{"id":28616,"date":"2021-01-28T15:14:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T20:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28616"},"modified":"2021-01-28T15:14:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T20:14:36","slug":"author-gets-to-the-heart-of-truth-for-black-history-month-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/author-gets-to-the-heart-of-truth-for-black-history-month-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Author gets to the heart of truth for Black History Month talk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Toronto\u2019s City Hall stands tall in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With its forecourt, Nathan Phillips Square, a popular gathering place and focal point, few realize the complex and comparatively recent history underfoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Cheryl Thompson does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A professor at Ryerson University, Dr. Cheryl Thompson has become intimately familiar with the history of \u201cThe Ward,\u201d a one-thriving multi-ethnic community that was levelled to make way for the city\u2019s seat of power. During recent excavations of the site, archeologists found numerous telling artefacts, including a souvenir plate made to commemorate Harriet Beecher Stowe\u2019s 1852 novel Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin, prompting Dr. Thompson to delve deeper into a complex topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is bringing her findings \u2013 virtually \u2013 to the Aurora Public Library next Thursday, February 4, to help kick off Black History Month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Thompson\u2019s work on the \u201cUncle Tom\u201d plate found its way into \u201cThe Ward Uncovered,\u201d a collection of stories illustrating the forgotten history in the core of Toronto, but her work wasn\u2019t done. It inspired her forthcoming book \u201cUncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty,\u201d due out this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy would you find an Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin plate? The book was a sensation,\u201d Dr. Thompson explains. \u201cThere were plates, wallpaper, napkins \u2013 Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin was literally put on everything. When I was writing this chapter and having conversations with my editor, he said, \u2018I think you should write a book about this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Thompson was already familiar with the story, knowing that when the name \u201cUncle Tom\u201d was applied today it was applied specifically to Black men and invariably in a negative context. In short, it was a slur, but that didn\u2019t necessarily jive with her reading of the subject matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you read Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin, Uncle Tom in the book is kind of a hero,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s seen as a Christian man, very loyal, and he basically dies a martyr\u2019s death. He\u2019s very adverse to violence of any kind and that is what led to the thesis of my book. Why is it in my lifetime that I have only known this word to be negative and hurled as an insult, yet when we go back to the book he is a hero?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the same time, the way Uncle Tom is used in media culture, people go right back to the 1852 book. I thought, \u2018There have been so many iterations of Uncle Tom since 1852, how come people don\u2019t mention that? I wanted to go on an exploration to literally find every case that I could on how Uncle Tom morphed from the book, to the stage, to advertising, to film, to radio, to television \u2013 and now, in the contemporary, we see that archetype showing up in politics, especially Black conservatives. I wanted to trace all the twists and turns from the novel of today so it would kind of answer the question: Why we shouldn\u2019t we be referring to the novel of the 19th<\/sup> century, because it really has no bearing on the way \u2018Uncle Tom\u2019 is used today?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the reasons Dr. Thompson says it is still invoked is out of \u201ca sense of loyalty,\u201d pointing to \u201cUncle Tom\u201d being levelled at the Kentucky Attorney General\u2019s handling of the murder of Breonna Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy he was called an \u2018Uncle Tom\u2019 is he was seen as not really being sincere to the Black community,\u201d says Dr. Thompson. \u201cInstead, he was kind of doing the work of the \u2018White\u2019 institutions that have historically disenfranchised [Black communities]. Since this moment in 2020 with Black Lives Matter, there has been a lot more of a sense of being on the right side of history and being on the right side of people who have been victimized. This book illuminates the racial conversations that do come up  around this idea of being loyal to your community. Even when you sort of go up the ranks and attain power, there is always this push-pull that you still have a mindset towards your community and do things the community would agree with and not do things only to service White institutions or people in positions of power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, she says it is important that people understand the power of stereotypes and hopes her book will help achieve that goal. Stereotypes have been with us for centuries, but sometimes we don\u2019t recognize them because they change over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always think of the \u2018Fresh Prince of Bel-Air\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a sitcom, but it was actually kind of the truth: either you\u2019re this squeaky-clean Carlton who is out of pace and kind of a nerd, or you\u2019re Will who was supposed to be \u2018from the streets.\u2019 Just make that connection between where these things come from and what it means that you\u2019re complicit in consuming them, but not really asking questions about what it is you\u2019re consuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want to understand why a lot of people don\u2019t like [U.S. Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas, or why a lot of Black people don\u2019t like, say, another Black male you really like and can\u2019t understand why the community doesn\u2019t like them, this is the book that is going to explain why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Cheryl Thompson, author of \u201cUncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty\u201d and \u201cBeauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada\u2019s Black Beauty Culture\u201d will be hosted virtually by the Aurora Public Library on Thursday, February 4, at 7 p.m. over Zoom. To register, visit bit.ly\/3k9schY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto\u2019s City Hall stands tall in the heart of the city. With its forecourt, Nathan Phillips Square, a popular gathering place and focal point, few realize the complex and comparatively recent history underfoot. Dr. Cheryl Thompson does. A professor at Ryerson University, Dr. Cheryl Thompson has become intimately familiar with the history of \u201cThe Ward,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/2021-01-28-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7ry","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 01:20:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}