Slaves.jpg from Son of the South Dot NetSo, I’m finally living up to a promise I made myself, that I would read Alex Haley’s book Roots before I watched the miniseries I bought last summer. I’ve seen the miniseries before and was profoundly affected by it but I knew that, like all movies made from books–the book would be superior.

I got the book on audio CD from the library, the BBC version which has Avery Brooks (Commander Sisko from Deep Space 9) reading which is a definite plus since I love his voice and respect his acting a great deal. There was also a special foreword written by Michael Eric Dyson, who I respect as an intellectual but don’t care much for as a communicator–his ideas are solid but his presentation is loquacious, self-righteous, and far too preachy for my tastes.

But I digress.

The book is 27 discs long and at 80 mins a disc, that weighs in at a whole lot of mins. By the end of disc 2, I was like, “Fug, man–they’re still in Africa.” I was becoming overwhelmed by the monotonous descriptions of Kunta Kinte’s tribal life in Africa and was waiting for the Tuba (white slave catching dude) to jump out of the bush and put Kunta on the ship. I guess I was used to the movie where this happened quite soon in the story.

But in the middle of disc 3, I actually started to care about the family structure and tribal life of Kunta. I haven’t gotten to colonial America yet, but I’m positive the African culture described is going to be much more just and civil than the Antebellum American south.

I’ve grown up around black culture my entire life. I respect the hell out of the great cultural and scientific accomplishments they have contributed to the American story and I’m hellasorry for the far too long path its been toward simple human dignity that the descendants of African slaves have had to go through. I won’t pretend that I understand what it means to carry the anger of 450 years of crimes against humanity in my genes, something we can see continuing to affect American culture to this day.

But there must come a time when it ends and here’s how it happens. I promise, going forward, to never act like or tell my children there is a negative differences in our races. Racism is a cultural cancer that springs forth from spotlighting ignorance and goes away when the spotlight gets turned off consistently across the cultural candyland board.

There are enough douche bags and jackasses out there fucking up their kids’ minds and I will not be part of the problem.

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