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.
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