Epithet
The term "Uncle Tom" is used as a derogatory epithet for an excessively subservient person, particularly when that person perceives their own lower-class status based on race. It is similarly used to negatively describe a person who betrays their own group by participating in its oppression, whether or not they do so willingly.
The popular negative connotation of "Uncle Tom" has largely been attributed to numerous derivative works inspired by Uncle Tom's Cabin in the decade after its release, rather than the original novel itself, whose title character is a more positive figure. These works lampooned and distorted the portrayal of Uncle Tom with politically loaded overtones.
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Famous quotes containing the word epithet:
“I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him is to find my own, though it were only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The truth is, that common-sense, or thought as it first emerges above the level of the narrowly practical, is deeply imbued with that bad logical quality to which the epithet metaphysical is commonly applied; and nothing can clear it up but a severe course of logic.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)