Uncle Ruckus On Black Women

Comment: I read on Wikipedia that the name Uncle Ruckus "is an amalgam of Uncle Tom and Amos Rucker, the latter being an African-American United Confederate Veterans member, who allegedly wanted to stay a slave after the Civil War."

Don't know how true this is but it is quite clever nonetheless.

I was thinking that the Uncle Ruckus character crudely exemplifies W.E.B. DuBois' theory of "double-consciousness". Dubois wrote in his book "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903) that the Negro lives in:

"... a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."  (See Chapter One entitled "Of Our Spiritual Strivings")

I am a big fan of the Uncle Ruckus character and would like to see more of him on The Boondocks, perhaps even a spin-off ;)

Uncle Ruckus' thoughts above reminded me of a graduate school moment in 1997 when a particularly opinionated African American fellow student showed up at an after-class get together with his very attractive white wife who was a lawyer.

The professor, a brilliant and leading African American scholar in Black Studies, turned to me and said sarcastically,"She must really hate her parents."

Professor Uncle Ruckus?  Not really.  He was playing with what is testy terrain.  Still.

Onward!