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Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a la Shmoop. You’d be shocked if you heard that Mr. Rogers

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hated children…

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…or that Robert Downey Jr’s favorite superhero was Batman.

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What if you heard that Uncle Tom’s Cabin… was racist?

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This book is credited with firing people up to rally against slavery.

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When Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the book’s author…

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…he even said to her… So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started

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this great war?

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In that case… how the heck can Uncle Tom’s Cabin be considered… racist?

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Well, for one thing, its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, relies on racial stereotypes to get

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her point across.

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The book reinforces the stereotypes of Uncle Tom, the Mammy and the pickaninny…

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…black characters who are subservient to whites and implicit in their own unfair treatment.

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She could have shown a bunch of spunky, hard-headed blacks who were determined to change the status

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quo…

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…but she instead decided to point out the problems that existed by demonstrating how

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accepting everyone was of their place in the world.

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Her handling of the situation riled everyone up, and increased tensions between the North

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and the South. In the book, Uncle Tom is loyal to his white

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masters, even at the expense of his own freedom.

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And his wife, Aunt Chloe, is the typical jolly, overweight woman in the kitchen.

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Basically, they’re the offensive caricatures you still see around the kitchen table today…

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…or in a Tracy Jordan parody on Thirty Rock.

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Then there’s the fact that Stowe explicitly states that she believes the Anglo-Saxon and

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African races have different characters and different destinies.

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She’s basically calling out each of the races and saying they’re… different. Isn’t

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that the very definition of racism?

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Finally, there's the question of perspective.

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Just because Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped end slavery and had progressive… well, progressive-ish…

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views for the day…

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…it doesn't mean it's not racist…. to us.

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We have a very different angle on things looking backward on history.

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We’ve learned a lot in the last couple hundred years…

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…well, some of us have, anyway…

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…and our ideas of political correctness and human equality have changed substantially.

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So what do you think?

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Is Uncle Tom’s Cabin racist because of its stereotypical portrayal of black characters?

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Or because Harriet Beecher Stowe believes that Anglo-Saxons and Africans have different

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destinies?

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Or can we say fuggedaboutit to Stowe's times and dub it racist by our own standards?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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