Uncle Tom
December 27, 2002
Racial epithets are fired like bullets, for example last fall when Harry Belafonte likened Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice to ‘house slaves.’ Taunts like that, or the more incendiary ‘Uncle Tom,’ are commonly hurled, most often by African Americans accusing each other of not being “black” enough. But the Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel is not the shuffling, submissive characters most people picture when they hear that name. As the 150th anniversary of that landmark book draws to a close, WNYC’s Allison Keyes offers a look at the fluctuating image of Uncle Tom.
