How Erasing Blackface Erased Black Culture: The Uncle Tom Effect

Target pulled a kids’ Halloween costume after people said it looked like blackface. Malcolm and Simone use that controversy as a jumping-off point for a much larger argument: that systematically scrubbing minstrel shows, cakewalks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Song of the South, Splash Mountain, Aunt Jemima, and similar “tainted” material didn’t just remove racism — it severed Black Americans from large parts of their own cultural history and from the credit for innovations that built American popular music, comedy, and theater.

They walk through:

* What Uncle Tom actually does in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel vs. what “Uncl...