Uncle Tom
Subservient to oppressors
Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a Black person seen as excessively subservient to white people or willing to betray Black interests to gain their favor.
From the protagonist of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 antislavery novel *Uncle Tom's Cabin*, whose character was later distorted in minstrel adaptations.
The term implies selling out one's own community: He called the politician an Uncle Tom for supporting the bill.
To Uncle Tom is to behave this way.
- novelNew and unusual
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- sentimentalismExcessive indulgence in emotion
- ChristianityFaith based on Jesus
morality · protagonist · Eliza · Topsy · cabin · martyrdom · bestseller · adaptation
Ownership of people
- abolitionFormal discontinuation of practice
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- Emancipation ProclamationExecutive order freeing Confederate slaves
- antebellumBefore a war's start
plantation · Underground Railroad · Fugitive Slave Act · 19th century · American history · slave narratives · Lincoln · Reconstruction
Compromiser of integrity
- collaboratorOne who works jointly
- tokenismSuperficial inclusion efforts
- assimilationAbsorbing into a whole
- subservienceExcessive willingness to obey
self-hatred · betrayal · sycophant · apologist · cooptation · inauthenticity · ostracism · pariah
Exaggerated comic depiction
- docilityReadiness to submit
- servilityExcessive willingness to please
- obsequiousnessServile eagerness to please
- meeknessGentle, unassertive disposition
deference · submission · passivity · compliance · acquiescence · minstrelsy · blackface · mammy
Harriet Beecher Stowe
- novelNew and unusual
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- sentimentalismExcessive indulgence in emotion
Christianity · morality · protagonist · Eliza · Topsy · cabin · martyrdom · bestseller · adaptation · minstrel show
slavery
Ownership of people
- abolitionFormal discontinuation of practice
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- Emancipation ProclamationExecutive order freeing Confederate slaves
antebellum · plantation · Underground Railroad · Fugitive Slave Act · 19th century · American history · slave narratives · Lincoln · Reconstruction · antislavery movement
sellout
Compromiser of integrity
- collaboratorOne who works jointly
- tokenismSuperficial inclusion efforts
- assimilationAbsorbing into a whole
subservience · self-hatred · betrayal · sycophant · apologist · cooptation · inauthenticity · ostracism · pariah · epithet
caricature
Exaggerated comic depiction
- docilityReadiness to submit
- servilityExcessive willingness to please
- obsequiousnessServile eagerness to please
meekness · deference · submission · passivity · compliance · acquiescence · minstrelsy · blackface · mammy · noble suffering
- Harriet Beecher StoweTopsy, Eliza
- Uncle Tom's CabinTopsy, Eliza, Eva, Chloe, Haley
- Uncle Tropes
- EponymsDarwinian, Alzheimer's disease, Freudian slip, cardigan, Parkinson's disease
- ThomasThomas Aquinas, Thomas Becket, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Edison, Thomas Hardy
Uncle Tommilitant
Aggressive cause supporter
Malcolm X · Nat Turner · revolutionary · freedom fighter · Black Panther
Uncle TomNat Turner
Kunta Kinte · John Henry · trickster figure · Br'er Rabbit · Frederick Douglass