Our Voices: ‘Roots’ helps children find their own

The re-airing of the 1977 miniseries “Roots” in December helped draw in a new generation of viewers in my home to the darker times in the Deep South, where the slave trade once thrived.

My children were at first reluctant to watch the series, preferring rather to watch their usual fluff comedy shows, cartoons or play video games.

My husband and I knew then that it was the right time to expose them to the program, just as our parents once had. The film offered so many themes and teachable moments, from greed, to the price for freedom, to the power of hope and faith.

The opening scenes of “Roots” caught their attention quickly. Poet Maya Angelou, who portrayed Kunta Kinte’s grandmother, suggested Kinte make a drum for his younger brother. Kinte set out alone in the forest to find a piece of wood and was soon captured and chained. Actor LaVar Burton’s portrayal of the young teenage African losing his freedom and fighting to escape is forever etched into our memories.

My 10-year-old daughter and my 8-year-old son’s reactions to the scenes were no different from my own feelings some 35 years ago when my parents invited me to watch the program as a young girl.

I was stunned, confused and hurt. My son couldn’t understand why black men were chaining Kinte up. I explained to him that some Africans did participate in slave-catching and selling.

In another scene, actress Cicely Tyson, who portrayed Kinte’s mother, learned that her son was captured and she cried unbearably. Both my children grew quiet and their eyes welled up.

One of my favorite lines in the series, from Kunta Kinte’s daughter, Kizzy, played by Leslie Uggams, is something I too have shared with my children when I remind them that you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve come from.

Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Alex Haley, who died in 1992, wrote “Roots” based on his own family’s history, beginning with Kunta Kinte, who was captured in Gambia, West Africa, in 1767 and sold as a slave in America. The novel details the lives of his descendants up through Haley’s own life.

Other scenes from the movie offered food for thought. Consider the scene in which an African warrior Kintango explained the value of life. “There is no object more valuable than a man’s life,” Kintango said.

Juxtapose that to Capt. Thomas Davies, played by actor Ed Asner, who commanded the ship containing nearly 200 slaves who endured death and other horrors during the Middle Passage. Throughout the film, Asner’s character is visibly disturbed about the mission, but the economic incentives always seemed to lead him deeper and deeper into accepting the slave trade. In one scene, Asner’s character is visibly having a moral dilemma with slavery, though he behaves as a hypocrite. “I’m a Christian man and I command a Christian ship. I will not lead men into sin,” Davies proclaimed.

Bringing “Roots” to a younger generation reminds me that young people only understand where they are going and value their freedoms once they grasp and appreciate their heritage and understand the obstacles and struggles families have overcome to build America into what it is today.

Chanter Dionne Warren is a freelance writer. She can be reached at chante [e-mail]

　

Comments

1) Comment by bourbon-soda - 06/01/2013

Afterthought: your roots are here. Richard Pryor did a funny skit I can't find now, where his character goes back to Africa to find roots. Gets all decked out in whatever African clothes are and asks a witch doctor or someone there to help him, who tells him something like "your roots are in Cleveland."

2) Comment by bourbon-soda - 06/01/2013

Read whatever you want but thank God you are in the United States.

3) Comment by Ivy - 05/01/2013

Posters: I believe this article was clearly identified as "opinion", so I am questioning why so many "facts" are being brought up in counterpoint to what is clearly a synopsis of a movie and it's impact on the writer. The writer may have tried to insert "fact", but the Advocate was wise to categorize this article as what it was - opinion. And she did not try to demonize one group or another, nor did Alex Haley. If anything was demonized, it was the love of money. We all "look through a glass darkly" when we are looking at the past. I look to how I am treated by others today, and brother, there's no need to go digging into the past to explain why some people are angels and some are devils - they just are.

4) Comment by twinkie1cat - 05/01/2013

If we don't study our past and become aware of its influence, we are doomed to repeat it. History classes need to show both the good and the bad. Don't sugar coat America. Don't frost a turd. Don't serve one for dinner and say it's all we have either.

5) Comment by twinkie1cat - 05/01/2013

SQPR, thanks for the enlightenment. I will do further research on the Hennessy story. It seems that Americans, the freest people in the world always have to have someone to look down upon. This has gone on for centuries and now it is Mexicans and gays who are the scapegoats. And most of the people who are bigots call themselves Christians and attend church every Sunday as they gather into their conservative, politically influential hate groups such as the Louisiana Family Forum. Jesus did not discriminate and does not want his people to either.

6) Comment by twinkie1cat - 05/01/2013

I watched Roots back in 1977. I watched it once. That was all I could take. Then I named two black kitten Kinte and Kizzy in honor of their namesakes. I had already grown up on the words and works of Martin Luther King Jr and Roots helped me understand the background of racial repression and why human rights were so important. Although I was much older by that point, Roots should be required viewing in every high school American history class, a part of the curriculum and not just in schools and systems that are predominantly black. It gives "roots" to why America is America and how we came to be.

7) Comment by spqr - 05/01/2013

In 1890, New Orleans police chief David Hennessy was murdered. The police responded by arresting 250 Italians, a group so discriminated against and despised one cannot put it into words. Nineteen were jailed and six were acquitted. Angry at the verdicts, the city newspaper urged citizens to take matters into their own hands against the "Dagos". A mob of thousands formed outside of the parish jail, overwhelmed police, and dragged the innocent out of jail. Five were beaten to death in the streets while police watched. Eleven hanged in what is still the largest mass hanging in US history. Many fled the city and state fearful or further violent discrimination. Many homes and businesses of Italians were ransacked. No one cares. No movie. No statue of memorial. Not studied in classrooms. Forgotten. Write of that, too, Ms.Warren.

8) Comment by 8point6 - 05/01/2013

Two excellent comments. Thank you.

9) Comment by tradewinns - 05/01/2013

IVY: ms warren, i would contend, inferred roots was an historical event(s). her paragraph " Bringing “Roots” to a younger generation reminds me that young people only understand where they are going and value their freedoms once they grasp and appreciate their heritage and understand the obstacles and struggles families have overcome to build America into what it is today". she never implies it's a fictional interpertation of what MAY have happened in history.

10) Comment by Chucky - 05/01/2013

twinkie1cat – I think I understand where your coming from, but “Root's” should not be taught as history but would be more appropriate in a literature class on how fiction can change perspective and help address social issues and improve ones self-worth . Take the move “Amistad” where Joseph Cinqué wins his case in court for him self and other victims of the illegal Atlantic slave trade. Cinquè was able to free himself of his shackles and began the slaves' rebellion for freedom , a nice hero and telling story based on fact but fails to mention that Cinqué later returns to Africa and starts his own slave trade.

11) Comment by Whatnow - 05/01/2013

Sometimes writing or constantly teaching a dark part of this culture's past incites victim-hood and hate against another culture. This is a state of mind that thousands upon thousands love to dwell in. The movies that come to my mind are "What's love Got to do with it" or "The Color Purple". Those women were both heroes who fought against ignorance and "men" who wanted control and were of both races. If we dwelt more on the human factor instead of the race factor, maybe we would learn a lot more about each other instead of hate and division. I hope along with teaching about the people of the past,that it is also presented that most people of the present would not stand for allowing slavery in any sense of the word and that there is bigotry and ignorance in every race.

12) Comment by [e-mail] - 05/01/2013

That novel was a product of the times and made a lot of money, which was the motivating factor for it; noting wrong with that at all. It was nice to be able to couch it in better terms, and the mini-series allowed people who participated in it for money to claim that they were a soldier for civil rights fighting racism, such as that perennial hypocrite Ed Asner.

13) Comment by Chucky - 05/01/2013

As a work of fiction and even if it was plagiarized by Alex Haley this was and is a great story and TV mini series. I would rather say though, that you can not know where your going until you know where you are.

14) Comment by tradewinns - 04/01/2013

it was a great series and did impart some knowledge of what happened to the africans brought to the western hemisphere into slavery. however the book and the series was a novel not an historical record. the way the two showed slavery you would think they all came to the southern U.S. nothing could b e farther from the truth. most went to south america/carribean. second your statement " some Africans did participate in slave-catching and selling" is also inaccurate. africans themselves were the main slave traders in africa. the europeans more or less just purchased the slaves from the africans and sold them in the western hemisphere. that doesn't mean they wouldn't grab a convient african and inslave them, including the slave trader themselves if it was convient or easy. that's the problem with watching a movie/TVseries or even TV itself. once a kid sees it on TV, they believe it as gospel when it is really it's what the director wants to show. a parent show do their homework when relating history to their kids so they can, while enjoying the show, put it in perspective.