Subject: Re: "Uncle Tom" (was Re: Democratic Reaction To Powell: A Savage Hypocracy)
From: Jive Monkey (monkey_jive@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Dec 23 2000 - 17:54:20 GMT
suzanne-
i think the whole uncle tom thing comes from tom's "abjectly deferential"
attitude towards his masters. many people think that he should have at
least resented his position rather than accepting it and making the best of
it. i have encountered this sort of attitude as an undercurrent of thought
amongst some in the working class. in particular, when i was in high
school, i had a job as a clerk in a local grocery store. i enjoyed the
work, did it well, and my managers came to recognize and trust me as someone
who could do a variety of tasks correctly and efficiently and without
supervision. as a result i was often assigned tasks that most other
part-time clerks were not. it wasn't complicated stuff, just filling the
milk or stocking shelves, but there were other guys who called it "shit
work" and preferred to lounge around in the back room, take extravagant
breaks, etc. these guys thought that i was getting screwed, that i was
letting our managers screw me, by taking on the "extra" work (if i hadn't
done it, i would have been bagging groceries or loafing about). i've never
bothered to figure out if these people thought that they were getting away
with something, or that they deserved to get paid to do nothing, or what. i
simply thought of them as lazy and went on with my work. i think their
attitude was that they should have to be told to do something, preferably
multiple times, before they did it, because that's usually how work was
gotten out of them. i also suspect that they resented my work ethic because
it magnified their lack of one.
BUT, there is a pretty big difference between my situation and that of tom.
i was not born or forced into the position of bag-boy at farmer jack. if i
had refused to work the worst that could happen to me was getting fired. but
i think that the attitude towards people who work from people who don't as
much is pretty constant, regardless of pay or position.
andy
professor of paper or plastic
iga u.
ac
From: Suzanne Morine <suzannem@dimensional.com>
Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: "Uncle Tom" (was Re: Democratic Reaction To Powell: A Savage
Hypocracy)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 22:37:15 -0700
At 11:08 AM 12/20/2000 -0500, Jive Monkey wrote:
>furthermore i think referring to [Powell] as "uncle tom," could be
>construed as meaning he is some kind of race traitor, or white wanna be,
>as is often the use of that phrase. that is ridiculous.
>however, revering gen powell as if he is some minor diety, or a saint, and
>heaping so much praise and admiration on him for doing his job, is a
>little far fetched.
I agree that the term, "Uncle Tom" seems to mean a traitor to black people.
Ever since I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," this meaning has puzzled me. When I
read the book, which was several years ago, I found Uncle Tom to be nothing
short of a "minor diety, a saint," a Jesus accepting his burden with
humility while still being good to his fellow slaves. If I recall
correctly, the point of the book was that you could be the perfect slave,
and still not get the respect and freedom you deserve: slavery was a set
up, a wrong. He deserved the respect and freedom that the low-life masters
had.
My sense from the book would be that being an Uncle Tom is being a model
human being, proving your worth day in and day out. Granted, doing this to
a farcical, sad extreme, but that still does not quite equate with being a
sell out, in my mind. I suppose that Uncle Tom assented to the status quo
and did his best within it. Yes, he might have developed a more complex
approach, but he was uneducated, after all. And to be an actual traitor or
white wanna be would have meant actually working *against* his fellow
slaves.
When someone works harder and more purely than others, are they seen as
traitors, even when they are working toward an ideal of goodness that they
hold as dear as life?
Other observations?
(Looking up "Uncle Tom" in my dictionary, it is a contemptous term for a
Negro who is abjectly deferential or servile to whites.)
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