Uncle Ruckus (born July 4, 1939) is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the American animated sitcom The Boondocks. Voiced by Gary Anthony Williams, he first appeared on television in the show's pilot, "The Garden Party", on November 6, 2005. Created and designed by cartoonist Aaron McGruder, Ruckus enjoyed great success after appearing in the comic strip of the same name.
Ruckus had a turbulent childhood as he was raised by the abusive Mister Ruckus. His mother had a self-identity crisis, often praising white people. After being kicked out of his home as a teenager, he traveled to Woodcrest, where he works odd jobs. Ruckus embodies many old American working-class stereotypes: he is crude, short-tempered, obese, rule-neglecting, clumsy, and a jack of all trades who works forty-seven jobs. He is also internally racist, repeatedly proclaiming his love for the white race and disdain of the black race, and he even identifies as Caucasian, saying he suffers from "reverse vitiligo".
Despite this, Ruckus maintains a close relationship with Robert Freeman and yearns for social acceptance. Despite the blue-collar routine of his life, he has had a number of remarkable experiences, including work as a recording artist.
Personality
He has an intense hatred of anything pertaining to African Americans and goes out of his way to distance himself from black people, especially those of previous generations. Ruckus claims God says the path to forgiveness for being black is to rebuke one's own race. He has a mismatched glass eye due to the beatings he received from his father. Ruckus champions the giant traces of Irish ancestry he claims to have, though a DNA test shows he is "102% African with a 2% margin of error”.
Although Ruckus had a terrible father, the main cause for his personality and view of the world is his mother. Though his mother loved him deeply, she was an extremely deluded and damaged woman who, despite a lifetime of abuse and poor decisions, was convinced that her life would have been better if she had been born white. As a result, Ruckus wishes that all black people were still enslaved or never existed at all. He frequently introduces himself as "Uncle Ruckus, no relation," to indicate that he has no familial connection to the people he is addressing (and because his first name is literally Uncle).
Ruckus prattles white supremacist rhetoric and calls Michael Jackson (who suffered from the pigmentational skin changing disorder vitiligo) a "lucky bastard" as he doesn't look black. Ruckus claims that he himself has "re-vitiligo" to explain his own skin tone. Ruckus applies a homemade topical ointment of "bleach and sulfur" in order to treat his self-diagnosed condition, stating that he "likes to think it works" and that it has prevented him from "getting any darker these past few years."
According to a flashback, in his early 20s (20 years old in 1959) he protested against Martin Luther King Jr.'s marches during the civil rights movement and would occasionally throw bricks at King. Another flashback scene shows Ruckus serving on a Tennessee jury in 1957 (making him a minimum of 70 years old in 2009, although this flashback is not consistent with the show's continuity) 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. Ruckus is the only black person on the otherwise all-white jury in a Jim Crow courtroom. During his first encounter with the Freeman family, Ruckus sings "Don't Trust Them New Niggas Over There" in the pilot episode, though he socializes freely with the Freemans thereafter.
Ruckus constantly hurls hateful racist invective at all things black. On being asked if he supports the use of the word "nigga", Ruckus says: No, I don't think we should use the word, and I'll tell ya why. Because niggas have gotten used to it, that's why. Hell, they like it now. It's like when you growin' crops and you strip the soil of its nutrients and goodness and then you can't grow nothin'. You gotta rotate your racist slurs. Now I know it's hard 'cause 'nigga' just rolls off the tongue the way sweat rolls off a nigga's forehead, but we cannot let that be a crutch. Especially when there are so many fine substitutes: spade, porch monkey, jiggaboo. I say the next time you gonna call a darkie a nigga, you call that coon a jungle bunny instead.