January 07, 2002
Diggin' Roots
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| cheo tyehimba More articles by cheo... |
Harlem, New York - Last night at Harlem's world famous Apollo Theatre, I attended a screening of "Roots 25th Anniversary Special. The new tribute to one of the most watched mini-series in television history will be broadcast on NBC on January 18th.
Hosted by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, the elegant event was attended by former cast members of Roots, prominent political and business leaders, and everyday folk interested in revisiting the national discussion on race in America.
LeVar Burton hosts the one-hour documentary, which features conversations with original cast-members like Leslie Uggams, Ed Asner, Maya Angelou, Ben Vereen and others. Interwoven between pivotal scenes from the mini-series, is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Roots."
Burton recounts the harrowing experience of shooting the Middle Passage scenes and the lengths at which the director went to recreate the miserable and fetid quarters in the hull of a slave ship.
"During those scenes, Levar just checked out" recounts Burton. " It was so real I had to find a way to get through it."
One of the most revealing aspects of the documentary is the emphasis it places on tracing the impact of "Roots" on a generation. Although the film features brief interviews with celebs like Will Smith and Michael Jordan, who recount the significance of watching "Roots" as boys, there is also some important commentary by regular folks.
I was one of the "real" people interviewed for the one-hour television special. It was quite an interesting process. The producer Judith Leonard, said she was interested in gauging how the mini-series changed people's perception of race and America. She interviewed folks who told her after they watched "Roots" they were inspired to research their own family history, give their children names like "Kizzy" or "Kunta" or begin a quest for a greater understanding of America's cruel and beguiling system of racial oppression.
For me, like many other young boys watching "Roots," the mini-series exposed a racist world that had always been right under my nose. I recall going to school the day after a particularly hard-to-watch episode and being called "Kunta" or "nigger" by white kids imitating the racist caricatures they saw on the program. And of course, I remember having to fight in every way that was necessary - physically, emotionally and intellectually, in order to survive. In many ways, watching "Roots" as a 12 year-old boy, became my own rites-of-passage.
During the taping for the program when I was asked to recount my experience watching "Roots," the first thing I recalled was that my mother allowed me to stay up to watch it. The other memorable aspect was the gathering of the entire family in front of the television. It became a nightly ritual. The phone was ignored, the radio was shut off and everyone remained glued to the set, even between commercials. The ethereal scene of a black man holding a baby under a dark, star-swept night and raising the infant to the heavens while saying, "Behold….the only thing greater than yourself," became a psychic trigger that slowly moved something deep within me.
A world unfolded before my eyes. A history of pride and ritual that predated my ancestors' arrival to American shores in chains became clear for the first time. Each night I watched, I began to see what the history books could never tell me…my legacy went way beyond slavery. The impact hit me like falling rain upon a still but unknowably deep sea; cascading, reverberating, and profound.
I remember watching for the first time Kunta being strung up by his hands and being whipped until he renounced his African name.
"What's your name!" yelled the overseer, as he instructed another enslaved African to violently whip Kunta. "Your name is Toby, boy! Say it! Toby" the overseer would yell.
After a grueling and prolonged exchange in which Kunta defiantly denounced the slave name and the resulting viscous lashing, he finally relinquished and whispered, "Toby."
"That scene was hard for us all," said a former cast member, recounting the episode at the Apollo Theatre.
"Something changed on the set that day. There was a clear presence of the ancestors' spirit among us that day and after the director said 'cut' we all stayed in character. It was like we had no choice," she says.
"In the scene, Lou Gossett tended to Kunta after he is whipped and after the director said 'cut', he just went into something that was completely off-script, which was later used in the film. As Gossett remained in the moment of the scene, he said lines that just came to him: "Don't you bother what those white folks say…your name is Kunta…don't you worry…there's going to be another day…"
Another thing I learned from watching "Roots," is the nature of the African experience in America. W.E.B. Du Bois is often quoted from his classic "The Souls of Black Folk" about the "double-consciousness" that African Americans have to live with in this country. Of course, I agree with Du Bois but I would go one step further and say our identity is bound by a triptych-focused lens. That is, we have elements of our identity that are exclusively American, African, and African American. Three distinct cultures informing who we believe we are.
We've grown tremendously as a people through eras such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement and now the Hip Hop Generation. As we've come into a greater knowledge of ourselves, all three layers - American, African, and African American - seem to play off each other simultaneously.
This is why we'll always love McDonald's and basketball; why we know how to cook Jollof rice & plantains and still have at least one old dashiki in our closet; and why we still "jump de broom" at our weddings or listen to James Brown at our Juneteenth celebrations. American, African, and African American. Watching "Roots" planted seeds (no pun intended) that helped us make these connections.
Over the years, "Roots" has been criticized for some of its simplistic caricatures and flaws in its script but it offered up a much needed visual history lesson at a time when my generation needed one.
It is disturbing that another generation of black youth has come of age without ever having watched "Roots." It is troubling that they have had to rely heavily on technology and the media for their representations of self. It is disappointing that so many have unconsciously adopted the cliché "ignorance is bliss" and don't fully understand their connection to Africa, the permanence of "race" in America, and the ultimate price for freedom our ancestors have paid. Maybe some of them will tune in and be inspired to rent the mini-series.
Check out "Roots: The 25th Anniversary Special" on NBC on January 18th.
Copyright © 2002 Article by Cheo Taylor Tyehimba. All Rights Reserved.
[NOTE: This article is not to be reproduced, forwarded, or distributed in any form without *explicit* permission from the author.]
Posted at January 7, 2002 10:33 AM