For personal gain, Judas Iscariot committed an act of betrayal by identifying Jesus to a seeking opposition. Judas, synonymous to treason, personifies the abandonment of principles for self-interest to the detriment of the greater good: a sellout.
By Kanu Iheukumere
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin exposed the harsh realities of American slavery. In the original version the protagonist, Uncle Tom, was an honorable slave, unabashed in his beliefs and unyielding in his dignity. He died a martyr, sacrificing his life to save the lives of other slaves. Stowe’s book became a best-selling commentary on Christian love, generating compassion toward the enslaved and guilt among those supporting slavocracy.
As much credit as Stowe’s work received for increasing the volume of those opposed to slavery, the recalcitrance of white Southerners amplified louder, resulting in a narrative neutering of Uncle Tom’s image. American racism’s refusal to cede power to its shackled chattel was reflected in subsequent volumes that changed Uncle Tom from a martyr into a weak, compliant, groveling, “skinnin’ and grinin’ ”accommodationist dope. He became characterized as blindly loyal to his “kindly” masters by unconditionally aligning himself with ideologies and provisions that restricted fair, equal, and unencumbered access for the marginalized group of which he was a part ―――- for personal gain.
Damn the masses.
Uncle Tom 2.0.
Today Uncle Tom obstructionism is a ubiquitous force in minimizing progress momentum for those living at the American intersection of manipulation and oppression. While raising awareness of this nefarious pattern of behavior won’t end oppression or manipulative efforts that worsen it, holding each victim accountable for moving the needle of social progress will.
Humanity requires us to recognize, learn and overcome deceitful strategies and tactics. Policy addresses how and why decisions are determined. Politics is about action and implementation. Good policy requires confronting actors who impede progress of marginalized groups. Justice calls on politics to eliminate its obstacles. Based on fear, cynicism, and doubt, Uncle Tom obstructionism is a combination of policy and politics that sacrifices group advancement for individual, self-absorbed benefit.
This is not a foreign concept to victims of poorly conceived policy or to those who use it to corrupt the marginalized. Uncle Tom obstructionism is a well-known, well-rehearsed, and successfully implemented strategy that continues to destroy future aspirations of oppressed people. Although frequently dismissed with pejorative ambivalence, it has, too many times, been the go to weapon for powers hell bent on minimizing the advancement of the underserved.
To be sure, an Uncle Tom’s mindset is reflective of winner-take-all self-interest, a tenet of rugged capitalism. But in a system that rewards profits for a few, it handicaps a more inclusive, prosperous and long term-sustaining approach for the majority. Uncle Tomism has metastasized into a short term strategy, used to navigate the murky waters of xenophobia, but in long-term actuality, a dead-end approach, that cuts the nose off the marginalized group of which the perpetrator is a member, to spite the face of the group’s respected presence at the table of power. Sadly, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was reflective and prescient:
“There are marginalized people who will never fight for freedom. There are even some who will cooperate with their oppressors. Every marginalized group has its share of opportunists, profiteers, free-loaders and escapists.”
There is rarely a shortage of oppressed people willing to be exploited and “mascotted” to give an “illusion of inclusion” for the benefit of the ruling class to which they claim allegiance. Its presence often masquerades as a smiling collaborator, whose kiss appears to be an act of friendship; a Judas-like impediment to all things just, fair, equal, accessible, and equitable.
For example, contemporary American politics illustrates this tendency.
The Nixon administration’s preference for only talking to Uncle Toms, and creating an impression of inclusion, did not assuage disdain for African Americans seeking a seat at the table of power. According to an April 2, 1970 journal entry of Nixon chief of Staff H.R. ‘’Bob’’ Haldeman’s published diary:
“Nixon broods frequently over problem of how we communicate with young and blacks. It’s really not possible except with Uncle Toms, and we should work on them and forget militants.”
Another example is the appointment of Michael Steele , the Republican National Committee’s chairman in 2009, a role he readily accepted, even though his party’s platform stifles African American advancement.
Today, Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner’s selection of the Reverend James Meeks as chairman of the State Board of Education is a retrospective smack in the face of black communities considering how the administration’s policy agenda eviscerates safetynet programs, destroys the social service economy, increases joblessness, and reduces the quality of public education.
Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson criticized the Obama’s administration’s decision to replace President Andrew Jackson, a former slave-owner, with Harriet Tubman, a former slave and abolitionist, on American currency. In densely urban cities across the country, racial politics always has a dubious presence, when a white candidate, running against an African-American candidate, shrewdly enlists an additional and willing black candidate as a stalking horse to intentionally split the African American vote to ensure victory.
Hardly confined to race.
Uncle Tom obstructionism expands to beliefs, customs, culture, and society’s ‘isms’ ―――― the products of social constructs traditionally used to categorize, savagely exploit and inhumanly isolate for the benefit of a small few to the detriment of the large many: Through a gender lens, women who believe female victims of rape are to be blamed because of their attire or behavior. The offspring of immigrants who stand in strict opposition U.S. immigration policies; Refugees having acquired U.S citizenship opposing the relocation of Syrian refugees to the United States. Through the lens of class, elected officials who grow up poor acquiring positions of influence only to promote policies worsening poverty. Novelist Martin Amis captured this perfectly:
For the well to do, government “impersonates a working class hero.” For the not doing so well, government “impersonates” an underclass “traitor.”
Duplicity 101.
Obstructionists justify their stances by manipulating realities that support their distorted truths by ignoring social and economic contextual backdrops that render such truths immaterial, selfish, and irresponsible to the practical reality of oppression.
For example, FOX News darling and Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke plays the “personal responsibility” card to place blame on marginalized people for their own condition. Clarke’s perversion of the pejorative myth that, “If you work hard enough, you can achieve anything” blatantly ignores the history of race and poverty. If a seed is planted in environmentally contaminated soil (poverty), nourished with poison water (no access), and legally restricted from benefitting from adequate sunlight (opportunity), it is grossly disingenuous and manipulative to crucify that seed, by accusing it of being negligent in its own responsibility to blossom into a beautiful flower of success.
Uncle Tom obstructionists take arrogant pride and crocodile-smiling glee in continuing to fan the flames of distortion to accommodate the interest of a ruling class to whom they claim allegiance.
Communities can be inadvertent co-conspirators in their naiveté about issues affecting them. Their gullibility makes them unknowingly slavish and accommodating to draconian policies and self-serving politicians, who disguise what is worst for their advancement as the best thing since sliced bread. For example, some poor whites, because they’ve been blinded by a fog of white privilege, sold to them by wealthy elites and self-serving politicians, don’t see they’re voting against their interests when they support candidates who endorse policies that contribute to their social and economic hardship.
Conclusion. Uncle Tom obstructionism is a destructive force that works through individuals professing to work on behalf of their community, but are really all about themselves. It impedes access, denies privilege, and compromises the power of the marginalized. Some wear a revolutionary, pro-community veneer, but are Judas Iscariots underneath. Many work in or on behalf of government. Some work in pulpits. Many believe they are only acting in pragmatic self-interest. Uncle Tom obstructionism is cowardice in pragmatism drag. The oppressed, once they’re identified, maintain a watchful and unforgiving eye, knowing that whether inadvertent or intentional, disloyal complicity, timid silence and apathy leads to self-inflicted oppression. King would agree:
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles. Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”