Imagine the year is 1840. You are an enslaved African working on a plantation in the southern United States. You work in the fields. It’s the middle of the day in the middle of summer. The sun is hot and even though your body has been conditioned to work from sun up to sun down off the meager sustenance you’re given it is nevertheless exhausting work. You need to take a break for just a minute so you stand straight to stretch your back. You look around and see the other field hands toiling in the sun. As you look around your gaze catches the porch of the plantation house. The plantation owner is sitting in a chair in the shade having what appears to be a cool drink. Now imagine sitting at the plantation owner’s feet is one of the house niggers performing some basic assignment in the shade of the porch. You can’t hear what’s being said, but it’s obvious that the plantation owner and the house nigger are having a jovial conversation.
Here’s the question: Which one of two thoughts is most likely to go through your head? Do you look with envy at the house nigger and secretly wish you could trade places and enjoy the relative luxury and comfort compared to your own situation or do you look with a sense of anger and rage wishing you can kill the plantation owner and his tom so that all the field hands could be freed from their enslavement?
I would imagine that most people would say that they would choose to put the plantation owner and his tom out of their misery. It’s obvious that to stop the enslavement would be a more community minded choice. Even though it would lead to a more comfortable life the selfish decision to become the new tom wouldn’t sit well with most. Judging from personal experience, no self-respecting field working African would want to be hated the way most would hate the uncle tom house slave. One could not imagine how any brother or sister would live so well while so many in their community suffered.
Now imagine it’s the early part of the 21st century. You work in a thankless job somewhere in the landscape of corporate America. In order to make ends meet you work as much as you can, signing up for overtime whenever you can, even taking a part-time job to help take care of yourself and your family. You come home from work mentally drained and physically exhausted. You need to forget about your day for just a minute so you turn on your television set. Flipping through channels you run across an immensely popular actor/actress, singer, sports star, musician, talk show host, corporate executive, government official, whatever of African descent doing whatever they do to earn a staggering paycheck and live a glamorous life oblivious to the plight of the community at large.
Here’s the question: Which one of two thoughts is most likely to go through your head? Do you look with envy at the black megastar and secretly wish that it was you living the life of luxury, comfort, and public adulation or do you look with a sense of anger and rage wishing you could stop their collaboration in the enslavement of the African American community. Unfortunately, I would imagine that most people would say they don’t have a problem with the modern day plantation owners and their uncle toms. Most people of African descent exist unaware of how their collective mindset has been manipulated to not just tolerate uncle tom-ism but to actually wish to be the tom.
Fantastic way of putting the roles of the toms v self-respecting Black wo/men! Ive written about this on my blog, but Im not nearly as capable of illustrating this as you are! Consider this an invitation to guest blog anytime!
Brother Peacemaker, This is a thought provoking essay on the status of black America. Powerful words that challenge us to think about our own station in life, and our individual and collective station in America. There are many people within our African American communities who say, the house negro/field negro issue is not relevant for 21st century black African Americans. I disagree, and obviously you disagree based on your essay.
Answering your question, I look with a sense of anger and just a tad bit of rage, wishing I could stop their collaboration in the enslavement of the African American communities. I recently posted a similar rant on: African American Political Pundit.
Great Post!
Great analogy! This is a great way to compare our situation then and now and show that although some facts chance the political challenge remains the same.
I had a discussion with a young Black friend a few days ago in which I challenged John Edwards’ 5 Million-dollar mansion and it’s 10.5 bathrooms. Although my friend is an Obama supporter, yet he also supported Edwards’ right to want 10.5 bathrooms and said all Blacks people should strive to achieve such dreams of material wealth in the capitalist system.
Well, to the extent that we do seek to be wealthy millionaires rather than seek to overturn the system itself, we may well have been co-opted. We may well be seeking to enjoy the opulence of the “big house” rather than free our fellow slaves from the plantation.
The awareness of this dichotomy may also help to explain why many Blacks feel conflicted about achieving economically in America. In our hearts, many of us reject becoming Uncle Tom and being permitted (but only individually and not collectively) in the Big House.
Great Post, and great analogy. Yet, I would like to shine some light on several misconceptions seemingly discussed in African American circles involving the dichotomy between the house slave and the field hand…
Not all times did house servants have an advantage to their situation over that of the field hands…
Often times their abuse was more extensive and brutal because they were in such close proximity on a regular basis with the master…
Not to mention female slaves that worked in the house. When female field hands were finished with their given work for that day they often times went home and tended to their own home and their own family. This was not necessarily true for house servants. Often times they had to nurse newborns until the early hours of the evening and stay up with the babies if they cry. Also, if visitors came into town and the master and mistress hosted dinner parties the house servants usually worked all day to prepare the lavish meal then worked all evening during the dinner party serving the guests, and then stayed up all night ensuring that the home was cleaned after the owners and their guests slept through the night. Not to mention the seemingly sleep-walking predatorial sexual abuse by the master that crept in the slave woman’s sleeping quarters into the night…
Or what about the children fathered with the slave woman and the master, whom the master deemed necessary to keep working in the home, but the mistress resented because visitors constantly noticed and commented on how closely he/she resembled the mistress’s children. Often times the mistress’s resentment came in the form of constant abuse and neglect, and often times just selling the child to another plantation and splitting the child from their parents just so that she will not have to be reminded of her husband’s act of adultery with the help.
So, I say that to say lets not focus on the better of two evil and torturous conditions. Slavery was wrong, evil, sadistic, and harsh all together. No form of it is better than the next. All forms of slavery were harsh and difficult for all involved. If you would like to research this claim further read some of the highly publicized slave narratives. You can start with the narrative of Harriet Tubman, or read some of the WPA slave narratives found on The Library of Congress’s website.
Nice one BPM. Many of us are perfectly okay with being the Uncle Tom. Unfortunately, all you have to do is simply turn on the tv.
I do not understand the whole house/field analogy in this century, because it is usually as in this case only applied to success. You laid out the day of the poor or middle class worker as if it differed from the rich. People always see the glamorous side of those people lives but don’t see them getting up a 5 in the morning and working till 10 at night to get to and stay where they are. If to people leave work go home and take care of there family and then one watches tv for the rest of the evening and the other is learning the stock market does that make one an uncle tom? This argument is one of the reasons for the continued plight of black America, success is viewed as being an Uncle Tom which is worse than being called a nigger in my book because it is hatred by your own kind. Many of our youth today still view reading as something that white folk do and in my opinion this viewpoint is the reason. Why does this article not point at drug dealers, dead beat dads and murderers as uncle toms. Surely they are doing more to hurt us than someone that is merely buying a nice car or a big house. Why the focus on overturning and rejecting the system. In America the plan is laid out for all finish high school, finish college, invest your money from your corporate job, start a business. What we must do in this new century of activism is own the plantation hire blacks and teach them how to own there own plantations and repeat. For our first 400 years we were in the filed, in the sixties we were allowed in the house now we must own the house.
Now there is a difference in being an Uncle Tom or The Spook who sat bt the Door.
The Spook who Sat by the door.
Wonderfully illustrated text. This is a great analogy. But my critiques/concerns are the same as Lionel Carter’s. Why the assumption that the successful Black entertainer/person on TV is somehow in oblivious cohoots with the evil establishment? Why the assumption that the house slave doesn’tsympathize with the field slave? Why the assumption successful Black doesn’t sympathize with the working class Black?
I think such analogies (and your trust me, I get your point) can be easily misunderstood and used unwisely by hasty people. Being studious or successful subjects you to undiscerned criticism by your less (financially) successful brethern.
Furthermore, I have found (personal survey) that many of my fellow African-American Professionals are 1 st generation college grads. This means they themselves are still eke-ing a spot in middle class rungs are in-between socioeconomic levels. We’ve come a long way (figuratively), but in reality we haven’t covered much ground. Most of us are still within 1 generation of welfare and/or blue collar working class levels.
By the same token, what makes people think that the house Negro who demonstrates a mindset consistent with the protection of the status quo of the plantation owner’s rule and the enslaved people’s subjugation? It is demonstrated through their promotion of certain ideas, principles, and a style of living that manifest such a mindset. Watching black celebrities wash their hands of the black community and throwing themselves at the dominant culture like Anna Nicole Smith throwing herself at a rich billionaire is a good indication of where they pledge their allegiance.
Peace
BPM,
Another insightful post. I would imagine that the Uncle Tom’s you speak of in the 21st century analogy are not all Black people who have acheived material wealth and fame, just those who are oblivious to the plight of the Black community as a whole. There are thousands of examples of affluent Black folks reaching out and helping other brothers and sisters achieve their goals and dreams, providing them access to opportunities they otherwise would not have gained, in an effort to improve the economic, social and academic condition of Black America. And I certaily would not regard them as Uncle Toms just because of their wealth and acceptance into white society. However, those whom I would consider as Toms are the self-absorbed, hedonistic celebrities that negatively represent Black people as criminals, gangsters, pimps, hoes, mysogynists, etc. As much as I love (real) hip-hop, there are some “artists” that I do look upon with rage, and wish I could stop their collaboration with the enslavement of the Black community.
Nice post. I will only agree that those that ignore, won’t speak, of or just down play issues that are unique to the Black community are the Uncle Toms and Auntie Tomasinsas.
I just Uncle Tom Juan Williams on the Oreilly Factor dissing Obama by trying to downplay his Super Tuesday wins. I just wish all the hankerchief heads would learntom keep their ignorant traps shut!
I don’t look at the entertainers like that, they are providing entertainment when I want to veg out. What I do look at are the advancements that happen in the workplace, look at those white folks who are making it, who are no smarter than I, who do not work harder than I and are not more educated than I.
That is where the frustration comes from, because I don’t bemoan the lack of philanthropy and contributions of someone else, only the lack of resources I have in order to make a real difference.
as an insider on the Supreme Court of Bullshit on 1 first Street NE a member of greek and masonic frats i can tell you wholeheartedly that House Niggers in DC are worse than the mad ass Lesbians running shit in the government Half the blacks that are in government work are worse than any white redneck cracker coward ever could be i know lots of secrets……………