Is the term “Uncle Tom” a racist slur?

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel entitled Uncle Tom's Cabin which was published in 1852.

The term is a direct reference to the title character. The term describes someone who acts hyper subservient to authority. The direct reference was race-based as the character was a black who was subservient to white people. The story was designed to highlight the evils of slavery as the servant ends up getting beaten to death by the slaveholder. Given the time and mindset of the folk in power at the time (Caucasians), the story got flipped on its head and as a play is was used as a justification for slavery. The historically correct use of the reference is not about being a race traitor as the Tom was beaten to death defending members of his race as he refused to disclose the whereabouts two runaway slaves.

It is wholly unjustified to label the use of the term as liberal or conservative as both side of the political debate use and misuse the term. As noted above when the term is used as it was coined, it a race-based term, not a racist term. In fact, an argument can be readily made the the term is caste-based and not race-based.

The issue is similar to the misuse of the term 'fascist' When Mussolini and Gentile coined the term 'fascist', it meant literately the 'fusion of the governmental and the corporate.' Now, corporate sponsored/owned media outlets juxtapose the term with other terms which mean precisely the opposite because it tests with a visceral rejection in most American demographic groups. Unfortunately, the actual meaning fails to matter as long as the emotions are invoked when being misused by the very institutions the term applies to.

Uncle Tom Slur

If you use a word to negatively describe black people for being who they are, and you don't like how they are because their skin color.. How is it different than saying ******?

The left uses tortured logic in attempt to distance the phrase Uncle Tom from its vocabulary as being racist; yet it's extremely racist. It's legacy is based in black culture, it has always been directed at blacks specifically whom are deemed subservient to whites who step outside the circle of a defined black narrative. It's racist precisely because it means a black isn't staying in their place, the collective black races definition of what place is. Any black that doesn't stay within black orthodoxy and instead chooses different orthodoxy to lift the culture, say by using positive role modeling and other common sense solutions, risks potentially getting this label. It's racist to the extreme. No individual of a race should be boxed into a defined, politically policed cultural expression of that race, or be vilified for self determination and expression if it does not fit within an orthodoxy of that race. To do so is racism at the extreme.

THE TERM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.

Uncle Tom means a black person who hates their own black race Michael Jackson was a Uncle Tom for bleaching his skin white and Herman Cain is a Uncle Tom for defending and worshiping white racism.White Power Extremists only like blacks who hate their own black race but they hate real black people who have Black Pride.

Black liberals think that if you are a black conservative, you are either bought or enslaved by conservatives. They also think that black people cannot be racists. Even Eric Holder basically said that there can be no such thing as a racial hate crime committed by a black on a white because whites have not suffered enough to merit that.

It is very racist. Like in so many other situations, if you put the shoe on the other foot, it is easy to see...but libs just ignore that fact. That is as bad as saying a non-black person "acts black"...and you know if you ever said that in front of a lib they would go off on you for being racist. Goes both ways.

I think it's a racist term.

It's actually a direct reference to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The character, Uncle Tom, would betray other blacks in order to ingratiate himself to whites. "Uncle Tom" has become a term for blacks who are perceived as "race traitors." Black Republicans often get called this because conservative spin doctors in media often accuse African American culture of being a drain on our society. "Uncle Tom" is more of an insult based on how people behave than on the color of their skin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom

Please see the wiki article and no it has nothing to do with being conservative vs. liberal.

"derogatory term for a person of color who is overly sub-serviant with authority, or a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people"

Herman Cain = Who?

Clarence Thomas = Sex predator

Allen West = Scumbag whose own troops turned him in for abusing a prisoner

Edit: Constitution Hawk, I am against sex predators and prisoner abusers no matter what their political affiliation is.