In re: Tim Scott and Uncle Tom...thread. I refer to him pejoratively as Token Tim for the obvious reason that he's willingly used as such by the GOP who regularly think that if you put a Black person or woman up front, that demographic will follow. In that he's no different 1/

from Palin, Haley, Jindal, Rubio, et al. "See, we have a woman / Black person / Latino / South Asian American so we're not racist". I have long refrained from using "Uncle Tom" as a pejorative because its common use is not based on the actual character 2/

in Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, which was and remains credited with getting more white people to understand the realities of slavery. I haven't read the book since 6th grade so it's been "a minute" but Tom in the book gave his life to protect two runaway enslaved women. 3/

As with too many other things, the character was taken over by white people and made into something else. Primarily minstrel shows put on by people who wanted to portray him as anything other than decent, sympathetic or human.4/ https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059468

THIS is the character that Black people hate. This is the character that's meant in reference to people like Scott. And this is not the character Beecher Stowe wrote.
Prof. PATRICIA TURNER (African-American Studies, University of California, Davis; Folklorist): 5/

But this is America and things that we as Black people can say because we've earned that right through our lived experiences, and like the character itself, get appropriated by white folks who lay claim to everything whether they understand it or not. We see this with "woke" 6/

or "cancel" or a myriad of things that then get distorted into things they're not. Woke originated to make sure Black people know a lot of the history that's been whitewashed and erased from American history. Cancel always meant holding someone accountable for 7/

a dumbass or hateful thing they did. Once they're in the atmosphere...

But "Uncle Tom" is not your lane white folks, especially the version made popular through your ancestors bastardization of the Beecher Stowe character. There some things that not only you don't 8/

get to say because you haven't endured what goes along with saying it. And if you want to so badly, just like the N word, start with why you do. 9/9