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If you've read the book, you know that ol' Tom's great evil was -- gasp -- FORGIVENESS! Yeah, that's right, Uncle Tom gets the bad rap because he had the unfettered timerity to forgive his opressor and refuse to let anyone speak evil against him.

I recognize the book's greatness as a historical item, but don't care for it much. And frankly, you're misreading it--sure, he forgave--but SHOULD he have?

Don't know about you, but I'm not about to refuse to let anyone speak evil against Al Qaeda.

The point is that people like Tom pay attention to the little niceties and their oppressors take advantage of that.

I prefer the fighters.

Tom's forgiveness, far from being a show of weakness, is an expression of powerful moral fiber that firmly establishes him on a moral plane far above his oppressor, defines him as a man of more noble character, and proves that, although his body was broken, his moral principles remained unscathed and uncompromised. He would not compromise his moral character to slander his oppressor, to wish evil upon him, nor to permit another to do so. He thus died outwardly vanquished, but inwardly -- where God sees -- utterly victorious. For his goal was not to die a glorious death in the eyes of men, but to live a life worthy of the blood which had bought his salvation. THAT is what counts.

One may know the true measure of a man by observing the measure of that which brings him to anger.

, he forgave--but SHOULD he have?
Don't know about you, but I'm not about to refuse to let anyone speak evil against Al Qaeda.
The point is that people like Tom pay attention to the little niceties and their oppressors take advantage of that.

I prefer the fighters.

Well, it's interesting. What you are describing is a "type" of Christ, a saint who accepts suffering.
What actually delegitimated slavery was a change in Christianity itself. Slavery existed before Christianity, and Christianity coexisted with slavery for about seventeen centuries. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Christians - and no one else, not pagans, not wiccans, not Hindus, not Buddhists, certainly not Muslims - rejected not only the enslavement of themselves and their relatives but slavery as a legitimate institution. Britain spent large sums of money to maintain a squadron of naval vessels off the west coast of Africa, for no gain other than the moral satisfaction of suppressing the slave trade.
So the bottom line is that if you are a slave somewhere and you are hoping for deliverance, you hope either for the appearance of a rich relative to redeem you or Christians with rifles. And the example of the Civil War illustrates that that applies even if the people who are enslaving you are themselves Christians with rifles!
So Christianity is the only reason slavery is not a legitimate institution in the world today, and Uncle Tom is a (fictional) Christian saint. Does that about sum up the situation?