this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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The bitter fight between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Byron Donalds over a line about slavery in the state’s revised African American history standards is infuriating several prominent Black conservatives.

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[–] june@lemmy.world 88 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Several told POLITICO they fear the issue will play into Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as favoring a whitewashing of American history.

lmao. calling it a 'characterization' like it's not true

Many Black Republicans find themselves in a quandary: on the one hand having to push back on perceptions that slavery has positive attributes, but also fighting the perception that if they voice criticism, it leads to questions of whether they are sufficiently conservative.

Harrison Fields, Donalds’ spokesperson, captured this in a tweet. “If you condemn CRT & refuse to support BLM, black Republicans are called a coon, sellouts, & Uncle Clarence. If you vocalize minor distaste with a sentence in a curriculum that lauds skills developed by slaves during slavery, black Republicans are called Democrats and frauds,” he said.

i don't understand how they can understand this but not the fact that their political affiliation is a cult.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What... do they mean Uncle Ruckus?

[–] coolie4@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The normal phrase is "Uncle Tom" based on the character from Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's used to describe a black person who sells out other black people. Both Uncle Ruckus and Tom from the Boondocks are based on this idea.

But this is a double burn referencing Clarence Thomas, the supreme court judge who is probably the most famous example of an Uncle Tom.

[–] LexiconDrexicon@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Uncle Tom is a racist term that was used by the KKK to describe black people who wanted to "act white" by selling out other black people.

But it's wildly inaccurate. It has nothing to do with the actual book Uncle Toms Cabin, one of the most popular books ever written (it outsold the Bible in the 1850's). Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote the book was an abolitionist, she was very very anti-slavery like Mark Twain. Uncle Tom in the book is based on an actual former slave, and Uncle Tom in the book, if you actually read the book, SPOILER ALERT, is beaten to death at the end for refusing to give up the whereabouts of 2 other slaves. That's Uncle Tom, a martyr.

Calling someone an Uncle Tom means you're calling them a hero, not a sellout. The whole phrase you're referring to comes from the play that was written afterwards which turned Uncle Tom into a meek character because the play writers didn't think people would've liked the ending of having a man beaten to death.

Here's a wonderful article about it

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059468

Quoting from the article:

MARTIN: What is it that African-Americans hate about this story?

Prof. TURNER: Many African-Americans don't hate the real story that Stowe wrote. The Uncle Tom character that she gives us is extraordinarily Christian. The climax of the story really comes when Uncle Tom is asked to reveal where two slave women are hiding, who had been sexually abused by their master. And he refuses. Knowing that he is going to be beaten to death, he refused to say where they are. And African-Americans who have read the novel can appreciate what kind of heroism that took for a black man to sign away his life to save two black women.

Unfortunately, the stage depictions don't include that part of the story. They grossly distort Uncle Tom into an older man than he is in the novel, a man whose English is poor, a man who will do quite the opposite, who will sell out any black man if it will curry the favor of a white employer, a white master, a white mistress. It's that distorted character that is so objectionable to African-Americans.

[–] TheHighRoad@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

So very, very close to grasping their error...

[–] ech@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Several told POLITICO they fear the issue will play into Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as favoring a whitewashing of American history.

lmao. calling it a 'characterization' like it's not true

Seriously. CRT bullshit was the clarion call of the Republican party for the last few years. Are they claiming that was just satire or something? And Confederate apologetics has been a key Republican talking point for decades now. I wonder how they feel about all the gnashing of teeth over statues of racist shitheads getting taken down.

[–] ech@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago
Several told POLITICO they fear the issue will play into Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as favoring a whitewashing of American history.

lmao. calling it a ‘characterization’ like it’s not true