this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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I've never heard that phrase before (also not American, so probably never would have).
I'm guessing it's some sort of reference for a slave collaboration with slavery owners?
Nailed it in one. It's a term derived from the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, which features a black slave of the same name. The character is widely criticized for diminishing the harm and threat of slavery to black people. In short, an "Uncle Tom" is a black person that takes the side of the oppressors against their own people, usually for little-to-no reward other than being "one of the good ones." To use the epithet so liberally just because the person is black is not ok.
It’s honestly insane to me that Uncle Tom came to mean this, when in the novel the character literally refuses to inform against escaped slaves and is flogged to death for it. A quite unfortunate collapse of an extremely complex character in one of the most important novels in the history of abolitionism.
It's definitely been Flanderized pretty drastically over time, but honestly, I can see where it stemmed from, with his "happy" times with the "good" master. While I don't expect Stowe intended it as such, anything but a full bore condemnation of slavery, top to bottom, is understandably seen (at least by modern eyes) as being soft on it, if not outright apologetic. And the character's inclusion in minstrel shows and the general popularity with white people probably didn't help it any on that front.
“Insane” was a strong word, and I actually do understand how it came to mean what it has. It just seems like anybody who knows what it means to be called an “Uncle Tom” who also takes some time to learn more about the character winds up being shocked that he isn’t just some kind of prototype of Stephen from Django Unchained.
It’s always wild when characters in the public perception are very different to in the source material.
Jeckyll & Hyde is another example. Jeckyll is a doctor who drinks a potion which changes his personality into a ruffian. Except he’s not, at least in the original short story.
Jeckyll is always in control and aware of what he’s doing. All the potion does is change his appearance so that he can do the bad things that he’s been doing since he was young without losing his social standing.
The whole point of the story is that his personality doesn’t change at all and that he’s just donning a disguise (albeit a sci-fi disguise) so that he can get away with it without losing his day job.
Yet in every adaptation is basically treated as a werewolf story.
Whoa. That is very specific. TYVM for the explanation.
TBF in the book he’s much less of an ‘Uncle Tom’. It was the movies that changed the character to the servile slavery-lover we all know and hate, and so that’s really where the label comes from.
So you agree, it was used accurately here?
So 100% accurate for the drone king