Vision Circle

Player calls journalist a Tom...sparks fly

Thanks again to Dr. Robert Brown.

ABOUT 1,800 miles from here, a black baseball player called a black reporter an Uncle Tom, invoking the deepest culture cut one African-American can inflict on another.

Milton Bradley, the Dodgers' right fielder, called the veteran baseball reporter Jason Reid of The Los Angeles Times an Uncle Tom in front of his peers Wednesday. Reid had asked Bradley about being booed by St. Louis fans, and Bradley took offense to the question.

The slight was so deep and personal that Reid had to be restrained.

More here.

Now let's be clear. I don't think I'm saying anything controversial here when I say that Toms exist. People don't always apply the term accurately, but it operates as a convenient informational shortcut that I think is right most of the time. With that said, I don't know whether homeboy in question is a Tom. But I do know that one problem with the article is that it conflates race and class. It is naturally assumed here that black means not just black, but black and working class/poor. Which leaves a number of brothers and sisters who don't know jack about poverty in the lurch.