Rep. Winkler Explains Uncle Thomas Comment

Ryan Winkler, a Minnesota State Representative, has come under fire for using the term “Uncle Thomas” to refer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who voted in the majority on a decision to limit the federal government’s authority to control state and local voting laws. Rep. Winkler was shocked by Justice Thomas’ vote, since Justice Thomas is black and yet he voted like a white person. 

On Tuesday, June 25, Winkler apologized for his choice of words saying, “I didn’t intend for the term to be derogatory. It was my understanding that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was about keeping a tidy home, it was written by a woman after all.” It should be obvious to everyone that Winkler wasn’t trying to be offensive; he was just trying to figure out how Clarence Thomas, who appears black, could possibly ignore his instinctual urge to support expanding the federal government. While mitochondrial evidence suggests that all black people are predisposed to supporting a larger federal government, there is some interesting new data that suggests a small percentage, no more than 1-in-10,000, of the black population is born without the responsible gene. Winkler admitted his ignorance to this data saying “I had no idea that some black people were born with the ability to decide their political leanings through careful thought and consideration of the issues at hand. I was sure that was something that was only possible for more evolved races to do.” 

The entire experience has given Winkler the public opportunity to question whether our decades-old belief that all black people are Democrats and all Republicans are old racist white people and Mexicans, might need to be rethought. “Scientists discover new things every day. I recently read in the American Journal of Phrenology that the female locus of comparative sagacity is actually larger than previously believed. It’s possible that many things we have taken for fact might need to be reexamined.”  While Winkler was willing to admit his error in assuming Justice Thomas was not one of those 1-in-10,000 black people, he was confident that the majority of black people still supported expanding the role of the federal government, “With a larger federal government, local elections are less important and each individual has less direct control over the laws he lives by. Culturally, black people prefer to have as little decision making responsibility as possible; that’s why they enjoyed slavery so much.”