‘Own Your Bigotry’: Tweeters Bash Winkler’s ‘Uncle Thomas’ Comment

Twitter users were quick to lash out at Golden Valley and St. Louis Park Rep. Ryan Winkler for his tweet calling the court’s lone black justice “Uncle Thomas.”

The tweet, which Winkler has since deleted, read:

“VRA majority is four accomplices to race discrimination and one Uncle Thomas. Marriage decision may blur Court’s backsliding.”

He later apologized, tweeting, “I did not understand "Uncle Tom" as a racist term, and there seems to be some debate about it. I do apologize for it, however.” But that didn’t do much to alleviate the anger, which quickly spread across the country.

The Storify widget above contains a sampling of the tweets in response. The widget may not be viewable in some mobile browsers. If that’s the case for you, click here to visit the post on the Storify website.