By Kehinde Andrews
“The slavemaster took Tom and dressed him well, and fed him well, and even gave him a little education — a little education; gave him a long coat and a top hat and made all the other slaves look up to him. Then he used Tom to control them. The same strategy that was used in those days is used today. He takes a Negro, a so-called Negro, and makes him prominent, builds him up, publicizes him, makes him a celebrity. And then he becomes a spokesman for Negroes”
Message to the Grassroots; Malcolm X (1963)
Trevor Phillip’s TV show ‘Things we won’t say about race that are true’ and accompanying feature in the Daily Mail are some of the most offensive and simplistically inaccurate pieces on racism and ethnicity that have graced British media for a long time. To understand how they came to be produced with Phillips as the spokesperson, we need to dust off a controversial and often misused idea, which is going to make some of you reading this uncomfortable. In the spirit of saying those things that just need to be said, let’s make it plain from the start, the show only exists because Trevor Phillips embodies the modern day Uncle Tom. This is not an accusation to be irresponsibly thrown out, but if there was doubt in regards to Phillips before it has been cleared away now. Malcolm X reserves the label Uncle Tom only for those Black people who are used as puppets by the system, installed in positions in order to hold back progress for the majority and be the Black spokespeople for regressive ideals. This TV show is the perfect example of Tomming, as Phillips is used as a vehicle to peddle simplistic, jingoist and racist nonsense that only a Black person could get away with. The fact that this programme comes just weeks before a general election in which racism is casting a long shadow just heightens the problems with it. At a time when we need a critical discussion about race and racism, we are presented with the opposite, legitimised by by Black face of Uncle Tom.
Subscribe to continue reading
Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.