Uncle Clarence

Uncle Tom was not an actual villain. Justice Clarence is

What was Clarence Thomas doing on Capital Hill last week? Who was he meeting with on the day before John Roberts’ barely there defense of birthright citizenship dropped?

Could he have been dropping a dime that the decision wasn’t going to go Republicans’ way, and signaling that his lengthy dissent would provide a roadmap for white nationalist MAGA Republicans to come back to the court with an argument insane but clever enough to survive John Roberts’ desire to still get invited to the right cocktail parties?

We may never know. But what we do know, is that Clarence Thomas is not on our side. And by “our” … I mean the Blacks.

Dear Black Delegation —

Can we please amend our protocols to remove the term “Uncle Tom” from our collective lexicon … particularly as pertains to one, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas?

To be clear, my interest is not in relieving the irascible associate justice of responsibility for the harm he has so viciously inflicted on the very people who overwhelmingly supported placing him onto the Supreme Court (to keep the “Black seat” Black) despite credible allegations of sexual pestery against Anita Hill (and other women who didn’t even get to testify, thanks to a Democratic Senator named Joe Biden.) Far from it. Rather, I’d like to move that we, The Black Delegation, at long last absolve poor Uncle Tom of the ignominy of being the catch-word for a sellout.

The fact is, Uncle Tom, the title character in the best selling slave narrative Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a hero — not a villain. He was a good man, who died trying to protect his Black loved ones. Read this excerpt from a 2008 NPR interview Michel Martin did with folklorist Patricia Turner:

Prof. TURNER: Many African-Americans don’t hate the real story that Stowe wrote. The Uncle Tom character that she gives us is extraordinarily Christian. The climax of the story really comes when Uncle Tom is asked to reveal where two slave women are hiding, who had been sexually abused by their master. And he refuses. Knowing that he is going to be beaten to death, he refused to say where they are. And African-Americans who have read the novel can appreciate what kind of heroism that took for a black man to sign away his life to save two black women.

Unfortunately, the stage depictions don’t include that part of the story. They grossly distort Uncle Tom into an older man than he is in the novel, a man whose English is poor, a man who will do quite the opposite, who will sell out any black man if it will curry the favor of a white employer, a white master, a white mistress. It’s that distorted character that is so objectionable to African-Americans.

MARTIN: How did that happen? It is quite remarkable that this is a book which was intended to, and in many ways succeeded in revealing to people who were not aware or chose not to pay attention to the horrors of slavery, I mean, the unimaginable brutality, the exploitation of women, the physical violence, all of that. It was meant to reveal this, and somehow or other this character, who is meant to be very brave and an example of, you know, Christian forbearance, turned into this - the sell-out. How did that happen?

Prof. TURNER: The producers of the early stage shows didn’t think that they could attract an audience for the Uncle Tom as he was depicted by Stowe. They couldn’t sell tickets to a theatrical production, the climax which would have been this man dying, rather than the revealing the whereabouts of these women.

They could sell tickets, as they had been successful by showing blacks in minstrel depictions, showing them liking to dance more than they liked to work, showing their insensitivity to each other, showing their willingness to tell the master or mistress what he or she wanted to hear. That sold tickets, and so those were the shows that they produced, staged and circulated throughout the world.

Read the whole interview here. Well worth it — and important to recall that in its time, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the U.S. in 1852, its first year of publication, and even more in Great Britain, where antislavery feeling was stronger. Indeed, it was the best-selling book of the 19th century, outselling every book on offer except the Bible. Despite that, it was the warped, Blackface version of Uncle Tom in the stage plays that most people remembered, giving that poor, heroic man a bad name.

And so I think it’s time we stopped doing the devil’s work by continuing to use Uncle Tom’s name in vain. And I hereby move that we swap in a new name stand in for the concept of a Black man willing to sell out Black women and men with no apologies:

With deepest respect to all of the kind, pro-community Clarences in the community who are not selling us down the river for trinkets from creepy billionaires, going forward we might also consider making the full heel turn to the term “Justice Clarence” as an alternate substitute, to be used in such phrases as: “Ole, Justice Clarence ass…” and “Oh we know he’s a Justice Clarence.” “Uncle Thomas” ought also to be an acceptable substitute.

Let’s bring it to a vote, and make sure we keep all of the delegations apprised.

As to what brought on this request? Behold, Justice Clarence’s concurrence in the Alito-penned ruling that once again, saw the modern day Roger Taney — Chief Justice John Roberts’ shameful court majority, gutting the Voting Rights Act down to the skids, for the apparent purpose of assuring that Roberts’ political party never loses control of Congress, such that a new congress could bring a halt to John Roberts’ and his fellow Leonard Leo gang’s endless corruption and grift.

Justice Clarence’s concurrence in the Calais case states that NO VRA Section 2 claim should ever prevail, ever ever ever, period.

May you live long enough, Clarence, to fully understand how deeply disappointed and repulsed the vast majority of Black Americans are in you. And the Geechees don’t claim you either, man. Don’t even show up to the cookout. You’re not getting a plate, even taken to the car.

On Clarence

Garrison Hayes has a startling, intriguing take on who Clarence is, and how he came to be that way. Worth a watch (and do subscribe to his channel!) And the core point that Garrison makes is that Clarence has staked his philosophy on insisting that there is no such thing as “Black people” as a collective, and instead each of us should be treated as individuals.

Individuals who only have rights that Uncle Clarence will defend … if they are white.

Handmaid’s Tale stuff

Watch this space…

So to this regime, women can’t even sit on a soybean board… From Reuters:

CHICAGO - The Trump administration rejected all four women farmers chosen by their peers to represent them in an industry group called the United Soybean Board earlier this year, a rare intervention by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that three of the women suspected was because of their gender.

From the Pentagon to the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration has vowed to root out policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, from every layer of government.

Normally, soy farmers pick their representatives and the USDA signs off. This time, the USDA rejected at least five of the farmers selected for the United Soybean Board, including four women. It did not give any reason, according to three of the women.

Sara Stelter, a Wisconsin farmer stripped of her role on the soy board, saw the decision as part of Trump’s broader policy.

“It seems like a small thing,” Stelter said, “but in other ways, it’s really a big deal because it’s just another thing of where the current administration views women, I believe, and what their role should be.”

Reuters could not determine the reason for USDA’s rejection of the five candidates for the soy board. The USDA and the United Soybean Board did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters about the rejections, saying only that the agriculture secretary selects board members from candidates put forward by state boards. The White House did not fulfill a public information request seeking any correspondence on the matter, citing a backlog of requests, and a spokesperson declined to comment, referring Reuters to the USDA.

So much for the meritocracy. We will be judged by our skin color, gender, and political ideology, and not least by the level of our personal fealty to the president.

Under his eye…