CONSERVATIVE BLACK CHRISTIANS: THE REAL UNCLE TOMS?
We live in a day and time that if you are tagged an Uncle Tom it could be truly detrimental to your well being. Black leaders will totally refine your character in such a manner that few others would want to even stand in a line with you. One group of whites will praise you for your independence or treat you as a leper. The other group in league with minority groups could hardly be happier. It is ironic that almost every one has it all wrong!
When Harriet Beecher Stowe penned her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, it became a national best seller. I bet you know that. Maybe you also know that the book was inspired by a real person, Josiah Henson, who was a slave at one point. Only in the book, Uncle Tom was a heroic figure. He is bought by one Simon Legree a slave owner in Mississippi, whom many slaves call the worse slave owner that ever lived. He owned two supervisor blacks whom he named Sambo and Quimbo. These two, like some supervising blacks, treated their fellow slaves in inhuman ways that taxed a person and mental endurance to their limits.
The books, movies and general low information indulgence in societal disinformation have cause history and even Ms. Stowe’s book to be turn over on its head. Truth became a lie and a lie became the truth in the collective mind of Americans
After Tom was hired, he became so out spoken about the deeds of the leader blacks that it grieved them. He also performed what he was asked so well that after being sold more than once the slave owners were loathe to allow the sort of injustice he explained that he had seen which, he said, made slaves even less productive. In fact, it was the Sambos and Quimbos of slavery, who danced to the tune of the slave master; effaced their own character and conscience in lowering themselves for profit that Tom found to be the most out spoken opponents of his Christ- like perspective towards others. Stowe’s Tom is proclaimed in her portrayal below:
Legree wanted to make Tom an overseer. When he is ordered to flog a woman slave, Tom refuses. Legree strikes him repeatedly with a cowhide lash. Again, he tellz Tom to beat the woman. Tom, with a soft voice, sayz, "the poor crittur's sick and feeble; 'twould be downright cruel, and it's what I never would do, nor begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my raising my hand agin anyone here, I never shall, -- I'll die first."
Writer, Bill Carpenter, writer of Destiny Magazine, describes the antagonism of the black leaders who worked on behalf of the slave masters, this way;
Soon, Tom lived in his own cabin, which became the place of counsel and sanctuary for Afrikanz with grievances. His willingness to confront black and white injustice earned him a limited freedom long before the Civil War.
He did encounter opposition however, but it was not from white slave owners. His biggest enemies were those black overseer's appointed as leaders over the people. They were being increasingly challenged by slaves who found the bold courage of Uncle Tom very attractive.
The historical fact is that a quiet but growing movement could be found in plantation after plantation of slaves who wrapped themselves around the concept of individual rights and dignity. By the mid 1820's these rugged souls, who grew in their boldness to stand up to their overseer's, became known as Uncle Tom's.
Isn’t it time that Christian black conservatives and every freedom loving person, stop running from Uncle Tom and start running towards him. It was he and now is people like him that are willing to stand up with truths anyone can see is best for themselves; kind words that break bones and courage that cannot be beaten out of us. Our country needs us all to once again stand tall for the truths that are self evident.
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