Southern Racist Imagery Still Shapes America
Going back to the days of slavery, and in the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, images of serving the master with supreme loyalty was emphasized. After slavery, service to whites embodied cooking, picking cotton, and making whites laugh while always smiling. In short, servicing the needs of Whites was always expected and no display of anger or objection was allowed. In order to create this method of control Black people could never have a last name. This is why they are always referring to the slave of William Travis of Alamo fame, as “Joe the slave.” Travis was a horrid slave owner, not a hero as were the other so-called Alamo defenders. When Jim Crow racism set in, the marketing business took over the disrespect of Black people.
Joe the Slave Had No Last Name
Notice how white supremacy works: Joe the Slave had no last name, nor did Aunt Jemina (Pancakes), Uncle Ben (Converted Rice), and Annie of the Popeyes chicken franchises. Rastus is a negative name traditionally associated with Blacks in America. All of these marketing terms were used to displays Blacks as loyal and grinning. Rastus was meant to portray ignorance and foolishness as used in food marketing—Cream of Wheat. These images were developed in order to portray Blacks as eager to please Whites. The image of servile Blacks, grinning and happy to be inferior, has always been a mechanism to promote anti-Black imagery and appeal to the old southern idea of white supremacy. These images are the reconstruction of the “Tom” in the Stove Novel. Thet are designed to show Blacks are non-threatening to Whites.
In modern times, trying to say Uncle Tom was a good guy may have been created in part by Chicago writer Dahleen Glanton, who argued that the uncle Tom in Stowe’s novel was “noble,” but noble to what” Noble to being loyal to white supremacy, and hence their idea that “Tom” was a “Good” guy. Despite supposedly being “noble,” he remained a loyal slave and a prisoner in his own mind. This might best describe the actions of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Tim Scott, Candace Owens, and others who according to the often-quoted Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology, these political clowns have “Uncle Tom Syndrome” and “Mammy-ism” which has developed out the criminal baggage of slavery but in the 21st Century. The Encyclopedia says that “Uncle Tom Syndrome” is, “A ritualized, accommodating, sycophantic style of behavior of African Americans towards whites…acting in a docile, non-assertive manner to appear non-threatening…” This syndrome is colonialism is a broader context, which can also be described as self-hate.
“Slaves in a Box”
The food boxes are nothing more that “Slaves in a box,” and the real-life political brown nosers are slaves in a biological box. Annie as the “Chicken Queen” of Popeyes fame, is the embodiment of slave plantation life which appeals to foolish tourists for the glorified mansions of the slave owners. The beautiful buildings of the slave masters are played to the hilt while the slave shacks are ignored or played down. White supremacists are always crying about their history being erased, when in fact they do it to others all of the time. In Louisiana, Annie is the new Aunt Jemina in different clothes which emphasizes southern styled cooking of the “old day’s”- the old days of servant Black women and slavery, nothing to celebrate. Famous Black women and men singers have been sucker punched by white supremacists by singing in front of slave plantations and carrying on the images of serving the needs of that old southern racism.
