Georgia Lawmaker Calls Clarence Thomas ‘Uncle Tom’ — After Admitting He Doesn’t Know Who Uncle Tom Is

 Georgia State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) admitted that he wasn’t sure whether “Uncle Tom” was a real person or a fictional character when he used the label to attack sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday.

Jones took to the State Senate floor to argue against a Republican-led proposal to place a statue of Thomas – a Georgia native — on the grounds of the state Capitol, and he compared Thomas to a slave who had “sold his soul” to his white master.

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“We cannot avoid that conversation so I’m not going to avoid it either,” Jones said of the discussion surrounding the statue.

“In the black community we have an expression — and I don’t want to use this label too deeply here because I’m just trying to tell you what we have in the African American community when we talk about a person of color that goes back historically to the days of slavery and that person betraying his own community — we have a term in the black community,” Jones began.

“That term that we use is called ‘Uncle Tom,'” he continued, adding, “And ‘Uncle Tom’ is a — either fictional or a non-fictional character, I don’t really know the origin of ‘Uncle Tom’ — but it talks about a person who, back during the days of slavery, sold his soul to the slave masters,” Jones continued.

The only explanation Jones gave — after first suggesting that white people would not necessarily understand his concerns — for accusing Thomas of such betrayal was a vague reference to his position on certain LGBTQ+ issues and the assertion that his decisions had outraged women.

“I don’t expect people of non-color to get the sensitivity that we feel about a person of color whose policies and practices and decisions and votes … we’ve rallied [to] fight against,” he said, adding, “Justice Thomas’ decisions have certainly sparked outrage [among] women and not just women of color, but all women. And certainly, when we look at the LGBTQ+ community, his votes and positions he’s taken have raised outrage in that community as well.”

The measure passed along party lines — 32-20 — and will be sent to the Georgia State House for consideration.