBaseYAMLObject(object):
     '''
     the base class used to sub-class python built-in objects
     so that we can add attributes to them during yaml parsing
 
     '''
-    _data_source   = None
-    _line_number   = 0
+    _data_source = None
+    _line_number = 0
     _column_number = 0
 
     def _get_ansible_position(self):
@@ -36,21 +39,27 @@ class AnsibleBaseYAMLObject:
         try:
             (src, line, col) = obj
         except (TypeError, ValueError):
-            raise AssertionError('ansible_pos can only be set with a tuple/list of three values: source, line number, column number')
-        self._data_source   = src
-        self._line_number   = line
+            raise AssertionError(
+                'ansible_pos can only be set with a tuple/list '
+                'of three values: source, line number, column number'
+            )
+        self._data_source = src
+        self._line_number = line
         self._column_number = col
 
     ansible_pos = property(_get_ansible_position, _set_ansible_position)
 
+
 class AnsibleMapping(AnsibleBaseYAMLObject, dict):
     ''' sub class for dictionaries '''
     pass
 
-class AnsibleUnicode(AnsibleBaseYAMLObject, unicode):
+
+class AnsibleUnicode(AnsibleBaseYAMLObject, text_type):
     ''' sub class for unicode objects '''
     pass
 
+
 class AnsibleSequence(AnsibleBaseYAMLObject, list):
     ''' sub class for lists '''
     pass