IN MY SHOES: What It's Like To Be Called An Uncle Tom
St. Petersburg Times columnist Bill Maxwell knows “from personal experience” that “blacks who tell the truth” about personal responsibility “are tar-brushed with the stain of Uncle Tomism, and it sticks to you forever”:
On matters of race, blacks are cowards, too. We may be the worst cowards of all. First, we have perfected the crude art of controlling the terms of race talk.
Second, we have developed various ways of avoiding and squashing the truth about our complicity in matters of race that are self-destructive. …
You are ostracized and given the silent treatment. Your mistake is not that you told the truth but that you told the truth in public, thereby giving the enemy valuable ammunition. … In short, you committed the unforgivable sin of "airing dirty laundry." …
One problem we should openly talk about, but run from, is the high number of black children born out of wedlock. …
We also run away from discussing crime, especially horrific cases of black-on-black crime that capture headlines and lead nightly news reports. …
To mention the deleterious effects of hip-hop is to be attacked. …
Holder should make a second speech on race, this time specifically taking blacks to task for keeping silent on the abandonment of their personal responsibilities.
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