This is not much of a diary, but it’s the middle of the night and traffic is slow.
It turns out that Donald Trump had no idea until a couple of years ago what “Uncle Tom” means. This caused embarrassment on the set of Celebrity Apprentice when, as part of the competition, Lil Jon put on an Uncle Sam costume. From Daily Beast:
During the day’s shoot, Trump himself caught wind of this gimmick and began referring to Lil Jon around Apprentice staff as “Uncle Tom” instead of Uncle Sam.
“Look, he’s Uncle Tom!” one longtime Apprentice staffer recalled Trump blurting out at least twice. The staffer said Trump was utterly tone-deaf to the racially charged history of the term, which is used to deride a black man deemed to be subservient to white people.
It didn’t take long for multiple producers on the show to begin frantically attempting—in vain—to get the former real-estate mogul to stop calling Lil Jon an “Uncle Tom.”
Read the whole article for a bonus Arsenio Hall sighting.
Update: Lil Jon confirms and responds:
"When this 'Uncle Tom' incident happened on Celebrity Apprentice in the boardroom several of my cast mates and I addressed Mr. Trump immediately when we heard the comment," Lil Jon wrote. "I can't say if he knew what he was actually saying or not but he did stop using that term once we explained it's offensiveness."