Uncle Ruckus

Boondocks character
name = Uncle Ruckus
picture =
voiceactor = Gary Anthony Williams
firstepisode = "The Garden Party"

Uncle Ruckus is a fictional self-hating African American white supremacist from the comic strip and animated televisions series "The Boondocks". An overweight, homely man with disproportionate eyes, he enjoys dissociating himself from other African Americans as much as possible, and is outspoken in his support of what Huey calls the "white supremacist power structure." He is voiced by Gary Anthony Williams. In the show, he speaks African American Vernacular English.

Uncle Ruckus's name is a reference to Uncle Remus or Uncle Tom, and oddly he is the darkest-skinned character on the show.

Personality

Uncle Ruckus is somewhat repellent in appearance, behavior, and attitude. He has an intense hatred of everyone and everything pertaining to black people, and often goes far out of his way to free himself from his identity (he claims that God says the path to forgiveness for being black is to rebuke your own race). He champions the small traces of Native American, French, or Irish ancestry he claims to have (if any), and wishes that all black people were still enslaved. He prattles white supremacist rhetoric and calls Michael Jackson (who is believed to suffer from vitiligo) a "lucky bastard", as he no longer looks black. He occasionally claims that he has "re"-vitiligo, to explain his skin color's dark tone. During the Civil Rights Movement, he actually protested against Martin Luther King's marches, and would occasionally throw bricks at him, but usually missed. He also served on a jury in 1957 (making him a minimum of 69yrs-old circa 2008) back in Tennessee that helped convict a blind black man of killing three white girls. In spite of being blind, the African American man supposedly shot the three with a Winchester rifle from about 50 yards away. (If one looks closely in this episode they will notice Ruckus is the only black person on the otherwise all white jury, in what is most assuredly a Jim Crow courtroom.) During his first encounter with the Freemans, he sings "Don't Trust Them New Niggas Over There" at a garden party, though he seems to socialize freely with the Freemans thereafter. In fact, Robert Freeman and Thomas Dubois on occasion are probably the only people on the show who could be considered friendly to Uncle Ruckus.

He adores white society and culture, most likely the reason why he lives in Woodcrest. He claims to like the smell of white people, saying they smell like "lemon juice and Pledge furniture cleaner". Despite Woodcrest's newfound acceptance of people of different ethnicities, the neighborhood apparently has no quarrel with Uncle Ruckus' racist beliefs, and he can be seen employed in a variety of places performing a number of blue-collar jobs. He at one point joined the police force after turning down a 7-figure settlement after wrongfully being shot at 118 times, claiming that the officers "were simply doing their job". (Even after he becomes an officer they still beat him on the pretext that "He has a gun".) As an officer, he promised to make every black man's life as miserable as he possibly could ("The Block is Hot"). At one time, he became an evangelist after dreaming of going to "White Heaven", preaching that black people must hate their blackness and love the white man to receive entrance into heaven ("The Passion of the Ruckus").

Uncle Ruckus has had a vast variety of jobs over the two seasons of the show, and is ubiquitous in nearly every working establishment on the show. In the banned episode "Uncle Ruckus' Reality Show", he claimed to work 32 jobs over the course of the week and wakes at 4:45 a.m every morning for work.

Although nearly 70-years-old and obese, Ruckus is an advanced practitioner of martial arts and has shown himself to be Huey's equal on multiple occasions. He has apparent mastery with the nunchakus and is capable of incredible acrobatics along with his martial skills.

In the series' second season (first heard in "...Or Die Trying"), a sound-alike variation on the tuba piece "Jabba's Theme" (from "Return of the Jedi") is used as a musical theme for Uncle Ruckus, drawing a parallel between the grossly fat and repulsive "Star Wars" character and the similarly repellent Ruckus.

Relationships

Robert Freeman

Robert Freeman is the closest thing to a friend that Uncle Ruckus has, though Robert rebukes Ruckus' racist notions. For example, a friendly match of checkers between them ended sourly after Ruckus made supremacist remarks. Ruckus was supportive of Robert during his training for a rematch with Col Stinkmeaner and was the only one besides Riley who praised him when he won the fight (killing Stinkmeaner) in "Granddad's Fight". Despite all this, Uncle Ruckus claims their friendship is a pretense ("The Trial of R. Kelly") and that he still sees him as a "nigga". Also, in "The Real", Uncle Ruckus was one of the "homeless people" that Robert was "housing", the other being Jazmine.

Huey Freeman

Uncle Ruckus said that he resented Huey ever since he came into Woodcrest during the episode "...Or Die Trying". For Huey's part, he seems to ignore Uncle Ruckus' racist rantings, knowing that debating with the man will do little good. However, when Ruckus challenged him to a martial arts showdown (with the nunchaku he forgot in the theatre bathroom), Huey faced him in hand-to-hand combat. The victor of these fights is unknown. It should be noted that both fights appear to be references to Fist of the North Star.

Dubois Family

Ruckus tolerates the Dubois, mostly due to Sarah's presence. He seems to think that Sarah is with Tom out of pity rather than love, and believes that Sarah taught him how to read ("Tom, Sarah and Usher"). He doesn't think much of Jazmine due to her half-black status, though he calls her a "mulatto", in a pejorative manner and a "little half and half". His kindest reference to her being a "nice little mixed-breed girl". But in a rare moment he managed to single-handedly restore her faith in Christmas and in Santa Claus, effectively ending her crying and cheering her up ("A Huey Freeman Christmas").