Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks; Silence is not Golden When Addressing Damaging Stereotypes

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by Dee Dee Bass Wilbon and Deana Bass Williams

Racist caricatures should be roundly condemned from the left and right.

For those who follow us, you know our mantra is #AttackPolicyNotPeople. That has never been a slogan of convenience. It has been a standard we have applied consistently, even when it would have been easier or more profitable to do otherwise. We are not in the business of cataloging every ad hominem insult the president makes because our time is better spent highlighting policies that, more often than not, align with our worldview.

That said, the recent post depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama warrants clear, public and unapologetic condemnation.

Over the last day, it has become clear that the post, whether shared by the president or a staffer, was a screen capture related to voter fraud that unintentionally included the opening frames of a second video. That second video depicted the Obamas and other Democrats as animals in a parody of The Lion King.

We were encouraged to see Sen. Tim Scott publicly condemn the post. It is very likely that condemnation from someone as prominent in the party as Scott helped prompt Donald J. Trump, the most powerful man in the world, to do something he rarely does: acknowledge that something was wrong. We hope other Black leaders in the party who have the president’s ear shared their concerns.

We are speaking out about this video for three clear reasons.

First and most importantly, as followers of Christ, we must be willing to love as Christ loved. The history of Christians remaining silent while Black Americans were demonized through images is long and painful. In Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Donald Bogle documents how negative stereotypes in film systematically dehumanized Black people. These images persisted and were normalized in part because the Body of Christ remained silent.

Second, silence now would make us hypocrites. We speak publicly because we frequently challenge the selective outrage of the political left. We would be guilty of the same sin if we failed to speak while condemning Democrats for their silence when Dr. Condoleezza Rice, one of the most accomplished women in American public service, was depicted as a mammy. Black liberals were not merely silent when Justice Clarence Thomas was portrayed as a lawn jockey and a bootlicker. In many cases, they were the architects. “I’s simple Sambo and I’m running for the big house” accompanied a photoshopped image of Michael Steele during his campaign for lieutenant governor of Maryland. As far as racist imagery goes, former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam had reportedly dressed in blackface so often that when asked which figure he was in a medical school yearbook photo showing a Klan member and a Blackface caricature, he claimed he did not know.

Third, we speak out because we do not want Republicans to get their clocks cleaned in the midterms. Despite addressing substantive issues that previous administrations often talked about but failed to meaningfully tackle, including border security, inflation and energy independence, the president was forced to spend valuable time answering questions about this video. During a 17-minute press gaggle aboard Air Force One, more than six minutes were devoted to questions about the post.  Unforced errors like this distract from policy wins, energize opponents and hand the media a narrative they are eager to run with. 

We continue to believe that the best strategy is to attack policy, not people.