Uncle Ruckus

Uncle Ruckus is the main antagonist/anti-hero in the popular Adult Swim animated TV series The Boondocks. He is a self-hating, overweight, homely African-American man with disproportionate eyes. Due to his nature and hatred towards African-Americans, he may also be the primary antagonist of the show. Because of his own name and yet no other relation (blood or whatnot) to other people, he repeatedly says, "My name is Uncle Ruckus, no relation."

He was voiced by Gary Anthony Williams.

Personality
Uncle Ruckus is repellent, rebarbative and objectionable in appearance, behavior, and attitude. He has an intense hatred of anything pertaining to black people, and goes out of his way to free himself from this identity; Ruckus claims God says the path to forgiveness for being black is to rebuke his own race.

Ruckus 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 suffered from the pigmentational skin changing disorder vitiligo) a "lucky bastard", as he no longer looks black. Ruckus claims that he himself has "re"-vitiligo, to explain his own skin tone.

During the Civil Rights Movement, he protested against Martin Luther King's marches, and would occasionally throw bricks at him, but usually missed. Perhaps Ruckus' most famous quote was "I'd a shot you myself, but I realized the white men got better aim.".

During his first encounter with the Freemans, Ruckus sings "Don't Trust Them New N---as Over There" at a garden party, though he socializes freely with the Freemans thereafter. In fact, Robert Freeman and Thomas Dubois are probably the only people on the show who could be considered friendly and kind to Uncle Ruckus.

Ruckus believes firmly in racially unsympathetic and insensitive assaults, hurling invectives of prejudice and hatred to everything black. On being asked if he supported the use of the word "n---er", Ruckus says: "No I, don't think they should use it. You know why? Because they're used to it. Just like the crops that rob the soil of its fertile nutrients, you have to rotate your use of racist words. There are a host of other perfectly acceptable words: porch monkey, jiggaboo. The next time you wanna call a darkie a n---er, call the coon a jungle bunny instead.". Ruckus adores white society and culture, the reason why he lives in Woodcrest. Ruckus claims to like the smell of white people, saying they smell like "lemon juice and Pledge furniture cleaner.".

Despite Woodcrest's newfound acceptance of different ethnicities, the neighborhood apparently has no quarrel with Uncle Ruckus' racist beliefs. Ruckus can also 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").

Uncle Ruckus became evangelistic 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"). The beginning of this episode is also one of the few moments throughout the series that Uncle Ruckus admits, or even suggests, that he is or might be black. The episodes starts with Ruckus knocking on Robert's front door with the news that he has been diagnosed with cancer. He proceeds to attempt to describe the specific type of cancer he's been diagnosed with (in Latin, which is one made up for the show) but fails to do so stating " ... or some other big word my small negro brain and big lips can't pronounce.".

Uncle Ruckus has had a vast variety of jobs over the two seasons of the show, and he is ubiquitous and omnipresent in nearly every working establishment on the show. In the controversial episode "Uncle Ruckus' Reality Show", he claimed to work 32 jobs over the course of the week and wakes up at 4:45 AM every morning for work. Despite holding 32 self-proclaimed jobs, Ruckus continues to live a less than modest life, as shown by his not abused, yet not maintained, home and truck. It's a mystery how Ruckus has any free time to spy on the Freeman family (he might be slacking off on one or more of his jobs while doing so OR all of his jobs have very little work hours).

In the first episode "The Garden Party", Ruckus appears to have an alcohol problem as he's seen drinking from a hidden flask several time throughout the episode, but appears to have this under control for the rest of the series. Although nearly 60 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 mastered nunchaku and is capable of incredible acrobatics along with his martial skills.

Ruckus' racism escalated in Season 4, as he became part of Ed Wuncler Jr.'s program to reinstate slavery, arguably crossing the Moral Event Horizon in the process. It reaches a horrendous peak when Wuncler Jr. coerces and ropes in multiple black and other minority persons into becoming slaves for his slavery era-motif theme park Freedomland. Uncle Ruckus takes on the opportunity to live out his perverse dream of acting as a slavedriver and even likes to be called "Boss", going as far as using an actual whip to assault the Freemans when they protest against his acts. Among other horrific and opprobrious acts, he forced Huey into becoming a target for water guns and then tied up to be used as a whipping boy by the Freedomland patrons when he continued to defy him. Ruckus is also very disturbingly thrilled, rapturous, and pleasurable at the prospect of Wuncler Jr. threatening to cut off Huey's foot with an axe, in the terrible tradition of slaveholders aiming to keep a slave from running.

Heroic Acts

 * He tries to defend Mall Santa from Riley's violent actions.
 * He tries to stop Robert who snuck into a movie theater without paying for tickets.
 * He helps Huey, Riley, and Robert to make Stinkmeaner stop possessing Tom.
 * He tries to stop Ed and Rummy from robbing people's houses with Betty von Heusen.
 * He stands up to his abusive dad in the end of "The Color Ruckus".