Ginny’s Thoughts & Things

Assalamu alaikum, just some clarification on my initial reaction to the “Roots” controversy. Because I feel like my initialpost onthe topic seemed a bit naive or something.

Firstly, I read the book when I was 13 years old, inthe seventh grade! As Iv’e stated before, the book had a profound affect on me! I remember being amazed that someone was actually able to trace their African ancestry, and that they were able to do this simply because they kept their oral history alive! The book seemed to me to be a telling of a story of a family who struggled to keep their history alive and never forget where they came from. However, I did wonder why other families did not do the same? And then I thought maybe they did and we just don’t know about it. Perhaps I should go back and read the book, as maybe my “adult” mind might have a different take on things.

I also have to say that I had no idea that a “controversy” surrounded the book until seeming a blurb about it on Wikipedia, and that only referred to the lawsuit from Harold Courlander, and it merely said it was settled out of court. My thought then was that many people bring suits all the time (the music industry came to mind here), and so I just dismissed it. And when my hisotry teacher, way back inthe seventh grade, made the comments he made, I was able to dismiss them at the time, because he gave ne proof and did not mention the “plagiarism” controversy, and I merely dismissed his comments as someone who did not want to admit the fact that slavery was horrible, and that certain things did indeed happen.

Now that it actually seems, from what I’ve been able to gather, that the whole “Roots” phenomenon may not entirely be true, and that some of the book was taken from other people (not only Courlander but someone named Margaret Walker who had a book called Jubilee who also claimed that Haley borrowed from her works), well, if that is indeed true, than the whole allure of “Roots” is completely tarnished for me!

Perhaps Alex Haley’s ancestor was indeed Kunta Kinte, and perhaps the other people mentioned in the book did indeed exist. And I can understand having to “dramatize” situations, as you’d have no idea about dialogue, expeirences, or anything like that. So, I’m not sure the book should have been labelled as “nonfiction”, as it was, and maybe still is, in libraries. However, it seems that the issue/problem is how Haley came to project those situations/experiences. Although perhaps the geneaology is off, if Phillip Nobile and the geneaologists Gary? Mills and Elizabeth Shown Mills are correct.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue to research this further. I’m tempted to reread Roots, as well as get a copy of the Haorld Courlander book “The African”, and see if there seem to be any similarities to me. I’d also like to take a look at the geneological evidence from those who say that Haley’s research was flawed. Just because I’m curious now. However, I don’t know if I’d have the itme/patience to do this, and whether it would even matter. Because it seems that “Roots” has continued to be a phenomenon, the plagiarism and other “mistkaes” notwithstanding.