Ralph Nader Calls Obama Uncle Tom after Historic Win

Poor stupid, irrelevant Ralph Nader. He just can't stop himself from exposing his ugly racist insides. One slip-up or foot-in-mouth episode might be forgiveable. But this is the second time in this year that Nader has gone on the national media and made very obvious racist statements about Obama. Back in June, Nader said that Obama was "acting white" apparently for not running around asking how he could help the poor whites of Appalachia. Now following a historic occasion when Obama became the first African-American to win the Presidency of the U.S., Nader wondered on Fox News whether Obama would be an Uncle Sam or an Uncle Tom. Here's a news flash, when even Fox News talking heads shake their head at you then you've done a really bad thing. But Ralph didn't take the chance to correct himself. He persisted in his foolishness.

Tom Molloy of TV Guide sets the scene best for us:

Dubious congratulations are in order: Ralph Nader became the first public figure to make an inflammatory public remark about our first African-American president, telling a Fox News affiliate that Barack Obama has to choose between being “Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

Grilled by Fox’s Shepard Smith early Wednesday morning, after the election was decided, Nader declined to back down from the remark, which he made in an earlier interview on Election Day.

“Really,” Smith said after playing a clip of Nader’s remarks. “Ralph Nader, what was that?”

Nader continued to press his point - Obama is too beholden to corporate interests - without acknowledging that many find the term Uncle Tom offensive. (Taken from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1852 anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the term is used to accuse a black person of behaving subserviently.)

Smith soon cut Nader off: “You had a number of supporters out there, you were running a percentage, this year you were reduced to irrelevant and I just wonder if that’s what you want your legacy to be: the man who on the night that the first African-American president in the history of this nation was elected, you ask if he’s going to be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom. Stunning.”

Nader’s answer: “Yeah, of course, he’s turned his back on a 100 million poor people in this country, African-Americans and Latinos and poor whites. And we’re gonna hold him to a higher standard.”

Later in the interview, Nader told Smith: “Look, I don’t like bullies like you. I can’t see you. You can pull the plug on me, I’m looking in a dark camera.”

Nader later used the word “toady” the same way he had previously used the phrase “Uncle Tom,” but said he had no regrets about the latter phrase.

Nader, a consumer advocate, has run in every election since 1996 but had a significant impact only in the 2000 race, in which many Democrats blame him for siphoning off enough votes from Al Gore in Florida to allow George Bush to win the election.

Shame on you, and [you can] go to hell, Ralph. You were once an internationally respected advocate for consumer rights and a trumpet against the excesses of corporate greed and big business manipulation of government. Since 2000, when you helped usher in the wretched Bush II era by drawing away Florida voters from Al Gore, though you haven't really been relevant in national elections. Even Democrats don't care enough to talk about you any more--especially not after earning a whopping 1% of the 2008 national vote (513,000 out of 133 million votes cast).

Ralph Nader: Barack Obama wants to 'talk white', 6/25/08


Ralph Nader calls Obama an "Uncle Tom" on Fox News, 11/5/08