Uncle Rube on the Race Problem
Clara Ann Thompson's poem, Uncle Rube on the Race Problem, uses examples of what Houston Baker calls "mastery of form" and "deformation of mastery" as a rhetorical strategy to commission the reader to see Rube's strong racial standpoint and beliefs. The poem starts "in medias res," right after Uncle Rube is asked how he would solve the race problem. The dialect poem then follows with a lengthy argument on racial questions asked by a group of whites to Rube, the first person narrator. Thompson uses Rube to manipulate the stereotypes whites had of blacks, and as a way to counter the oppression of her race via the minstrel mask or trope. These strategies are most prominently illustrated in Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery and W.E.B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk.Webster's dictionary defines the word rube as an "unsophisticated country person, and not very intellectual" (Guralnik 648). Thompson lets the reader know the character of Uncle Rube by his name and his diction. In the first two stanzas, the reader is told about slave times where "de white man wus de lo'd," (Thompson 322) and the abuse the slaves beheld by their masters. A couple lines later, Uncle Rube says the way to solve the Negro problem is "to let the bla
Thompson uses this strategy to address many racial issues and questions of the time. By using the trope "deformation of mastery," Thompson aggressively answers questions that the white man (or race) asks. Rube points out "Don't you know, you whites is pickin' on de blacks, continu'ly" (323)? And to prove it, one just needs to read the morning paper to read about the downcast portrayal of the black man. Also, that when a black man is successful, the whites will "go crazy, try'n' to keep him in de dawk" (323). Thompson uses this as both commentary and advice. She encodes it as a warning to blacks to watch themselves and be cautious of whites, and as a criticism of the actions of whites at that time. She also makes a point that not all whites are racists, there are exceptions, although few. Again, Rube says that they do not need help, that blacks just need to be left alone. The greatest help is to "treat him like a man" (324). Thompson then comments on the stereotypes of blacks: "his meanness, the many things he lack, and not progressing [even though the whites are trying to hold them back]" (324). The minstrel mask Rube then explains if the whites would just play fair, the race problem would go away. He then says the whites answered the race problem after the Civil War, but their lack of reason is holding them back from finding an answer to the current situation. Thompson recognizes there are two sides of the race problem, the white side and the black side. The whites think th
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Approximate Word count = 1011
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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