What do you mean??? This isn't a straw man at all! It's the very obvious consequence of your argument!
What do you think happened to slaves if they were too “uppity,” or if their acceptance of the institution of slavery was too “grudging”? What do you think happened if they let their “reluctance” to serve their “masters” show, or if they ran away and got caught? Their lives and their children were in constant danger unless they toed the line. Even that speech by George you quoted earlier acknowledges this. So yes, their subservience was, amongst other things, a means of keeping themselves and their children safe.
And after a few generations, this acceptance will become normalised to some degree. This happens even in very short periods of time in the case of Stockholm syndrome, for example. So yes, portraying a slave as a man who didn't want to "betray" his kindly "master" is perfectly reasonable. I'm not romanticising it. There's nothing to romanticise about slavery. But the realities of slavery also shouldn't be glossed over. Some slaves didn't want to leave their "masters" even after emancipation.
And to be clear, this isn't unique to the Atlantic slave trade. Look at any community of slaves throughout history, white, Asian, Native American, you name it, and the behaviour, in general, is the same. This is a human survival issue, not a racial one.
Again, the fact that you seem to look down on him for this is a cause for celebration. Because it shows that you can't even conceive of the realities of the oppression slaves experienced. But you should also, as the kids like to say, "check your privilege."
The normalisation of messed-up, unjust societal norms is absolutely everywhere. Not least in today's world. You accept lots of elements of the "status quo" that if you lived elsewhere, or in a different time, or occupied a different socioeconomic strata, you'd find abhorrent. And which you probably recognise as unjust even as yourself, but do nothing about.
But again, the fundamental point I’m making, is that when a white man could be described as a "faithful servant," when he is "quiet and obliging," when he evinces "uncomplaining patience," nobody, absolutely nobody, feels the need to call him an Uncle Tom. We might use any number of words for him: sycophant, weakling, coward, bootlicker, whatever. But we never feel the need to add his skin colour to those failings. Or, for that matter, trivialise the horrors of slavery.
Uncle Tom is a racialised term, weaponised pretty much exclusively against black people, for which there is no white or Asian or Hispanic equivalent (nor should there be). If you're okay with that kind of racism against black people, even black people you disagree with, then go off, I guess. But I'm not.
