Clarence Thomas is No “Uncle Tom”

He Could Never Live up to Him

Oh, the 60s and the 70s! The way we youth flung that name around!

Uncle Tom. “You’re an Uncle Tom.” Our parents were Uncle Toms. Any older people who still said “Negro” were Uncle Toms. Everybody who wasn’t a Black Panther, supported an African Liberation Movement, or was a member of a Black Students’ Union somewhere was an Uncle Tom.

We knew who Uncle Tom was. Or we thought we did. He was a holier-than-thou, subservient, white-people-pleasing, bowing-and-scraping slave. He accepted any treatment at the hands of slave owners and meekly said, “Thank-you, Massa.”

He lives today in the persons of Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Ben Carson, would-be House Speaker Byron Donalds, and the embarrassing black and brown celebrities who shill for Fox.*

We’re wrong.

Most of us who enjoyed sneering “Uncle Tom” at those folks we condemned as insufficiently militant had no idea what we were talking about. We had never read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s tear-jerking best seller, and most of us still haven’t. Now would be a good time to pick it up.

Stowe’s Uncle Tom is, indeed, a stereotype, but he shares that trait with every character in the novel. Who, or what, do you picture when you envision Uncle Tom? He is not old and feeble, but young, and strong. He is a husband and father, he has a sense of duty, and his humility comes from his obedience to God, not from any sense of inferiority.