The phrase "Uncle Tom" has become an epithet for a person who is slavish and excessively subservient to perceived authority figures, particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people; or any person perceived to be a participant in the oppression of their own group. The negative epithet is the result of later works derived from the original novel.
Note: This was an easy post to because all I had to was copy the definition of "Uncle Tom" from Wikipedia. I did not however use bold type and could not remove it. I did italicize the section that I felt was most significant.
