VTDigger was wrong to publish Jeff Danziger’s editorial cartoon dated Aug. 26, 2020, captioned “Uncle Tim’s Cabin.” Calling an African American (in this case, Sen. Tim Scott, R-N.C., as explicitly named in the cartoon) an “Uncle Tom” is a white journalist’s attempt to designate a Black elected official a “race traitor.” This has no place in our public discourse.
Among many others recognizing the term as a slur, the widely published writer and Bennington College faculty member Clifford Thompson eloquently expressed the impropriety of this usage in a 2018 Washington Post column titled “Dear white people: Stop using the term ‘Uncle Tom.'”
Just last week, an Emmy-nominated television journalist in Connecticut issued a public apology and lost his job for calling Sen. Scott (it seems he is a favorite) an “Uncle Tom.”
Troubling as this particular instance is, Wikipedia’s entry on Mr. Danziger highlights only two “controversial” cartoons; the subject of each of them was an ethnic minority to whom Danziger attributed the basest of racial stereotypes.
VTDigger’s editors would do well to retract this cartoon and to encourage a more civil dialogue by taking care to examine more carefully the assumptions of all the content it chooses to publish.
Seth Michael Hopkins
Brandon
