Jul
26
The “Uncle Tom” smear
July 26, 2010 | 2 Comments
I propose that, as a society, we should all agree to stop using the term “Uncle Tom.” It is a disgusting smear, both for technical and substantive reasons.
It is substantively disgusting because it implies that all black people ought to think and act alike. I would go so far as to say that employment of this phrase in order to label someone a “race traitor” is itself racist. Instead of cotton plantation fields, blacks are to be confined to rhetorical ideological plantations, with various Quimbos and Sambos acting as overseers to ensure that no one “gets out of line.”
Which leads me to the technical point. Connecting the fictional character of Uncle Tom to race treason smacks of historical illiteracy. Uncle Tom martyred himself rather than reveal the location of runaway slaves. Yes, I know that there are shifting literary criticisms, blah blah blah, but any literary criticism that sees Uncle Tom as a “race traitor” is the sort of criticism worth ignoring. If there are “race traitors” in the book, they are the aforementioned Quimbo and Sambo.
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2 Comments so far
“Uncle Tom” has proven itself a very effective means of enforcing groupthink among blacks for a very long time. However I do think it has finally reached its “sell by” date. There are likely to be several black Republican members of Congress after the elections in November. Hopefully they will expose the “Uncle Tom” slur for what it is: a way for race hustlers to keep powerful positions in the Democrat party.
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