It is Time to Replace "Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally" with "Uncle Clarence and Aunt Ginni"

Culture evolves, and it is time for the culture that coined the terms "Uncle Tom" and "Aunt Sally" to be better understood so that it can rightfully evolve. Both the terms Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally refer to Black people who aid and protect white people in order to gain personal favor within white society. 

The term "Uncle Tom" is based upon the main character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Stowe's novel is about a Black man named Tom who jumps from a paddle wheeler to rescue the daughter of a rich white man. As a reward for saving his daughter, the white man purchases him at a slave auction, and allows Tom to live with him and his daughter as her Uncle Tom. 

The white man's son betrays his father's will to free Tom when he died. He instead sells him to the infamous Simon Legree, who eventually murders Tom for disobeying his order to beat some of his fellow enslaved people.

It wasn't the story about Uncle Tom that gave the term its negative connotation for a Black man who lives as if he is a white man. It was from the stage portrayals of Uncle Tom as the novel was set to plays. The actors were portraying a Black man living as a white man during slavery days. Tom was living a lifestyle not given those who were the most highly regarded "house negroes" of the day. Ultimately, Uncle Tom is a tragic character whose good deeds were rewarded, but who was betrayed and eventually murdered by malevolent white people for placing more value on the lives of others than upon his own. 

The literary reference to "Aunt Sally" is even more obscure than that. "Black Sal" was a character in an 1821 novel titled 'Life in London' by Pierce Egan. Black Sal was a low-life character who did minstrel shows with a black-faced doll. The term does not come from the black-faced doll, but rather from the sleazy owner of the doll who spoke through her.

Both had friends who were among the most progressive thinkers of their days. Pierce Egan was a friend of Charles Dickens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe was a friend of Samuel Clemons, aka Mark Twain. Both Dickens and Twain took on the powers of the day by writing about the horrors they create in literary classics. Besides, it does not fit that an Uncle Tom is a Black man who was murdered for not beating other enslaved people on the command of a white man. It would be a more fitting name if Uncle Tom saved the white girl and beat other Black people. It is equally unfitting that an Aunt Sally was really a white man speaking through a white doll wearing blackface. 

Therefore, I contend that the terms "Uncle Tom" and "Aunt Sally" be retired from use as references to people based on antiquated social norms. Since reference terms for social abnormalities come from what is deemed socially normal for those particular days, it seems that we have a natural replacement for the term "Uncle Tom" these days.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, hereafter referred to as Uncle Clarence, is literally a Black man who wants so badly to be a white man that he sells out the power and influence he has in order to be popular and hang out with rich, old white men. When Uncle Clarence was nominated to replace The Honorable Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, then-Senator Joe Biden led the committee that heard allegations of sexual misconduct from Anita Hill, who is a former colleague of the pervert. 

The articulate law professor testified that he would bring up subjects like porn movies and the size of his penis despite that they were coworkers and not friends. Beyond that, the huge dick who claimed he was also hung asked the current law professor out socially, he persisted despite that she turned him down the first time with the explanation that she "did not want to date the boss." 

I'm not saying that the prestigious Anita Hill brought out the internal Clayton Bigsby in Uncle Clarence, but that is because I don't think there was ever a time when Uncle Clarence didn't want to be a white person. If he had been in the position of Uncle Tom, I think he would have beaten other Black people just so that he could serve his master's sweet tea on the family porch while he dreamt of the day that he would be thought of as the white girl's uncle. It is my opinion that it was always so much so that I suggest the term "Aunt Ginni" for Black women who want to be white people despite that Aunt Ginni in this reference is Uncle Clarence's wife who is herself white and not Black.

There are several reasons for that. The first reason is that a reference to someone like Candace Owens will be as obscure a reference as "Aunt Sally" is today, if "Aunt Candace" wouldn't already be such an obscure reference. She is insignificant, and she does not speak for Black women. She speaks the way she does because she wants to be a white person.

The second reason is that Black women are changing the world and will continue to do so. Black women like Ayanna Presley, Ilhan Omar, Kori Bush, and Stacey Abrams are the images of Black women making the changes necessary so that the voices of people like the highly accomplished Anita Hill are not silenced when someone like Uncle Clarence is supposed to replace someone like The Honorable Thurgood Marshall. 

I also need to be careful at this point so that I do not slip on the term "bitch" that I used frequently in the past. My friend Dr. Scott pointed out to me that rising above using that term for "woman I despise" is something we need do for society's sake. I figure if someone whose opinion I respect as much as Dr. Scott's opinion is that it is a societal norm that we must rise above, then it is also an overused literary cliche.

The better image for Black women who want to be white people is the white person who those women sound like. That is Ginni Thomas, who hereafter will be referred to only as Aunt Ginni, and who is literally Uncle Clarence's white wife. (Thank you for the tip, Dr. Scott.) 

To me, Uncle Clarence and Aunt Ginni should be as insignificant a reference as referring to Robert Bork and his wife. Bork, of course, was the Reagan Supreme Court nominee who the Senate rejected less than a decade earlier, and about whom Ted Kennedy had this to say:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women will be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy."

There is hardly a better description of the world Uncle Clarence is creating as he enjoys the ultimate privilege of super-rich white people he wants to be, which is the lack of ethical accountability. It seems obvious to me that Uncle Clarence should now be the reference for a Black man who wants to be a white person because he is the Black man most enjoying beating the people who The Honorable Thurgood Marshall would have protected.

As it turns out, the person who would then literally become Aunt Ginni can become the reference for Black women who want to be white people. It is appropriate because she supports the causes that Black women who want to be white people support. Aunt Ginni is also accidentally significant, which people like Candace Owens aspire to be having only accomplished the "accidental" part so far. 

It is for those reasons that I propose using the terms Uncle Clarence and Aunt Ginni to replace the terms Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally as derogatory terms for people who behave like Uncle Clarence and sound like Aunt Ginni. Those terms are not only historically accurate, but I also have to admit that I've not been a fan of using the term Uncle Tom as the reference since the early 70s. 

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Photo of Anita Hill by Gage Skidmore