Please, before reporting this post for racism, familiarize yourself with the history of the phrase “Uncle Tom.” The phrase has been used by the Black community against itself, recently in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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For the people who don't understand the tweet:
Denying Palestinians a communal identity has always been a key approach to dehumanization within Western discourse.
The Western world has historically tied itself into knots justifying horrific atrocities like the Atlantic slave trade while trying to present itself as a champion of personal freedoms.
Indeed. And also he is putting a few people who have a relative guarding the concentration camp on the same level of suffering as the people in the concentration camp undergoing a Holocaust. This is not a both sides moment.
Holy shit, something is broken in people's brains. He said "Israeli families and the people of Gaza" he's giving a message about peace and you're nitpicking it because you want to find a reason to hate people.
If anything he's excluding people in Israel because he didn't say "people of Israel" and only expressing sympathy for the families of the victims of Hamas. Also if he were to say "Palestinian people" that would be implying that this ceasefire plan is also dealing with problems in the West Bank, which it is not.
Obama is correct, this is a ceasefire for the families of the victims of Hamas and for the people of Gaza, but not for all Israelis or all Palestinians. There's still a lot more work to do. But go ahead and write your petty and hateful comments and pretend you're helping Palestinians when you're not helping anyone.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
It's weird how many major news briefs use the same language though, isn't it? I'm not sure where they're getting it, but NPR uses exactly the same lingo.
"Uncle Tom" means something very specific, not "black man I dislike/disagree with". Using it like that is just racist.
“Uncle Tom” means something very specific
I've never heard that phrase before (also not American, so probably never would have).
I'm guessing it's some sort of reference for a slave collaboration with slavery owners?
Nailed it in one. It's a term derived from the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, which features a black slave of the same name. The character is widely criticized for diminishing the harm and threat of slavery to black people. In short, an "Uncle Tom" is a black person that takes the side of the oppressors against their own people, usually for little-to-no reward other than being "one of the good ones." To use the epithet so liberally just because the person is black is not ok.
It’s honestly insane to me that Uncle Tom came to mean this, when in the novel the character literally refuses to inform against escaped slaves and is flogged to death for it. A quite unfortunate collapse of an extremely complex character in one of the most important novels in the history of abolitionism.
It’s always wild when characters in the public perception are very different to in the source material.
Jeckyll & Hyde is another example. Jeckyll is a doctor who drinks a potion which changes his personality into a ruffian. Except he’s not, at least in the original short story.
Jeckyll is always in control and aware of what he’s doing. All the potion does is change his appearance so that he can do the bad things that he’s been doing since he was young without losing his social standing.
The whole point of the story is that his personality doesn’t change at all and that he’s just donning a disguise (albeit a sci-fi disguise) so that he can get away with it without losing his day job.
Yet in every adaptation is basically treated as a werewolf story.
It's definitely been Flanderized pretty drastically over time, but honestly, I can see where it stemmed from, with his "happy" times with the "good" master. While I don't expect Stowe intended it as such, anything but a full bore condemnation of slavery, top to bottom, is understandably seen (at least by modern eyes) as being soft on it, if not outright apologetic. And the character's inclusion in minstrel shows and the general popularity with white people probably didn't help it any on that front.
Oh no – I caught myself in the nick of time. I was about to criticize slavery :(:(:(. Thanks for reminding me to have a more nuanced opinion
What?
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Pretty much. The moment I saw Uncle Tom in the title...
Yeah that caught me way off guard.
He may be too middle of the road but to call him a race traitor like that is absolutely wild.
Like this is a headline I expect to see from a hardcore rightwing publication.
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Obama's just jealous that he isn't ordering the drone strikes on brown families anymore
Here is what Obama wrote:
After two years of unimaginable loss and suffering for Israeli families and the people of Gaza, we should all be encouraged and relieved that an end to the conflict is within sight; that those hostages still being held will be reunited with their families; and that vital aid can start reaching those inside Gaza whose lives have been shattered. More than that, though, it now falls on Israelis and Palestinians, with the support of the U.S. and the entire world community, to begin the hard task of rebuilding Gaza — and to commit to a process that, by recognizing the common humanity and basic rights of both peoples, can achieve a lasting peace.
He's doing the same as for example the BBC does when they say that Israelis are "killed" and Palestinians "die", that the IDF "says" whilst Hamas "claims" and mention the 7 October "massacre" whilst the mass bombing of Gaza is an "intervention" or at most "invasion".
In simple terms: subtly framing one side more positively than the other in order to subconsciously elicit a more positive response in the minds of the audience for one side, all the while claiming neutrality because the message seems neutral, it's the choice of words which is not.
This is an old trick from Propaganda.
So the OP rightly points that specific kind of Propaganda Spin in Obama's words.
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Obama's take really does smack of bothsides-itis, and is a very clearly diplomatic approach to what was undeniably a one sided massacre. Ms Rachel is not wrong here.
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I think he meant just the Israeli families of the hostages suffered, not all of Israel, while all people of Gaza suffered.
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