It's not racist. But it's very out of touch.

All the characters treat each other in respect to how they behave. The only exception is really the Favers brothers, who pick on Johnny and Ginny just for the sake of it. But everyone treats each other in reaction to their actions, not their race. In fact, race is largely ignored in this story. For a story that's meant to foster reconciliation between black and white people, this is a good idea. For a story that's set in the American slave south *during slavery*, this is a VERY bad idea. It damages the worldbuilding significantly to have slaves be friends with their masters. To a child, or perhaps simply to someone entirely ignorant to the history, it may come off as simply the people in the same community getting along despite their differences in class. But when you're aware that these people are slaves and slavers, it undermines a significant amount of their positive interactions. Why would Toby want to be friends with Johnny, when Toby has to wake up earlier, get dressed, get to work doing chores that Johnny can do, all while Johnny is still in bed in his PJs? There would be a natural discontempt and jealousy with the pampered state of the child. But they act like this massive difference doesn't exist. Similarly, Johnny enjoys Uncle Remus's stories and considers him his friend. He'd rather be in Remus's shack than the large, well-furnished home he's staying in. Which would be an interesting detail, but the story treats their difference in living conditions as if it doesn't exist. The characters would surely react to these differences, there could be some sort of drama about it. But this movie is set on the story it's trying to tell. Rather than taking the natural discontempt these groups would have with each other for their differences and taking that as a challenge, the writers decided to act as though those differences meant nothing. As a movie in a historical situation, this is ignorant of the historical context it's portraying. I do not blame people for describing it as romanticized or idealistic. It's an erasure of the struggles that these people went through as slaves. If they wanted to have this dynamic between the characters they ought to have set it in a different period.

But there are no racist portrayals of black people. In fact, there are no racist characters in-world either.

As mentioned earlier, the Favers brothers, as bullies, seem to have a natural bigotry against anything and anyone they can pick on. But they don't mistreat any black people for being black. In fact I think they only interact briefly with Toby a few times when him and Johnny stop one of their dogs from escaping through the fence, and with Uncle Remus when they're trying to get Johnny's dog back. They don't direct anything negative toward them; they only pick on Johnny and Ginny. Because they're bullies. I would think the intrinsic bigotry of bullies would realistically extend to black people as well but as I say, I think the writers explicitly didn't want a single mention of race in this film.

I've heard some say that Sally is racist due to the scenes where she asks Uncle Remus to stop telling his stories or interacting with Johnny. I think her motivation is pretty clear; she thinks the stories could cause him to behave outside of how she's been trying to teach him. I don't think she has reason to believe this, so it's a bit of a plothole I suppose. But her issue is with the stories, not with who's telling them. It's about a lack of trust in the material. I'd probably fix this by getting Grandmother to convince Sally to have Remus tell the stories with Sally present, to make sure she's there for parental guidance. And then she can realize they're not a problem. Actually my proposed fix would be quite focused on adapting the story to focus on Johnny and perhaps his family trying to fit into this world he doesn't understand, and trying to become friends with Toby despite their differences. That, if executed properly, could be a much more effective story about reconciliation between the races; treating people as equals.

(paragraph added 2023-12-11)
It's bad for the story for many reasons to treat all characters as equal when they are objectively not in equal standing; some of these characters are enslaved to the others, creating a significant thematic dissonance. But it's very important to remember that this film came out over a decade *before* the civil rights movement. And yet it's quite respectful to black people. In many racist cartoons and other media from this period, you'll see exaggerated, ugly appearances of black people. They're portrayed as uneducated, stupid, sluggish, selfish, and generally no good. In contrast, Remus is a kind, insightful old man, with wonderful stories that provide enriching ideas to children. His vocabulary is fairly advanced and his wordplay is quite clever. He speaks in an accent that is indicative of where he came from, but he doesn't come off as exaggeratedly uneducated, far from it. All the other black characters, unless I missed something, are similarly portrayed in an inoffensive, respectful manner.

The Uncle Remus stories themselves are just Disney's imagining of the original stories. Their voiced by black people, in fact the actor for Remus himself voices Br'er Fox. Make no mistake: these stories are historically significant Black Culture. To erase them is an injustice and incredibly disrespectful. The closing of Splash Mountain in Magic Kingdom and Disneyland is a disgrace. Those rides were a physical portrayal of Black Folklore as imagined by Disney. This portrayal was, at every level that I have researched, 100% respectful. It's completely removed from the film itself and its issues in being unsympathetic or ignoring the struggles of the slaves it portrays. It's a stylistic portrayal of Uncle Remus's stories in and of themselves. It is not and will never be racist; those stories were created by black people. I'm sick of people being so race-obsessed that they assume that anything that involves black people in any way is racist. Watch the animated scenes of this movie in isolation from the live action segments. They have absolutely zero negative portrayals. These haphazard assumptions cause people to take actions to erase black culture and I can't stand it. These stories are wholesome, and Disney's portrayal of them are enriching to all types of people. Only the live action segments of this film ignore historical context. But even that may not create harmful ideas in the heads of children who may consume it. It just may have to be recontextualized once they're old enough to understand the history.

The story of Tar-Baby is falsely maligned as racist. The story in and of itself was *created* by black people. The term Tar-Baby and the black appearance of the object in the story was later *weaponized* by racists. You can find minstrel-like advertisements of hand soap on google images under the brand name Tar Baby. It's been used as an epithet and it can certainly be a slur. But the story in and of itself wasn't intended for this. The tar baby was a decoy; it could have been made of anything other than tar. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that they could so easily weaponize the appearance of the object itself and the description of the object being ripe for use as a slur; it just sounds derogatory and makes that transition easily. The wikipedia entry on this is quite informative.

Overall, the story is significantly damaged by the dissonance I've detailed. But it's still mostly internally consistent. The characters are pretty great, and their journeys follow a logical progression besides the issues I've outlined. It's just a troublesome watch due to what it forgets, ignores, and erases. It's a better story that's more culturally significant than many of the disney entries thus far. But its issues are more sensitive to people, which has caused Disney to effectively deny its existence. Which is a shame. Don't pretend like it didn't happen. Make it available so we can see what happened, so we can learn from the bad parts and benefit from the good. I personally believe kids can watch this without much guidance. Just make sure they don't toss around the phrase tar-baby and maybe explain the history better. Maybe this should be considered teen-rated. Whatever the case, I think it should be up to the parents and thus it should be available for everyone who wants to see it.

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If I had to write a disclaimer, I wouldn't put the "racist depiction" schitck that they have for most things. Although I suppose Aunt Tempy could be considered along the lines of the Mammy stereotype so perhaps it's worth mentioning. The main issue with this movie is its ignorance of the struggles of black slaves in the time period is set in. It's unreasonably idealistic and unsympathetic, and that's what the disclaimer should say.