What Does “Roots” Mean to You?
Cambridge Dictionary defines root as “the part of a plant which grows down into the earth”. However, such a word has many meanings depending on who you ask. I interviewed CMU student Tyler Modock about what “roots” meant to him, and his response was similar to Cambridge’s, defining roots as “vegetables such as carrots and onions”.
When I think of “roots” I think of Alex Hayley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which I checked out from Park Library last year and never touched for two months. Of course, how can one think about the novel without also thinking about it’s 1977 T.V. miniseries adaptation Roots starring Levar Burton as Kunta Kinte (which reminds me of Kendrick Lamar’s “King Kunta”). When I think about Levar Burton I think about Reading Rainbow, and his role as Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
So what does “roots” mean to me ultimately? Roots are the expanding tangents from one original source, like how my thoughts about Kendrick Lamar and Star Trek have roots back to “Roots”.
