Roots - the lost mini-series

On a separate note, derived from my thoughts about the Dr. Martin Luther King biopic, I wondered about something else.

When was the last time you saw Roots?

I imagine that most people in America under the age of 35 have never seen it. I bet they don’t even now what this amazing television mini-series was. They have never heard of it, nor seen it.

To my knowledge it’s been on television once, in the 1970’s. It hasn’t been on BET to my knowledge. Ever. It hasn’t been replayed on broadcast television though it was one of the most watched programs ever, each night it was on (it was several parts long). It doesn’t even get mentioned in February.

Talk about a failure to move forward. No one complains that it does not appear on television anymore. I have yet to hear of others balk at the difficulty to find the series on DVD or VHS. I have noted how even a station proposing to be Black Entertainment can ignore such a groundbreaking program through it’s entire existence.

Again I am led to a thought I have spoken about before. The entertainment media does not want to move forward. They want to talk about it, but not act. They want to promote gangsta rap, but not political rap. They want to fill airwaves with depictions of African Americans as hustlers, pimps, drug dealers, and hoes but not leaders. Unless you consider bouncing a near naked ass next to a crome and gold covered man holding malt liquor and an illegal drug while speaking to a beat as success and leadership.

Roots, like the true message of Dr. King, speaks against the commercialization of being Black in America. Black culture is more than trendy clothes, silly adornments, and a minstrel show. These are not the things people died for during the Civil Rights Movement. This is not the life that the freed slaves prayed for.

Roots should be back on television. Because I think we all need a jolt to remind us of just those very facts.

Do your kids understand Bid Em In? - 9.6.2007.1

I just heard something rather troubling. This is in regards to the Bid Em In video. A friend just mentioned that two of her children recently saw a video and captured nothing from it. Let me be clear, one child is 22 the other is 16. They have no concept of slavery. One referred to the video as "selling hoes" and the other thought it was an auction of people. There was no mention of that the people were Black or that this was during colonial times. There was no anger over the video, or any emotional connection. This is opposed to the very emotional and angry response to the Read-a-book BET public service announcement.

In speaking with a friend the conclusion seems to be that kids today have no connection to slavery. The concept just does not come to mind. It's almost as if to them it never happened, which is somewhat understandable since it’s never spoken about. I have no kids so this is a matter I wouldn't readily expect, nor conceive of. But a great point was made and it deals with Black history month. For all of the Leave No Child Behind rhetoric and all of the increased curriculums, there is nothing mentioned about slavery itself. When was the last time you recall seeing Roots on TV or heard that it is available on DVD? [Hey BET; think you could run this sometime?]

There been many studies about the Holocaust to remind children in the world of the atrocities that happened some 60 years ago. Yet there are no equivalent programs at high schools and in many colleges to address slavery in America, to my knowledge. As a nation we discuss taking the land from the Indians, the Japanese internment, the Holocaust in Germany, the killing fields in Southeast Asia. Even most recently the problems in Bosnia, but it is verboten should we speak about slavery in America. And the result is that young adults, African-American young adults, can watch a powerful statement about their ancestors, and neither raise an emotional response nor contextual one. That seems wrong to me.

My friend’s children are intelligent, the 22-year-old having gone to college. These are not gang-bangers, drug addicts, criminals, or wanna-be-felons (in other words, rappers). I am amazed. So I ask you to help me out in understanding something. Let's call it an informal survey, a fact-finding mission, or just bloody curiosity. Those of you who have children or grandchildren, who have not yet seen the video, take an opportunity and show them this. After they've seen it, asked them what they've seen. Don't tell them beforehand anything about the video, and then asked them their response. And then please come back, and send me an e-mail or make a comment and let's see what the general sentiment is out there.

If the generations coming up now have no concept of their past then they will be doomed to repeat the hardships that occurred then. They will have the American Dream in reverse. As it has been constantly said ‘history repeats itself, if we do not learn from the lessons of history.’ I for one will not sit idly by and allow my nephew (or other young adults) to have to experience the same things my grandmother and great-grandmother and fathers experienced.

This is what I would do you think?

** I first posted this video in A bit on my Labor Day - 9.3.2007.1 but I will repost it here for ease.**