ROOTS: It Was Never About Slavery
I remember the first time that I truly challenged myself intellectually. I remember the little library at my middle school. It seemed so big and full of books. I remember reading short stories and books for kids. By the time I was twelve and in the 8th grade, I had been reading choose-your-own-adventure books for awhile. I would become lost in worlds of fantasy where time travel was real, spells were cast, and kids made it home safe in the end. Thinking back, I must have gone through every scenario in every book that was on that little revolving rack near the work desks.
It was on this rack that I remember seeing a thick book with thin pages. It reminded me of the Bible that we had at home, like it was something that would take forever to read. This book was intimidating, yet I found myself drawn to it. Sitting there, it was a paperback with a worn cover and stressed bindings, which was probably donated to the school. The cover was different than the books that I was used to reading. There were no images of intrepid white kids or intelligent-looking white men. Instead, it was just the author’s name “Alex Haley,” in bold gold letters, and the title ROOTS, which seemed to want to burst free from the paper.
I knew what Roots was. I watched the mini-series and heard the name “Kunta Kinte.” Yet, when I picked up this book, I had no idea what I was getting into. For me, it was just this thick book that I knew was about Black people. This was important in that I had never tried to read a novel of that size, nor had I been exposed to Black literature beyond readers on Martin Luther King, Jr. and George Washington Carver.
Growing up in a predominately White and Asian community, the only place where I was exposed to Black history or African heritage was at home or while visiting family. I had no understanding of the concept of oral history, talking drums, or the dangers of tall grass. I was used to the experience of being one of two black kids in a class, being called the N-word, and being shown out-of-context images of enslaved Africans laid out as chattel across a two page picture of a slave ship, which was two thirds of the pages devoted to people who looked like me in the U.S. history book.
The story of Kunta Kinte, for better or worse is the lattice upon which I wove my activist identity…
The current edition of Roots: The Saga of an American Family is 729 pages long. Take some time and imagine the weight of the moment when a little Black boy picked up a book and committed to reading 729 pages about himself and his history, keeping in mind that he had only been offered three by his teachers. I wonder how many minutes it would take to read Roots on Medium?
I opened that book and did not put it down for what seemed like months. I remember being caught up in the historical fiction of Kunta Kinte’s life, and how he developed into a man. I remember the horror of the choice of where to be maimed, and the deeper horror and despair of Kizzy being taken away. I remember how deeply I identified with Kizzy in Little Miss’s betrayal, and how the struggles of Chicken George spoke to me, as he tried to straddle two worlds. But more than anything, I remember the deep sadness that I felt when I realized that I did not have my own story of my own old African ancestor. I remember thinking that this was unfair, and began to deeply resent just about everything that I was ever taught about history.
Here is the thing: I grew up mostly around White people. I saw poverty, and I knew racism. I understood what it meant to be othered - to have a teacher tell a White student that it was ok to touch my hair, or to be told to walk more correctly (less Black) in front of a class. By age twelve, I knew the N-word in 3 languages. My little mind was as woke as it probably could be; yet I was not truly angry. After reading Roots, something changed.
Like I said, I did not have my own old African, so I took Haley’s. I took Kunta, like my White classmates took Ben-Hur, Spartacus, or Oliver Twist. I took his customs, his aspirations, and his tragedy. But most of all, I took on his pride and his fight. I knew he was not my old African, but I let him stand in for mine. I let his story be the story of my ancestor whose narratives were lost to the brutality and destruction of slavery. I let this character fill a hole that I was not aware of until it was laid bare.
The story of Kunta Kinte, for better or worse is the lattice upon which I wove my activist identity. Every time I spoke up in a class full of White folks, in my mind, I was a Mandinka warrior proclaiming my freedom. Every time that I had an encounter experience with racism, I was girded by my understanding that I must be careful of the tall grass and have a healthy suspicion of gifts from those who would own me. And when I needed to be angry in order to burn away the doubts that they would have me internalize, I would only need to remember that Kunta was not mine, and the identities of those who purposefully and for the most avaricious of reasons attempted to kill my history…
When I finished Roots, I remember re-reading it immediately. Then I read it every year for many years after. It became a grounding ritual for me. A reminder of who I am, and who we were. Not as slaves, but as people who overcame slavery. People whose rich cultural heritage survived the most concerted effort in known history to destroy it. A people who today affirm our existence with a simple statement like, “Black Lives Matter,” in a tone reminiscent of an old African who refused to give up his True name.
Copyright 2016 Bedford E. F. Palmer II, Ph. D.
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