Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 28, 2012, at 1:12 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > Tarantino’s film features “the biggest, nastiest ‘Uncle Tom’ ever”—played by > Samuel Jackson—who is insanely loyal to his evil white master, and savage in > his treatment of fellow slaves. In Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Tom is a slave who resists beating other slaves on orders from his master. As a result, two other slaves pummel Tom to death. I read once that Uncle Tom's Cabin was neck and neck with bible sales at one time. I don't know but I guess that the transformation of the literary character into his opposite has something to do with Americans' inability to deal with their "successful" culture based on deep seated racism. An analog to this kind of cultural/social/political reversal is the modern assumption of personhood belonging to a paper entity, viz., corporations. The Supreme Court decision in Southern Pacific v. Santa Clara County did not address the issue of personhood at all, except in a judge's comment that (paraphrasing) "it's a good thing this was a simple case or we would have had to address the personhood of corporations." That comment somehow became the law of the land. I don't know but I guess the reversal is due to the American people's deep seated arrogance, also racist at its root, that pops up as Manifest Destiny, property rights, "yas boss"-ism, and the belief that successful corporatism is the hallmark of the American Dream. And like the Uncle Tom metamorphosis, the corporate personhood reversal is incorrect, too. I think the making of Uncle Tom into a nasty critter instead of a hero with human and humane integrity is one of the worst symptoms of racism still flourishing in the otherwise kind hearts of progressives. Dan Scanlan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
