How to Help Your Black Friends Survive Watching the Roots Reboot
I survived watching the first episode of the reboot of the Roots mini-series — barely.
Within the first 10 minutes, I was angry.
The rising tide of anger rose and fell throughout the episode. It reached its crescendo in the last 15 minutes when I screamed “no, no, no!” as the white overseer’s whip lashed Kunta Kinte’s back, demanding his surrender to “Toby.”
By the closing credits, I was curled in a huddled, heaving, sobbing, ball of generational, Post-Traumatic Distress disorder.
Oscar, my orange tabby, took one look at me and walked out.
All was not good in the hood.
The original Roots mini-series was aired in 1977, in part, as an answer to the bicentennial celebration of America’s white founding fathers. It provided a platform for America to see phenomenal black actors such as LeVar Burton, John Amos, Madge Sinclair, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen, Richard Roundtree and Leslie Uggams at the top of their craft.
But it was also the story of a black family made palatable for white audiences. Amiable, well-known, white television stars were cast in prominent roles to soften slavery’s cruel impact.
Robert Reed, the TV dad in The Brady Bunch, was cast as Dr. Williams Reynolds. Reynolds sold Kunte and the Fiddler, a fellow slave who mentored Kunte during his first, difficult years in America, because he was short on funds.
Sandy Duncan, whose squeaky, sweet voice probably sold millions of boxes of Triscuits in the 70s as a result of her TV commercials, was cast as Missy Anne Reynolds. In the mini-series, Missy Anne grew up beside Kunte’s daughter, and later coldly betrayed Kizzy for using her ability to write to help her lover escape. Kizzy was then sold from her family and to a man who raped her.
Slavery isn’t softened in the reboot.
The violence is visceral, raw and sudden. The life and death of a slave can turn on a hair’s breath, within the beat of a drum or the snap of a whip. The only emotional reprieve available to the viewer is during the Target and prescription drug commercials.
That is as it should be. Slaves didn’t get a commercial break from their back-breaking, heart-wrenching suffering. They had to find within themselves an indefatigable spring of grace, humor, cunning and strength. When the spring dried up, they had to lean into the strength of the community to keep them going.
Watching a tiny fraction of what my ancestors endured turned me into a hot mess within 30 minutes.
Therefore, in the absence of a stiff drink and a “Roots After Care” hotline, I am going to need support from the beloved community to help me through the remaining three episodes of the mini-series.
The beloved community also means white people. We’re all in this together.
Below are a few Do’s and Don’ts for white friends of black people watching the Roots reboot:
Do casually ask if your friends are watching the mini-series. Some African Americans are avoiding the mini-series to avoid feelings of deep anger and rage it may stir. Ask before making assumptions. Try, “Watching anything interesting tonight/this week/right now?” If they say Roots, please proceed.
Don’t make it about you. This is not the time to opine that “racism no longer exists” and/or to attempt empathy by telling your black friend all about your racist aunt. Racism does exist. We don’t care about your aunt.
Do offer emotional support. But don’t use emotional shorthand to do it. For many African Americans, watching Roots is to relive our ancestor’s struggle through centuries of enslavement, disenfranchisement and brutality. Therefore, prayer-hands emoji is an appropriate response to dealing with a traffic ticket, not this. When a friend said she was “sending prayers,” I asked her to send bail money instead. Fortunately, she is a cool person and the ensuing discussion brought us closer together. She also promised to scrape together the bail money if needed.
Don’t be a dick. In response to one of my black friend’s post anticipating being angry after watching the mini-series, one of her white, male friends posted a short clip of a riff from the movie Coming to America, in which the barbershop guys call the protagonist, Akeem, “Kunte Kinte” in reference to the character’s African roots. The clip in any other context would have been funny. Here, it was insensitive and unnecessary. We’re dealing with serious shit here. We don’t need you to “lighten the mood.”
Do make the connection between the past, present and future. The Roots reboot is important because we have generations of Americans who don’t understand the real, raw history of American slavery. They think that if it didn’t happen to them, then it didn’t matter. They fail to understand that a people cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they don’t even have straps, boots, socks and, in some cases, feet.
We have white people who think of slavery as something that happened in a history book, but has nothing to do with the current, high incarceration rate of black males or underfunded, inadequate schools in primarily urban and/or all-minority communities.
We have black people who allow reality TV to define their lives. They don’t understand that while the trauma of slavery is encoded in their DNA, they can overcome any obstacle they face because resilience and resourcefulness are also present too.
Ultimately, Roots is an American story. It is the story of all of us. It is a story that needs us to bear its witness, heed its lessons, and embrace its enduring love.
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