Tim Scott Is No Uncle Tom

PART 1 OF 3

I must warn you: I was very angry when I wrote this article. I took a few days to complete it and I hoped I would calm down but that hasn’t happened. So, this article comes with a warning. It is from a fuming Black man and has some very harsh words about Tim Scott, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. It comes from a place of pain because I find I could not stop myself.

This anger comes from fear, concern, and pure exhaustion over the treatment of the Black and African-American communities in the United States, particularly by those who claim to be the standard-bearers of the Black and African-American communities.

After President Joe Biden gave his address to Congress following his first 100-days in office, the Republican response, from the only Black Republican Senator in Congress, is one of the most maddening and upsetting responses that I have ever heard. Senator Tim Scott said some things that were so insulting that he could have been a segregationist conservative white Senator.

A few days later, VP Harris gave a similarly ridiculous response. Her response proves that the Black and African-American communities can barely trust any politician, whether they are Democrat or Republican, whether they are Black or white. These politicians do not have a genuine concern for the community a population that has suffered generational pain and misery.

They both said that the United States was not at all a racist nation. They were both playing politics with the lives of Black and African-American people. They were both selling out the Black community.

Tim Scott said that he had been called an Uncle Tom. This is an insult to the real Uncle Tom.

Josiah Henson

Most people don’t understand that the common understanding about Uncle Tom is all a misperception perpetrated mainly by the Black community on the Black community and from movies like Song of the South.

Uncle Tom was a fictional character, from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and loosely based on the great Josiah Henson, a real person — a self-educated freed slave who fought for the civil rights and the freedom of other black people.

Josiah Henson was so revered that he was greeted by the Queen of England and had dinner at the White House with a president. He was a regal, intelligent, and charismatic Black man who fought for the freedom of Black people from England to Canada to the United States.

Tim Scott was right. He implied that it is an insult to call him an Uncle Tom. I agree he is no Uncle Tom; Tim Scott is more like an Uncle Ruckus.

There is a legend that comes with how the name Uncle Tom became derogatory. Abraham Lincoln so enjoyed the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, that he would use it as inspiration to start the Civil War. Before this time, Uncle Tom was considered a hero to both black and white people alike.

When Josiah Henson got old and was ready to retire, a group of young people came to him and asked him to continue to fight for civil rights. He told them he was too old. It was their turn to continue the fight. They told him he could not retire. There is still fighting to do. Josiah Henson said, “I’m tired. Now it’s up to your young people to carry on the struggle.”

They said that they were so upset that they were going to turn the name Uncle Tom from a dignified, fighting, compassionate term to a name meaning sellout of the Black community.

Tim Scott is partaking in what politicians called “meritorious manumission.”

The Meritorious Manumission Act was a law passed in the United States in 1710, which said any Black person who does “something good” for a white enslaver could win their freedom from their slave master.

Any Black or African-American who believes that the United States is not racist is either out for themselves or is playing politics with the lives of Black people and thus winning their freedom or power for their political party — and bows at the knees of their white master overlords.

Tim Scott is not Uncle Tom; Tim Scott puts the lives of Black people on the same level as a moderate and or conservative racist white person.

Racism doesn’t just exist in the past even Scott can point out examples of racism from the segregationist time. It’s much harder to recognize the racism of today.

Let me help him with that:

· How many African-American women die during childbirth because they have a white doctor?

· How many Black people go to jail for the same crimes that white people do when white people get out and go home to await trial?

· What is the income disparity between Black and white people in the United States?

· What is the mortality rate difference between Black people and white people?

These things are disparities between the Black and white community, which some people would call white privilege. I do not call it white privilege. It is just simply racism. (See my YouTube TEDx video on the Harvard Problem and white privilege).

The fact that so many Black people died during the coronavirus outbreak — the fact that that outbreak reduces the life expectancy of the Black community — the fact that some doctors believe that Black people have tougher nerve endings, are emotionally stronger and suffered less pain than white people proves the fact that America is a racist country.

No, Scott is not an Uncle Tom. He is not good enough to be Uncle Tom. Tim Scott is too much like Uncle Ruckus from the cartoon The Boondocks.