Of Toms and Sambos

By Hassan Nurullah


I wrote this article originally in the late summer of 2009. The article is now difficult to access because my original blog's archive is no longer available. With the recent hiring of Herman Cain as a contributor by Fox News and the brilliant speech delivered by Dr. Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast, the ever "tolerant" liberals, Black & White alike, have once more in a single voice begun the "Uncle Tom" chorus.

Few things gall me more than systemic ignorance – So I have decided to repost the article, (with some editing) in hopes of combating the utter depravity of this particular pejorative. I hope you will share your thoughts in the comments section and this article widely!

We have a new Mayor in the city of Detroit, prominent business man and Hall of Fame NBA star Dave Bing. "I wish Dave Bing would run for mayor," "Now Dave Bing is the one that should run for mayor." "If Dave Bing ran for mayor I'd vote for him in a second." You could hear words like these echoing from the propped open doors of Detroit's barber shops, over the sound of squeaky shopping cart wheels in the local grocer and across the fellowship halls of every church denomination extant in the city.

Dave Bing did finally rouse himself and has become Mayor and now that he has suggested some rather draconian measures to attack the problems facing what could be the most problematical city in the union; a new refrain has replaced the sanguine cries of "run Dave run!", Now we hear the stentorian and ugly crowd calling Dave Bing a "straw hat negro" and an "Uncle Tom."

I even heard Tom Barrow, a man who has sought the office of Mayor for decades without positive results and the likely main challenger to Bing in the upcoming elections refer to Mr Bing as the tool of the Republicans who are trying to take over the city. I am not one for repeating platitudes but, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result. Detroit has elected the same kinds of liberal Democrat politicians without exception for well over thirty years.

Detroit has not had a Republican or even a conservative Democrat in any position of authority for decades. In fact we have scarcely had any whites in government, the few who have gained office in the city, have been liberals of the highest order. What we have seen since we have chosen to elect a singular political point of view in our once great city, is a steady decline in services, safety, education, employment, morale, pride and outside esteem.

All this without benefit of blaming it on the "MAN," in Detroit the "MAN" is manifestly black, (tongue planted firmly in cheek) and we, of course, cannot be blamed for anything going wrong within our own community.

I am not sure if I support the measures that Mr. Bing is preposing, frankly I haven't yet looked closely at the issues. I do know I will never support anyone who uses the term "Uncle Tom." Anyone who uses the term Uncle Tom is profoundly ignorant and has never read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or they would most assuredly never call someone an Uncle Tom in a derogatory manner, unless of course they have read the book and are also profoundly evil.

Lets look at this epithet Uncle Tom in hopes of divining how it could have come to represent a person who betrays the best interests of his people in favor of an oppressor. I became a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ some fifteen years ago after being a Muslim for the first thirty years of my life. The Bible says that when you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, you take on the mind of Christ, that He performs a spiritual circumcision of the heart. Christ replaces your heart of stone with one of flesh. This was certainly true in my case.

I began to see the world in an entirely different light, it was as if, as Scripture alludes, scales literally fell from my eyes and I was seeing the world for the very first time. An unforeseen by-product of that new sight was a fundamental change in my politics – I voted for Bill Clinton the first time around, but after a couple of years of Biblical study I couldn't vote for him the second time. It was at this point that I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on what I then thought a whim.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is an astonishing book that remains relevant even to this day, every American should read it, as should every Christian in the entire world. By design it is filled with types and archetypes. Uncle Tom, the protagonist of this allegory; is a type of Christ. Tom is the perfect Christian, in fact he is a super Christian, which sheds light on why the enemy of mankind has worked so devilishly hard to turn Uncle Tom into a pejorative.

Uncle Tom faces ignorance and the most bestial cruelty with supernatural Christlike compassion, patience and understanding. He acknowledges the seemingly overpowering evil of chattel slavery whilst recognizing the Christian mandate of allowing God to ultimately right the wrongs inflicted upon him. Tom had faith in the knowledge that what he suffered on earth was fleeting and nothing compared to an eternity of peace prepared by God Himself for those who believe in His Son. Tom had forgiveness in his heart and a true desire to see all those he encountered, even if they had done him evil, repent and come to faith in Christ.

"Hulloa, There! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!" called Legree, coming to the quarters, when the men and women were just returning from work. "There's two runaways in the swamps. I'll give five dollars to any nigger as catches 'em. Turn out the dogs! Turn out Tiger, and Fury, and the rest!"

Simon Legree, is the archetypical evil slave owner Tom finds himself in the clutches of late in life. Sambo and Quimbo are Legree's exceedingly cruel black overseers. (Think Samuel Jackson's role in D'jango) Legree, having purchased Tom because of his intelligence and with the mind of putting him in charge, soon finds him incapable of the inhumanity necessary to fill the job. The sadistically brutish Sambo and Quinbo become, along with their master, Tom's constant tormentors.

Sambo and Quinbo are the true "straw hat negroes," they have traded their souls for the few creature comforts their betrayals can purchase them. We have seen their kind in latter times as well in a post slavery America. Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood recruited Black pastors and leaders to sell her diabolical idea of population control and eugenics. To this very day Black babies, by Sanger's intent, are the victims accounting for the majority of the abortions being carried out across our nation. Black babies are being slaughtered wholesale with the compliance of liberal Black leadership.

The Democrat party has a long history of recruiting Black folks to convince their fellows on ideas common sense initially leads people to reject. But, Democrats going back to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt have always been marvelously adept at finding those pliable silver tongued Blacks willing to take favors to sell destructive ideas to their own communities.

Wilson and Roosevelt in the early days never failed to betray Black folks after they procured their votes – betrayals I don't have space to illustrate in this particular article but are outlined brilliantly in Wayne Perryman's Unfounded Loyalty and Bruce Bartlett's Wrong on Race. Sadly Black folks have woefully short memories and after a time they forget that the Democrats fail to deliver on promises and fall victim again and again to the same liberal sweet talk.

"Now, Quimbo," said Legree, as he stretched himself down in the sitting-room. "you jest go and walk that Tom up here, right away! The old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter; and I'll have it out of his old black hide, or I'll know the reason why!"

"Sambo and Quimbo, both, though hating each other, were joined in one mind by a no less cordial hatred of Tom. Legree had told them, at first, that he had bought him for a general overseer, in his absence; and this had begun an ill will, on their part, which had increased, in their debased and servile natures, as they saw him becoming obnoxious to their master's displeasure. Quimbo, therefore, departed, with a will, to execute his orders."

The modern day Sambos and Quimbos fall under two categories They are the poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who may have begun on the proper path but have since been co-opted by racist liberal Democrats. Peddling programs to Black folks that have the virtue of keeping them servile and in constant need of the reassuring hand of the government in their affairs. Always playing up perceived indignities so they can remain the preeminent spokespersons for the Black community.

And you have the just plain stupid Black leaders who have been selectively bred to drink the Kool-Aid with an insatiable thirst, despite the glaring evidence of the devastating toll that liberal policies have wreaked upon Black America. These are the people most responsible for the day to day promotion of the liberal mindset. They are the triumph of the changed Southern Democrat strategy adopted after realizing they couldn't win with fire hoses, attack dogs and the hangman's noose.

If you can no longer lynch them and beat them with sticks, rot them from within. Sap their will to overcome by their own energy. Control them with entitlements so they live in constant fear of losing them. This way they stay ignorant and servile and they will thank their oppressors who now love them.

It is ironic that urban areas like Detroit, decaying, collapsing under the weight of it's own corruption, rife with failed liberal ideologies, choking to death on the putrid fumes of decaying democratic politics, are surrounded by suburban areas embracing sound principles that are flourishing. In fact many of the so-called urban leaders are moving to these areas in search of what is not being delivered by liberal promises in the cities. It is my prayer that as those urban dwellers seek satisfaction in the suburbs; they don't bring the liberal politics of the city with them and seek public office.

As the Sambos and Quimbos of the antebellum South took offense to the uppity Tom with his Christian ideas compelling him to displease their master were quick to punish him for not performing tasks that they have profited from carrying out; so too the modern day versions are quick to pounce upon any who do not toe the line of Black liberal orthodoxy. The Sharptons, Jacksons, Congressman John Conyers of the world are never so ferocious as when they are denouncing the Steeles, Sowells, or J.C. Watts (Cains and Carsons) who would dare oppose their lock step thinking and are outspoken critics of their liberal White masters who've been so good to them.

"Quimbo seized him... 'and no mistake! See how ye'll look, now, helpin' Mas'r's niggers to run away! See what ye'll get'"

Indeed! see what you get when you try to express a competing idea?

"Well, Tom!" said Legree. walking up, and seizing him by the collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm of determined rage, "do you know I've made up my mind to KILL you?"

"It's very likely Mas'r," said Tom, calmly.

"I have," said Legree, with grim terrible calmness, "done – just – that – thing, Tom, unless you'll tell me what you know about these yer gals!"

Tom stood silent.

"D'ye hear?" said Legree, stamping with a roar like that of an incensed lion. "Speak!"

"I haven't got nothing to tell, Mas'r," said Tom, with a slow, firm, deliberate utterance.

"Do you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don't know?" said Legree.

Tom was silent.

"Speak!" thundered Legree, striking him furiously. "Do you know anything?"

"I know, Mas'r; but I can't tell anything. I can die!"

After one more appeal to Simon Legree to repent, where Tom declares he would happily give every ounce of his blood to save Legree's precious soul, Tom is beaten to death. Carrying to his grave the hiding place of the escaped slaves, which prompted the lethal Interrogation that cost him his life. Before Tom dies, Sambo and Quimbo, seeing his bravery as he faced death and the perplexing mercy Tom rendered in forgiving them and Legree during his murder, show genuine regret for the parts they played in his demise. The two implore Tom to share his faith in Christ with them and Tom prays with them and leads them both to Christ just before he breaths his last.

This all begs the question, how did Uncle Tom become the symbol of race betrayal when he died to protect his fellow slaves? It begins with Malcolm X and his criticism of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Christian approach to the civil rights movement. Not as a castigation of Tom as one who was an unctuous betrayer, but rather denouncing his Christian sacrifice. Malcolm was declaring he would not give up his life with docility as Tom had, Malcolm would resist and fight, by "any means necessary." This was an attack on the very concept of Christ's self sacrifice and the Christian ethos of loving ones enemies.

For those of us who believe in the super natural, we recognize this as the way the devil works. Satan very subtly twists things so people reject that which is good in favor of what best serves the selfish nature of man. He did it in the Garden when he twisted the very words of God to entice Adam and Eve to rebel.

Because Malcolm X was accepted as the strong Black leader most personifying resistance to the oppressive ideas of the slave masters, the term Uncle Tom became the parabolic opposite. This idea was bolstered by the popular depictions of Tom in truncated versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin going back almost a hundred years, playing up his relationship with the Eva character and omitting his Christian fueled defiances and an undeserved relation to Uncle Remus.

The result is that a book and character that played an instrumental part in the abolition of slavery in this country, and illustrative of what is essentially greatest in human nature, have fallen out of favor. It shows how ignorance is perpetuated and how false information can spread like an unabated pox with the same withering effect on society. Liberalism feeds on such misinformation, like the way the three-fifths compromise is twisted to appear as if White folks in the government believed blacks were only three-fifths human.

"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." – Abraham Lincoln upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe for the first time.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was written to destroy the institution of chattel slavery in the United States. It burned through the Union like wildfire! At the time of the Civil War the majority of the nation opposed slavery. People forget the south was a minority and because of the machinations of the founders, most of the country never knew the stain of our "peculiar institution."

The left which controls our schools and much of our media, have a stake in eternalizing the negative aspects of our past while burying our glories. Many of the destructive ideas prevalent in modern society were birthed in the minds of those still harboring a resentment towards the nation for winning the war between the states.

What we need today is a boat load of Harriet Beecher Stowes to write books with the express purpose of destroying liberalism our contemporary peculiar institution and Black peoples slavish devotion to bad ideas.

© Hassan Nurullah