The Real Uncle Toms
Uncle Tom is a pejorative for an African American who is perceived by others as behaving in a subservient manner to White American authority figures, or as seeking ingratiation with them by way of unnecessary accommodation. The term Uncle Tom comes from the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, although there is debate over whether the character himself is deserving of the pejorative attributed to him.[1]
It is commonly used to describe black people whose political views or allegiances are considered by their critics as detrimental to blacks as a group.
-Wikipedia
It’s interesting that Wikipedia offers this notion of what the definition of an Uncle Tom is, without addressing the fallacy and misappropriation of the word/term. You would think the online resource would go further into the origins of the term and offer an alternate view. When Harriet Beecher Stowe penned the novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin ~ Life Among the Lowly’ in 1853, it was the first book ever (in the Americas) that had an Black hero…Uncle Tom. In an era where evolutionist theory was used as justification for slavery, the book debunked the notion that the Negro lacked the capacity for integrity, dignity and piety. The book begins with negotiations for Uncle Tom’s sale by his owner to settle a debt to a Southern merchant. The terms of the negotiation reveal that it is the sale of Tom and little Harry that will cover the debt, or else everyone and everything else must be sold. Tom’s wife, Chloe, encourages him to flee:
“Well, old man!” said Aunt Chloe, “why don’t you go, too? Will you wait to be toted down river, where they kill niggers with hard work and starving? I’d a heap rather die than go there, any day! There’s time for ye,-be off with Lizy,-you’ve got a pass to come and go any time. Come, bustle up, and I’ll get your things together.”
Tom slowly raised his head, and looked sorrowfully but quietly around, and said,
“No, no-I an’t going. Let Eliza go-it’s her right! I wouldn’t be the one to say no-tan’t in natur for her to stay; but you heard what she said! If I must be sold, or all the people on the place, and everything go to rack, why, let me be sold. I s’pose I can bar it as well as any on ‘em,” he added, while something like a sob and a sigh shook his broad, rough chest convulsively. “Mas’r always found me on the spot-he always will. I never have broke trust, nor used my pass no ways contrary to my word, and I never will. It’s better for me alone to go, than to break up the place and sell all. Mas’r an’t to blame, Chloe, and he’ll take care of you and the poor-”
Here he turned to the rough trundle bed full of little woolly heads, and broke fairly down.
This is the character of the hero we mock and attack today, calling anyone who does not hold a so-called “Black” political point of view an “Uncle Tom”. We assume that because this man kept his word to a White man, never abusing his trust, he was somehow less of a man. Have we ever thought that perhaps it had less or nothing to do at all with Master Shelby than it had to do with Tom’s own sense of value and integrity as a proud and good man?
Perhaps it’s time we looked at the real “Uncle Toms”, as we have come to define them today. The owners and CEOs of BET, Def Jam, Virgin Records and any and all the other media outlets that spew the visual and audio garbage we ingest daily.
Malcolm X gave an analogy of the House Negro vs the Field Negro in a speech he gave to the SNCC workers n Selma, AL. He said:
“There were two kinds of Negroes. There was that old house Negro and the field Negro. And the house Negro always looked out for his master. When the field Negro got too much out of line, he held them back in check. He put ‘em back on the plantation.’
‘The house Negro could afford to do that because he lived better than the field Negro. He ate better, he dressed better, and he lived in a better house. He lived right up next to his master-in the attic or the basement. He ate the same food his master ate and wore his same clothes. And he could talk just like his master-good diction. And he loved his master more than his master loved himself. That’s why he didn’t want his master hurt.’
‘If the master got sick, he’d say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” [Laughter] When the master’s house caught afire, he"d try and put the fire out. He didn’t want his master’s house burned. He never wanted his master’s property threatened. And he was more defensive of it than the master was. That was the house Negro.’
‘But then you had some field Negroes, who lived in huts, had nothing to lose. They wore the worst kind of clothes. They ate the worst food. And they caught @#!%. They felt the sting of the lash. They hated their master. Oh yes, they did.’
‘If the master got sick, they’d pray that the master died. [Laughter and Applause] If the master’s house caught afire, they’d pray for a strong wind to come along. [Laughter] This was the difference between the two.”
Well, we know Uncle Tom did not live in the big house...because he had his own cabin on the grounds. He lived in his own home, with his own furniture and fostered his own environment, independent of the influences of his master. But it can surely (and rightly) be surmised that several rappers and record executives live very much like the owners of their precious labels. They do all they can to make sure not only these labels survive, but are proliferated as well. Their fortunes are invariably tied. As we result, our culture is being destroyed and redefined by a group of people who would have our young men walking about with their bottoms hanging out like baboons, unable to conjugate verbs and construct proper sentences, and our young girls attired as though they are ready to leap from one pole to the next, ever ready to perform a lap dance. The ‘hip-hop culture’ as we know it today was engineered by White and Jewish propagandist, fed to us, and now we’re gobbling it up like it’s fried chicken on a Sunday afternoon. What is saddest is that the chefs and waiters look just like you and me.
You really ought to ask yourself who the real “Uncle Toms” are. Who are the real sell-outs? The next time someone calls you an Uncle Tom because you refuse to vote Democrat “because all Black people are democrats”; or because you believe that every child has a right to live, even it’s a difficult life; or because you’d rather listen to Darlene Zcheck than L’il Kim, just say: Thank you.
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