Uncle Tom

Uncle Tom: An Oral History of the American Black Conservative is a 2020 American political documentary film directed by Justin Malone, written by Ryder Ansell, Larry Elder, Justin Malone, with Elder as executive producer, and starring Chad O. Jackson. The documentary features interviews with notable people such as Robert Woodson, Stephen Broden, Jesse Lee Peterson, Herman Cain, Carol M. Swain, Allen West and Candace Owens, as well as archive footage of Ben Carson, Shelby Steele, and Thomas Sowell. Elder, who helped write the film, hoped it would promote conservative views in the 2020 presidential election. Contents The documentary collects interviews with a number of black conservative thinkers in the United States who question how the black population have been treated by the political establishment as well as consequences of the policies introduced specifically by the Democratic Party. The war on poverty legislation launched in the mid-1960s is criticized. Elder asserts that there is a lack of respectful disagreement in the American black community, and contends that conservative black thinkers like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Shelby Steele are unfairly ignored or marginalized. The film title references Uncle Tom, the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which today is used as a derogatory term for black people, as demonstrated in the documentary by how black conservatives experience being called terms like "race traitor," "house negro," sellout, "boot licker," "coon," "Uncle Ruckus," and "Uncle Tom" by political adversaries. Elder says in the film, "An Uncle Tom is someone who sold out and embraced the white man by rejecting the idea that you're a victim".