You’re an Uncle Tom

Democrats made you hate Uncle Tom without reading the book, just like they made you ignore Thomas Sowell without reading a page.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, her goal was to awaken the conscience of a nation that had grown comfortable ignoring slavery. The character of Uncle Tom was not a symbol of weakness but of moral courage. He was a man who refused to betray other slaves, even when tortured to death.

Yet over time, Uncle Tom’s name was transformed into something else entirely. What began as a story of resistance and faith was recast into a caricature, and eventually into one of the most poisonous slurs in American politics. That transformation, from martyr to insult, tells us more about politics than about literature.

The Real Uncle Tom

The Uncle Tom that most people know today bears little resemblance to the one Harriet Beecher Stowe actually created. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom is not passive. He is not a coward. He is not groveling for white approval.

He is a man of unshakable faith and moral resolve. Sold away from his wife and children, Tom endures cruelty without surrendering his principles. Under the sadistic slaveholder Simon Legree, Tom is ordered to whip another slave. He refuses. Later, when two enslaved women escape, Legree demands that Tom reveal their hiding place. He refuses again, even after being threatened with torture.

Legree follows through. Tom is flogged savagely. His body is crushed, but his will remains intact. Stowe’s description is not accidental: she paints Tom as a Christ-figure. As Christ was beaten, mocked, and nailed to a cross rather than betraying His mission, Tom suffers the lash rather than betraying his people.

Even as he lies dying, Tom does not lash out with bitterness. He offers forgiveness. To the women who return to him, wracked with guilt, he says, “I forgives ye with all my soul.” He comforts them rather than himself. He turns his final breath into a testament of faith and strength.

This is why the book carried such force in its time. Tom’s death forced readers in the North to confront not just the physical horror of slavery but the moral corruption it required. A man who chose death over complicity shattered the myth that slavery was merely an “economic system” or a “Southern way of life.” It revealed it as a crime against conscience itself.

Frederick Douglass, the most prominent Black abolitionist of the era, understood exactly what Stowe had done. He called Uncle Tom’s Cabin “a work plainly marked by the finger of God.” To him, Tom’s sacrifice was not weakness but the very definition of Christian manhood and moral courage. Douglass saw that Stowe had given the North a story it could not ignore, a mirror it could not turn away from.

Tom dies not because he is weak, but because he is strong. He dies a martyr, his life deliberately framed by Stowe as a Christian sacrifice. His refusal to betray, his forgiveness in the face of violence, and his death at the hands of evil placed him alongside the greatest archetypes of moral resistance.

That is the real Uncle Tom. A man who stood firm, even unto death. A man whose memory should inspire honor, not ridicule. That his name has been twisted into an insult is one of the most grotesque inversions in American history.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

From Martyr to Punchline

How did a man written as a Christ-like martyr become a byword for cowardice and betrayal? The answer lies in cultural laziness, political convenience, and the willingness of people to mock what they never read.

After the Civil War, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became one of the most widely read books in the world. But as time passed, fewer people read it and more people relied on hearsay and popular culture. Traveling minstrel shows, blackface performances, and stage adaptations twisted Tom’s character. They turned him from a man who stood strong against evil into a caricature of servility. On stage, Tom was rewritten as a docile, shuffling old man who bent to the will of whites. This distortion stuck.

By the 20th century, “Uncle Tom” was being used as an insult within the Black community itself, not to describe someone who held to principle in the face of cruelty, but someone seen as betraying racial solidarity to curry favor with whites. The original meaning had been completely inverted. The martyr became the punchline.

This distortion was not neutral. It served a purpose. Democrats, who built and defended slavery, who created the Klan, who enforced Jim Crow, and who fought against civil rights for a century, found it helpful to weaponize Tom’s name against any Black who refused to play by party rules. Just as the indifferent North once claimed to be “against slavery” while doing little to stop it, today’s Democrats claim to be “anti-racist” while recycling the most racist tactic of all: destroying a Black man’s reputation to keep him in line.

The psychology is simple. If you are Black and obedient to the Democrat Party, you are celebrated. If you are Black and disobedient, if you think for yourself, question the narrative, or, God forbid, become a conservative, you are branded an “Uncle Tom.” It is the same mental trick as calling someone “racist” today for simply disagreeing. The goal is not to argue. The goal is to silence.

And here is the bitter irony: the very people who chant “anti-racism” excuse this. They excuse the name-calling. They excuse the slander. They excuse the double standard. Why? Because, like the indifferent North of the 1850s, they want to feel morally superior without challenging the system that benefits them. They will not get their hands dirty with truth, but they will cheer when another Black conservative is burned in effigy.

This is the inversion in its purest form. A hero rebranded as a traitor. A moral stand recast as weakness. A man who chose death over betrayal turned into the worst insult a Black person can throw at another Black person. And Democrats, then and now, stand by and let it happen because the distortion serves their control.

Modern Use: If You’re Black and Think Different, You’re Done

In today’s political landscape, “Uncle Tom” is not simply an insult. It is a tool of control.

The rules are clear. If you are Black and support school choice, you are an Uncle Tom. If you defend the police, you are an Uncle Tom. If you dare to criticize welfare dependency, or question the narrative of systemic oppression, or worst of all, vote Republican, you are an Uncle Tom.

It functions in the same way that calling someone a “racist” functions for whites. It is not meant to invite dialogue. It is meant to end it. Once the label is applied, your ideas do not need to be answered. Your arguments do not need to be considered. You are dismissed before the conversation begins.

This conditioning is not accidental. Black America was not always this way. In the early 20th century, despite enduring legalized discrimination, Black communities built reputations for dignity and resilience. Two-parent households were the norm. Churches anchored neighborhoods. Education was respected. The culture carried itself with class and restraint.

But decades of Democrat policies, from welfare programs that undermined the family to cultural narratives that rewarded grievance over responsibility, eroded that foundation. The result is a community conditioned to respond to words, insults, or slurs with outrage, often encouraged by political leaders who benefit from the chaos.

The recent case in Cincinnati illustrates the point. A mob beat a white couple after a trivial altercation. When someone in the crowd claimed a racial slur had been uttered, that allegation alone became the justification for violence. Politicians and commentators excused the mob, as if Black Americans could not be expected to control themselves once a word was spoken.

That is racism in its purest form. It assumes that Black people are incapable of the same self-control expected of everyone else. If a white person lashes out in violence over an insult, it is condemned. If a Black mob does the same, it is explained away as “understandable outrage.”

This is the soft bigotry of low expectations. It is not progress. It is condescension disguised as compassion. And it keeps Black Americans trapped, conditioned to react rather than to rise.

Targeting Black Conservatives: The Slur in Action

The proof of this inversion is not abstract; it is visible in the treatment of nearly every prominent Black conservative of the last half-century. The moment a Black American steps outside the boundaries set by the Democrat Party, the “Uncle Tom” label is dragged out like a whip.

• Justice Clarence Thomas - Perhaps the most consistent constitutionalist on the Supreme Court, Thomas has been smeared as an “Uncle Tom” by Democrat senators, media pundits, and left-wing activists since the day of his confirmation hearings in 1991. Rather than confront his legal reasoning, his critics degrade him with a racial slur designed to discredit him as nothing more than a puppet of white conservatives.

• Thomas Sowell - For more than four decades, Sowell has dismantled liberal dogma with data and history. Rather than engage with his arguments, left-wing academics and commentators routinely brand him an “Uncle Tom,” as if his scholarship were merely an act of racial betrayal instead of intellectual independence.

• Condoleezza Rice - When she served as Secretary of State under George W. Bush, Rice faced not just disagreement but open racial insult. Democrat activists labeled her an “Uncle Tom” and a “house slave,” mocking her service to the country because it was under a Republican president.

• Colin Powell - Even before his eventual break with the GOP, Powell was smeared by elements of the left as an “Uncle Tom” for serving in a Republican administration. His military service and historic role as the first Black Secretary of State were overshadowed by the willingness of Democrats to demean his very identity.

• Ben Carson - The world-renowned neurosurgeon and former HUD Secretary endured relentless racial slurs from Democrats and left-leaning commentators. His refusal to support abortion and welfare dependency made him, in their eyes, a traitor. He was repeatedly branded an “Uncle Tom” despite his towering personal accomplishments.

• Tim Scott - The only Black Republican senator in office today, Scott has been called an “Uncle Tom” by Democrat operatives and even fellow members of Congress. His insistence that America is not inherently racist, based on his own lived success story, has earned him scorn rather than respect.

• Larry Elder - The longtime radio host and 2021 California gubernatorial candidate was mocked as “the Black face of white supremacy” by The Los Angeles Times and branded an “Uncle Tom” by Democrat critics. His crime? Refusing to bow to liberal orthodoxy on crime, family breakdown, and personal responsibility.

• Alan Keyes - A brilliant orator and Reagan-era diplomat, Keyes was repeatedly branded an “Uncle Tom” during his Senate and presidential runs. His unapologetic defense of life, faith, and limited government made him intolerable to Democrats, who dismissed him not on his arguments but by reducing him to a racial slur.

• Candace Owens - Outspoken, controversial, and fearless in her critiques of the left, Owens has been smeared as an “Uncle Tom” (and far worse) by Democrats and their allies in the media. Her crime? Refusing to let the Democrat Party own her mind.

The pattern is unmistakable. When a Black Democrat speaks, their identity is celebrated as proof of progress. When a Black conservative speaks, their identity is weaponized against them. The same party that claims to fight racism reaches for one of the most racist insults in American culture the moment someone breaks free from their control.

The Genius They Never Told You About

His name is Thomas Sowell, and if you’ve never heard of him, that’s not an accident.

He didn’t rap about killing people. He didn’t whine about oppression. He didn’t beg politicians for handouts. He earned his voice through service, scholarship, and unflinching honesty. No theatrics. Just truth.

Born into poverty in the Jim Crow South. Raised in Harlem. Drafted into the Marine Corps during Korea. Accepted into Harvard without even finishing high school. Earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago. Taught at Cornell, UCLA, and Stanford.

And yet, most Black Americans have never been taught his name.

They gave you rappers. They gave you race hustlers. They gave you Instagram activists with million-dollar brand deals. But they never gave you Thomas Sowell, a man who has written over 50 books on economics, history, race, education, and politics. A man who speaks in reason and evidence, not rage and envy.

What makes Sowell so dangerous to the people in power isn’t just his brilliance.

It’s that he didn’t start out conservative.

He once believed in Marxist ideas. He thought socialism could lift up the poor and bring justice to the world. But then he did something rare. He tested those beliefs against the real world.

While working at the Department of Labor, Sowell analyzed the effects of minimum wage laws in Puerto Rico. What he found shocked him: raising the minimum wage destroyed jobs. The very policy he thought would help the poor was hurting them.

That was the moment the fantasy ended.

He didn’t dig in. He didn’t pretend the data said something else. He changed his mind.

And that’s the real danger.

Sowell didn’t just think outside the box. He escaped the plantation. He rejected the idea that Black Americans must all think one way, vote one way, and define themselves by grievance. He refused to be managed. That kind of independence is unforgivable to those who trade in control.

Despite being one of the greatest intellectuals of the last century, Sowell is kept out of the conversation. Instead, kids are raised on celebrity victimhood while the sharpest mind of our time is hidden from view.

Why? Because if young Black men started reading Sowell instead of parroting social media activists, everything would change.

The lies would fall apart.

The dependency would die.

The plantation would collapse.

So they silence him. Not because he’s wrong. But because he’s right.

Thomas Sowell isn’t just a conservative. He’s a survivor of bad ideas. A man who believed the lies, looked at the data, and told the truth anyway.

And the real tragedy is this: the Black community has been robbed of its brightest light by the very people who claim to be on their side.

That isn’t just neglect. That’s betrayal.

Why Democrats Need the Slur

The word “Uncle Tom” is not just a casual insult. It is a political tool, a weapon Democrats use to keep Black Americans in line. If you step out of the narrative, they drag you back with the whip of ridicule. It is easier to silence a man by assassinating his character than by confronting his arguments.

But why does the Democrat Party rely on this slur so heavily? Because they have to. Without the illusion of racial solidarity, their grip on Black voters begins to crack. Democrats cannot afford to let Black Americans realize that conservative ideas like faith, family, education, entrepreneurship, and limited government were once their own values and are still the keys to advancement. So instead of debating ideas, Democrats enforce conformity by branding dissenters as traitors to their race.

This is not new. The same party that once used firehoses and dogs in the streets now uses smear campaigns and slurs on social media. The uniforms have changed, but the mentality has not. The bigotry is dressed in progressive language.

No one illustrates this better than Joe Biden himself, the man Democrats hail as the savior of “racial justice.” His record tells a very different story:

• In the 1970s, Biden opposed school desegregation via busing. He worked alongside segregationist Democrats like James Eastland and Herman Talmadge, bragging that Delaware would not become a “racial jungle” if his policies prevailed. That is his phrase, not a paraphrase.

• In 1981, he voted to restore tax-exempt status to segregated private schools, including so-called “white academies” formed to dodge desegregation orders. His vote was a clear attempt to placate white Southern voters.

• In 1993, Biden warned of “predators on our streets” and argued that some people were so broken they needed to be removed from society. His words targeted young Black men, many raised in the very Democrat-run cities plagued by failed schools, fatherlessness, and economic decay.

• In the 1990s, Biden helped author the 1994 Crime Bill, which devastated Black communities through mass incarceration. At the time, he boasted that his bill would ensure those predators were taken off the streets.

• During his 2007 presidential run, Biden described Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.” Think about that. For Biden, the very existence of an educated, successful Black man was such a novelty it required an announcement.

• In 2010, speaking to a diverse crowd, Biden said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” Imagine any Republican saying this and still having a political career.

• In 2020, he told a Black radio host, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.” In other words, Biden declared that Black identity itself was conditional; it depended on loyalty to the Democrat Party.

• That same year, he contrasted Latinos and Black Americans by saying, “Unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community.” Translation: Black people all think the same. And that’s exactly how Democrats like it.

• He also opposed the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown, a Black conservative woman, to the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. She would have been the first Black woman to serve on the Court. Biden led the charge to block her.

These are not gaffes. They are windows into a mindset. A mindset that says Black people are a monolith, owned by one party, to be praised when compliant and smeared when disobedient.

And this is why Democrats need the slur. It is not just about Clarence Thomas, or Thomas Sowell, or Larry Elder. It is about maintaining the plantation, not of cotton fields, but of votes. It is about punishing anyone who threatens to break the illusion that Democrats are the natural home for Black Americans.

The ugliest irony is that the use of “Uncle Tom” is itself racist. It rests on the assumption that Black people are not capable of independent thought, that their race dictates their politics, and deviation from that script is betrayal. That is racism by definition. Yet Democrats and their allies wield it daily, confident that their friends in media and academia will excuse or ignore it.

In short, the slur survives because the bigotry survives. Democrats cannot defend their record, so they defend their power. And if that means turning the name of a Christian martyr into a weapon, so be it.

The Real Uncle Tom Died Free

Tom didn’t die because he was weak.

He died because he refused to become the very thing he was fighting, a man who betrayed his values to survive. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he’s beaten to death not for submission, but for defiance. He won’t whip another slave. He won’t reveal where two runaways are hiding. He chooses suffering over betrayal. And in the end, he dies with his dignity intact.

He forgives the men who killed him. Not out of cowardice, but out of faith. That is strength. That is manhood. That is the real Uncle Tom.

His death was not the point of shame. It was the point of power. It made the book unforgettable. It moved a nation. And it should have cemented his legacy as one of the most heroic characters in American literature.

Instead, it was hijacked.

The same party that once owned the plantations now owns the narrative. And they rewrote Tom’s legacy into a lie. They turned a martyr into a mascot of weakness and used that slur to keep Black Americans in political chains.

But the truth is still there, waiting to be reclaimed.

Uncle Tom died free. Not because he ran, but because he stood.

Who Betrayed Whom?

If Uncle Tom died protecting his people, then what does it say about the people who now spit on his name?

The real betrayal wasn’t Tom turning his back on his race. It was his race turning its back on him. Not out of malice. Out of ignorance. Out of programming. Out of trusting the wrong voices, voices that told them he was a traitor instead of a martyr.

This betrayal didn't happen in a vacuum. It was shaped, pushed, and reinforced by a party that needs Black Americans to stay angry, stay loyal, and never question the script. Democrats didn’t just abandon the legacy of Uncle Tom. They helped bury it. Then they weaponized his name against anyone who dares to think independently today.

The same people who praise nonviolence in public are often the first to mock Uncle Tom's nonviolent resistance. The same people who say “we need more Black role models” are quick to cancel the ones who won’t carry the Democrat banner. The same voices that claim to fight for “Black dignity” show none toward Black men like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, or Ben Carson. Instead, they smear them as Uncle Toms, the very thing the original Uncle Tom never was.

So who betrayed whom?

The man who stood for faith, family, loyalty, and truth? Or the people who forgot what those values meant the minute politics told them to?

And we see this betrayal play out every election cycle. Over 80 percent of Black Americans still vote for the Democrat Party, the same party that once fought to keep them enslaved, segregated, and silenced. The reasons have shifted, but the outcome has not. The control remains.

When a Black man like Clarence Thomas rises to the Supreme Court by his own merit, he is called a sellout. When a scholar like Thomas Sowell spends six decades demolishing liberal talking points with facts and logic, he's ignored by the very people who claim to want intellectual representation. When Larry Elder runs for governor of California, the Los Angeles Times calls him “the Black face of white supremacy.” No irony. No apology.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, how accomplished, how principled. If you are Black and you step off the Democrat plantation, the party and its loyal followers will come after you with everything they have. They will mock your skin color, question your Blackness, and strip you of your dignity, all in the name of protecting “racial progress.”

They do this because they cannot afford to lose control. If even 20 percent of Black voters started to question the script, the entire foundation of Democrat power would collapse. So they use the slur. They use fear. They use shame. Not to uplift, but to discipline. Not to empower, but to enslave, this time with words, not chains.

That’s the real betrayal. Not the man who died protecting his people. But the people who now protect the lie that keeps them in political bondage.

---

Arnell’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. I don’t run ads. I don’t hide my work behind paywalls. Everything I write is for everyone, especially the people no one else will speak for.

If you value this work, you can help keep it going:

• Become a Paid Subscriber: https://mrchr.is/help

• Join The Resistance Core (Founding Member): https://mrchr.is/resist

• Buy Me a Coffee: https://mrchr.is/give

Sharing and restacking also help more than you know.