Roots

I thought yesterday's class discussion was fascinating. What I thought was the most fascinating is what Dr. Hunt said about Henry Louis Gates Jr. going back to Africa, and telling the people

that he was one of them. Though he had the same skin color, they probably felt he was too Americanized to relate to one of them. It was so weird that we were discussing this particular topic because earlier that week I watched Roots for the first time. It is the a story about author Alex Haley's family who was forced into slavery. The main character Kunta Kinte was one of many stolen from his village in Gambia and forced to come to America. Once here he saw others similar to himself and his people back home, but they were not the same. They talked differently, dressed differently, and some even helped the white man capture blacks from Africa. At the same time, American slaves saw him as wild and dangerous. This was quite mind boggling to me because I figured that the American slaves would welcome Kunta with open arms. They eventually warmed up to him, but I believe that he should have been accepted in the first place. I know the past is the past, but I cannot help the way I feel. People with a common problem should stick together, regardless of where they came from. And this goes back to our discussion of how most Creoles tried to separate themselves from both the whites and the blacks. I find it funny that even though they tried to separate themselves they consciously or subconsciously showed favoritism to the whites. I am not saying that all of them did, but to me it seemed that most did. They praised themselves for having white parentage, and light skin. They also tried to keep that "light" complexion in their families and in some cases they only helped their own kind. In the video Andre posted about Creoles a while back, one of the people said that they had a family member that was darker than the rest, and he was constantly teased. This might have been fun and games, but it can be quite hurtful to the person targeted. There are so many other aspects to this race and color "game" that I find so pointless and stupid, but I do not see it going away anytime soon.

There is also a book about the "One Drop" rule, its called One Drop by Bliss Broyard. Here is the cover: