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We need to question the things we take as fact, this is an ongoing process.
Today, on our Raising Proud Black Children Facebook group, a member shared something that is important for us all to know.
It concerned Uncle Tom!
Uncle Tom was originally a character from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. As Wikipedia outlines
“Stowe’s melodramatic story humanized the suffering of slavery for white audiences by portraying Tom as a Jesus-like figure who is ultimately martyred, beaten to death by a cruel master because he refuses to betray the whereabouts of two women who had escaped from slavery.”
And also interesting is the man that Uncle Tom is believed to be largely based on, Josiah Henson.
As the post says.
DID YOU KNOW?
Most Black folks have heard or used the term Uncle tom when we refer to a sell out, or someone we feel is tap dancing for the attention and acceptance of other races. It has always been used in a deragatory manner to infer that this was the type of person who cozied up to his slave master, but did you know that the inference and analogy is totally wrong?
Uncle Tom was a man who refused to beat black women.
Uncle Tom was a man who refused to tell on other slaves.
Uncle tom was a man who would put cotton in other slaves bags at night, so that they wouldnt get beat!
Uncle Tom was a man who helped 100 slaves get free long before the under ground rail road.
Uncle Tom was a man, that once free, established the 1st Laborers school for other fugitive slaves!
His name? Josiah Henson! Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery, in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Upper Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer’s school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden, in Kent County, Upper Canada, of British Canada.
So stop calling these sell outs Uncle tom! Thats a compliment! Its Sambo that was the sell out, who would do anything for his slave masters approval! It was Sambo who would snitch on his people just to get a atta boy from his handler. Uncle tom is a man to be respected. Not associated with the Sambo dog!
And FYI….
It was other blacks who turned his name into a negative connotation! New age blacks, of the time, felt his image was to passive and not militant enough, and so they started using it in a negative way and declaring Uncle Tom is dead! At the same time Blacks were saying he wasnt militant enough Whites were in fear of him because his good nature stood as a mirror to their evil , demonic ways and shed light on the horrible treatment of slaves! They started banning the plays and books about Uncle Toms cabin all over the South because of how powerful his image was. Shame on us for destroying a just and upright man for the sake of some cause that could have been advanced with out degrading this brother! Shame on us!!
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