Please, before reporting this post for racism, familiarize yourself with the history of the phrase “Uncle Tom.” The phrase has been used by the Black community against itself, recently in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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"Uncle Tom" means something very specific, not "black man I dislike/disagree with". Using it like that is just racist.
“Uncle Tom” means something very specific
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 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.
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.
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Yeah that caught me way off guard.
He may be too middle of the road but to call him a race traitor like that is absolutely wild.
Like this is a headline I expect to see from a hardcore rightwing publication.
Hey, I get it. Obama wasn't a bad President on the scale of US Presidents, but there are a lot of left wing people who have genuine grievances with him.
I could see anyone who is an advocate for or Middle Eastern themselves be pretty damned pissed at him, considering he dropped twenty-six thousand bombs on seven countries. This was AFTER he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
I was right smack in the middle of the Finance Industry back in the 2008 Crash and paid very close attention to what he did to "rescue the Economy" in the aftermath of it.
Let's just say that the complete total crash from well above most of Europe to near zero of Social Mobility in America and the acceleration of the growth in inequality (especially between people whose income comes from Work vs people whose income comes from Asset Ownership) and subsequent problems with impoverishment of the Working Class which fed the growth of the vote in Far Right Populists like Trump, are all down to which kind of people Obama choose to Rescue and which ones he chose to pay for it.
He didn't just cause grievances for left wing people, he fucked up the US with his choices at a pivotal moment, pretty much plowing, fertilizing and seeding the field were Trumpism grew.
His influence is way more massive than it seem to many, mainly because of the moment in History when he became president made his choices have far reaching effects that structurally pivoted the US Economy which in turn cascaded into changes to the US Politics and Society.
However, as he's a veritable songbird with the gift of the gab (plus Liberals pushed for decade the whole Racist idea that his race made him inherently a better person) a lot of people formed opinions on him based on his race and his speeches rather than on his actions.
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Pretty much. The moment I saw Uncle Tom in the title...
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For the people who don't understand the post:
Denying Palestinians a communal identity has always been a key approach to dehumanization within Western discourse.
The Western world has historically tied itself into knots justifying horrific atrocities like the Atlantic slave trade while trying to present itself as a champion of personal freedoms.
Indeed. And also he is putting a few people who have a relative guarding the concentration camp on the same level of suffering as the people in the concentration camp undergoing a Holocaust. This is not a both sides moment.
Here is what Obama wrote:
After two years of unimaginable loss and suffering for Israeli families and the people of Gaza, we should all be encouraged and relieved that an end to the conflict is within sight; that those hostages still being held will be reunited with their families; and that vital aid can start reaching those inside Gaza whose lives have been shattered. More than that, though, it now falls on Israelis and Palestinians, with the support of the U.S. and the entire world community, to begin the hard task of rebuilding Gaza — and to commit to a process that, by recognizing the common humanity and basic rights of both peoples, can achieve a lasting peace.
He's doing the same as for example the BBC does when they say that Israelis are "killed" and Palestinians "die", that the IDF "says" whilst Hamas "claims" and mention the 7 October "massacre" whilst the mass bombing of Gaza is an "intervention" or at most "invasion".
In simple terms: subtly framing one side more positively than the other in order to subconsciously elicit a more positive response in the minds of the audience for one side, all the while claiming neutrality because the message seems neutral, it's the choice of words which is not.
This is an old trick from Propaganda.
So the OP rightly points that specific kind of Propaganda Spin in Obama's words.
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Obama's take really does smack of bothsides-itis, and is a very clearly diplomatic approach to what was undeniably a one sided massacre. Ms Rachel is not wrong here.
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Obama's just jealous that he isn't ordering the drone strikes on brown families anymore
I think he meant just the Israeli families of the hostages suffered, not all of Israel, while all people of Gaza suffered.
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