The whole Ben Affleck/Skip Gates Story is both troubling and instructive. Some good articles that describe what happened can be found here and here, and some idiotic commentary from CNN here — the short version is Affleck asked that a scene that revealed that he had a slave owning ancestor be cut from Henry Louis Gates' popular PBS series “Finding your Roots” and Gates complied. (After conferring not with PBS, but with Michael Lynton the head of Sony Entertainment) Why would a man who’s mother was a Freedom Rider, and who has serious liberal bonafides, be ashamed of a relative who lived lived over hundred years ago? I think that it speaks volumes about the complex nature of white Americans’ relationship to the past. It is almost as if acknowledging the realities of the past somehow calls into question the legitimacy of the present, and our place in in it. You are not responsible for your ancestors actions, only your own.
The really disappointing thing, is that the cut scene told a compelling story of how one family evolved over time - slave owners to freedom riders in just a couple of generations - that could have stood as a evidence that real and substantive change is possible. Gawker got its hands on the show's transcript, and the full article is really worth reading, but here is the scene that was cut from the show:
NARRATOR:
AT THE SAME TIME THAT ALMON WAS TRYING TO OFFER THE BEREAVED SOLACE... ANOTHER OF BEN’S ANCESTORS WAS LIVING 800 MILES DUE SOUTH. WE LEARNED THAT HIS LIFE HAD ALSO BEEN FUNDAMENTALLY AFFECTED BY THE CIVIL WAR—BUT FOR VERY DIFFERENT REASONS. THIS MAN WAS BEN’S THIRD GREAT GRANDFATHER, BENJAMIN COLE, AND HE WAS LIVING IN SAVANNAH, GEORGIA AT THE TIME. COLE WAS ONE OF SAVANNAH’S MOST PROMINENT CITIZENS—A WEALTHY LAND OWNER AND THE SHERIFF OF THE ENTIRE COUNTY.
AFFLECK: That’s amazing. I got a…we have a house in Savannah.
GATES: Really?
AFFLECK: Yeah.
GATES: Did it ever occur to you that you had deep roots there?
AFFLECK: No, it didn’t. It didn’t at all. I had no idea I had any southern roots at all, so this is remarkable.
NARRATOR
COLE OWNED A LARGE FARM IN GEORGIA AT A TIME WHEN SLAVE LABOR HAD MADE THE STATE THE CENTER OF THE SOUTH’S COTTON KINGDOM. WE WANTED TO SEE IF WE COULD LEARN HOW BEN’S ANCESTOR FELT ABOUT THIS PECULIAR INSTITUTION. AND FOR THAT, WE STARTED WITH THE 1850 CENSUS.
GATES: This is the slave schedule of the 1850 Census. In 1850, they would list the owner of slaves in a separate Census.
AFFLECK: There’s Benjamin Cole, owned 25 slaves.
GATES: Your third great-grandfather owned 25 slaves. He was a slave owner.
THESE HOLDINGS PUT BENJAMIN COLE AMONG THE SOUTHERN ELITE. ONLY ABOUT 10% OF ALL SLAVE HOLDERS OWNED 20 SLAVES OR MORE.
AFFLECK: God. It gives me kind of a sagging feeling to see, uh, a biological relationship to that. But, you know, there it is, part of our history.
GATES: But consider the irony, uh, in your family line. Your mom went back fighting for the rights of black people in Mississippi, 100 years later. That’s amazing.
AFFLECK: That’s pretty cool.
GATES: That’s pretty cool.
AFFLECK: Yeah, it is. One of the things that’s interesting about it is like we tend to separate ourselves from these things by going like, you know, oh, well, it’s just dry history, and it’s all over now, and this shows us that there’s still a living aspect to history, like a personal connection.
By the same token, I think it’s important to recognize that, um, in looking at these histories, how much work has been done by people in this country, of all kinds, to make it a better place.
GATES: People like your mother.
AFFLECK: Indeed, people like my mother and many others who have made a much better America than the one that they were handed.
On another front, Gates actions are troubling from a journalistic perspective. I have a long relationship with PBS - they have both funded and aired a number of my films - and I take my responsibilities both to the network and their audience extremely seriously. It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where I allow, or PBS would allow, a subject to drive content. (Unless it was part of the conceptual framework of the project) Gates was right when he said "Once we open the door to censorship, we lose control of the brand."
GATES: Did it ever occur to you that you had deep roots there?
AFFLECK: No, it didn’t. It didn’t at all. I had no idea I had any southern roots at all, so this is remarkable.
NARRATOR
COLE OWNED A LARGE FARM IN GEORGIA AT A TIME WHEN SLAVE LABOR HAD MADE THE STATE THE CENTER OF THE SOUTH’S COTTON KINGDOM. WE WANTED TO SEE IF WE COULD LEARN HOW BEN’S ANCESTOR FELT ABOUT THIS PECULIAR INSTITUTION. AND FOR THAT, WE STARTED WITH THE 1850 CENSUS.
GATES: This is the slave schedule of the 1850 Census. In 1850, they would list the owner of slaves in a separate Census.
AFFLECK: There’s Benjamin Cole, owned 25 slaves.
GATES: Your third great-grandfather owned 25 slaves. He was a slave owner.
THESE HOLDINGS PUT BENJAMIN COLE AMONG THE SOUTHERN ELITE. ONLY ABOUT 10% OF ALL SLAVE HOLDERS OWNED 20 SLAVES OR MORE.
AFFLECK: God. It gives me kind of a sagging feeling to see, uh, a biological relationship to that. But, you know, there it is, part of our history.
GATES: But consider the irony, uh, in your family line. Your mom went back fighting for the rights of black people in Mississippi, 100 years later. That’s amazing.
AFFLECK: That’s pretty cool.
GATES: That’s pretty cool.
AFFLECK: Yeah, it is. One of the things that’s interesting about it is like we tend to separate ourselves from these things by going like, you know, oh, well, it’s just dry history, and it’s all over now, and this shows us that there’s still a living aspect to history, like a personal connection.
By the same token, I think it’s important to recognize that, um, in looking at these histories, how much work has been done by people in this country, of all kinds, to make it a better place.
GATES: People like your mother.
AFFLECK: Indeed, people like my mother and many others who have made a much better America than the one that they were handed.
On another front, Gates actions are troubling from a journalistic perspective. I have a long relationship with PBS - they have both funded and aired a number of my films - and I take my responsibilities both to the network and their audience extremely seriously. It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where I allow, or PBS would allow, a subject to drive content. (Unless it was part of the conceptual framework of the project) Gates was right when he said "Once we open the door to censorship, we lose control of the brand."