Starting on Memorial Day, the History Channel began broadcasting their remake of Roots. The History Channel’s parent company — A+E Network — really wants people to see this show. They are simultaneously broadcasting the show on the largest A+E Network channels — like A&E; Lifetime. And you don’t need a paid subscription to watch the show since full episodes are available for viewing on History’s website free of charge.
History’s reinterpretation of Alex Haley’s novel, “Roots: The Saga of An American Family” has Mandingo warrior Kunta Kinte brutally killing more than a dozen white people; his daughter, Kissy Kinte, killing a white man and attempting to kill another; and Nat Turner killing dozens of whites and scaring thousands.
Only Nat Turner was punished for killing white people and that was NOT shown in Roots. Why? What message, if any, is being advanced here?
In Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 adaptation of Django Unchained, the leading Black character killed dozens of whites and lived to tell about it. Fox Searchlight has scheduled director Nate Parker’s dramatic biopic about Nat Turner called Birth of A Nation for release in October.
Many people credit D.W. Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of A Nation (originally called The Clansman) with the rise of Jim Crow. The film glorified the Ku Klux Klan and demonized Blacks — portraying us as violent against whites, among other things. People recognize what Griffith intended to accomplish. History shows Griffith had great success.
- Is Roots designed to stoke anger African Americans? Violence in many Black communities is out of control. Are African Americans seeing all this violence being tricked into believing they can kill — Blacks or whites — without consequence?
- How does it help anyone to have history so grossly distorted? On this point of violence by enslaved Blacks… Blacks weren’t going around killing white people. Those who did harm whites were killed.
- Is Roots trying to scare white Americans — many of whom are already living in fear, especially of non-whites?
- With a guy like Donald Trump running for President as the standard bearer for the CONservative Republican Party, and that party being dead set on undoing gains won by Blacks since the Civil War, could Roots be used to justify the fears of whites and help set a climate of fear that results in harm to non-whites? Not just physical violence and harm; political harm.
The media has given lots of attention to negative statements made by Snoop Dogg about History's Roots. Snoop made his uninformed comments before the first episode aired.
It's safe to say Snoop Dogg isn't watching the Roots remake. The rapper took to Instagram to address the miniseries remake—and projects like 12 Years a Slave and the TV series Underground—and urged viewers to not partake in movies where black people are "dogged down."
"I'm sick of this s—t. How the f—k they going to put Roots on on Memorial Day," he said in an Instagram video. "They're going to just keep beating that s—t into our heads, how they did us, huh? I mean, I don't understand America. They're just going to want to keep showing the abuse that we took hundreds and hundreds of years ago. But guess what: We're taking the same abuse. Think about that part. When y'all going to make a motherf—king series about the success that black folks is having? The only success we have is Roots and 12 Years a Slave and s—t like that, huh? F—k y'all."
Snoop urged others to "f—k them television shows" and that it's time to create their own projects about how black people "live and how we inspire people today."
"Black is what's real," he said in the video, which contains profane language, below. "F—k that old s--t."
I listened to Rev. Al Sharpton’s nationally-syndicated radio show, “Keeping It Real with Rev. Al” yesterday and he made several very good points about Snoop’s criticism. One that stuck out in my mind is Snoop’s call for Blacks to create our own projects about how Blacks live and how we inspire people today. As Rev. Al said, Blacks have “Empire” and “Power” and “Black-ish” and many other shows. Some shows portray a “positive” image of Blacks; others portray a “negative” image. Snoop is off base with this comment.
Snoop doesn’t say this in the rant posted above, but I hear this from some Black people: no other race keeps having historical dramas. This is nonsense!!! There’s a remake of Ben-Hur coming out this year. The movie is categorized as a historical epic action film. The story is about a fictional Palestinian Jewish prince and merchant who is betrayed and sold into slavery and how he overcomes. I don’t hear any Jews saying we are tired of all these motherfucking movies and shows about Jews being slaves. It doesn’t happen.