Roots; squared (or, Can someone tell me how to superscript fonts when I post?)
18 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Humanity Tags: all, art, culture, economics, family, history, Life, love, News, politics, random, society, writing
There is not enough gratitude in the world that would be enough to give to one of our best and most brilliant communicators; author Alex Haley. Sometimes I contemplate the possibility that he might have known what his famous novel; Roots, would do for all of us. Sometimes, I also wonder how many people might see what this wonderful book did for humanity, or if they at least understand how a human truth is intransigent to being misunderstood by any human being. For those of us who were here at the time, the Roots phenomenon and its unique success on television should, at least statistically, raise an impacting and valid question: If Roots is the story of the history of one family and their unplanned, unwilling and at times horrific migration from Africa to the U.S. at the hands of slave traders which in turn became a tool and a mechanism through which their descendants managed to give birth to a particular, albeit obsolete human dynamic called cultural identification (aka cultural identity); then why did it affect everybody so much instead of just the descendants of the protagonists of the story? How is it that anyone and everyone, regardless of any variables, somehow related to Roots? We ALL related to Roots.
The answer is simple; we all related to Roots because it is a story of HUMAN perseverance and triumph over adversity. (Note: the triumph was over the adversity created by our own ignorance, stupidity and greed, not over OTHER people.) We can all relate to that: the story stimulated the very same feelings, be it sorrow, anger, shame or pride, in all of us. Kunta Kinte was simply one of us; a human being. Not only that, he was an example of humanity for all of us.
Thank you Alex Haley, for participating in what very well may have been one of the first instances of a particular global human dynamic which is also one of the keys to our future; the dynamic concept of us; all of us.
(Author’s note: The math says that most of us who may read this post will notice something, however there is a very good probability that a lot of us WON’T. I’m referring to the fact that this entire post was written without having to mention an “ethnic” label. Not once does “black”, “white” “African American” or any other absurd label appear in the post and yet it was perfectly understandable. Now THAT deserves a celebration!)
We can do better.
