Post

#BoycottTennessee

I remember watching the show on TV with my parents. It was hugely popular when it first aired, IIRC. It was certainly a new phenomenon.

Same, and I was in South Carolina at the time. Think it was around the 90's. Bounced around a lot of schools in SC, but I know I watched it in class.

Ah, Knox County, run by a retired MMA wrestler. Not a surprise.

The US. The shining light of Democracy and Free Speech censors the largest number of school books of all Democratic nations. Free speech my arse.

We weren’t required to but *everybody did*.

Yes. “ It happened. Let’s talk about it.” are such comforting words.

Everyone in my high school watched it in social studies 2, this was the early 2010s. I don’t know if it was specifically in the curriculum or an agreements between the handful of teachers in the social studies department.

His descendants should pull his papers from the University of Tennessee. If they’re not proud of them, and they’re clearly not, why should they have them? Fuck the entire South.

Yes, I was in high school, and it was required here as well. The entire family watched together. Great conversations at home and in almost every class at school. It was a major event.

I saw it twice in school. Twice! In the 90s

Tennessee had a big state-wide event in 1986 called Tennessee Homecoming. I distinctly remember Alex Haley coming to my small town and speaking with Republican governor Lamar Alexander. I can't imagine anything like that would happen now.

When Roots first aired, we were required to watch it for 7th grade Soc. Studies. The bad thing was that the some of the white boys in my almost all-white school started using the n-word a LOT. It was like seeing the horrors of slavery hardened rather than softened their hearts.

I agree

Well -- most of them picked sides during the civil rights era and never changed their minds. Thankfully mine were very hippie - adjacent and my mom was still mad at HER mom for not letting her socialize with her black friends outside of school, which turned Mom into a community activist.

What was the argument southern states would use to defend keeping Confederate statues up? Something about preserving history blah blah blah...

Late 1990s and same...in Tennessee. Literally a formative memory for me. There is no question this is meant to pave the way for racists to reintroduce chattel slavery.

The remake appears to be on Tubi which is free

Their plans are not limited to the South! Get your head out of the sand!

TBH , it should be required for kids and citizenship applicants but our country is inherently racist, sooo. 😭

We read the book in third or fourth grade and I'd forgotten the name but remember the book, so thank you!

probably should also run candidates to replace the racist school board

I had a gigantic crush on Levar Burton.

JFC

Would have been my Jr. yr. HS. Never saw it. I didn't need any more reminders of man's inhumanity beyond what I saw on a daily basis irl. I do watch "Finding Your Roots" and admit I get teary eyed when research hit a wall because of slavery. Long live Dr. Gates!

Unconscionable. Our society is incompatible with racists. A reckoning needs to come. And soon. I don’t care what that means for them. I really don’t.

Me too, in the 90s. This is all post 9/11.

These are the same white people that swore The Wiz was made to make white people look bad.

We all know the reason 🤨

We watched in high school but we also watched at home. It was epic!

It still should be! That movie was life altering.

We weren't required, but everyone watched it because we wanted to. It set TV viewing records.

Stupid? Better adjectives: evil, craven, despicable…

Nah. He’s reacting negatively to the book being banned. And commenting negatively on the changes in moral climate

Well, it was new territory for many people and it is riveting, horrifying history. So yeah, it was dramatic. And eye opening.

We were shown Roots in class at school in the early 80s!

Now more than likely more kids will read it than they ever would have had they just left it alone.

Timothy Snyder, “The War on History Is A War on Democracy” www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/m...

Yep. The Day After was the other one we were assigned.

When I was at uni, the students union played all ten(?) episode in our theatre in one day. I went and did my first binge watch. Gee my bum was sore. By the time it arrived on NZ tv some months later, it was appointment family viewing every Sunday night.

Don't mistake the smaller proportion of colossal assholes for the entire grouping.

Cynicism and apathy are a deadly combo and for whatever reason we are rife with both

Just down the road apiece from the site of the Scopes monkey trial.

We weren't required but we got extra credit if we did so and wrote about it.

The competition among TN, LA and TX for most repugnant rising Confederate redux is very tight.

So many parents are proudly raising ignorant/benighted children, now.

I watched with my son in Nashville. He also was required to watch for extra credit.

We watched it in 7th grade history class in the 80s.

As it should be. ROOTS is our history as a country and should be respected as such.

‘77 gave us Roots & ‘78 gave us Holocaust. Quality tv that was required watching

When they take the James Meredith statue down at Ole Miss, the destruction of all that has been advanced will be complete.

Yeah me too funny enough. My parents were both Vietnam era vets too. Stationed in Mississippi before the end of segregation (both northern whites). That must have been educational

Disgraceful, America.

We were too. It was a memorable and impactful learning experience. So many kids learned about history and empathy as a result.

What are their thoughts on Birth of a Nation?

Alllllrighty then. Lol 😂

I would have been 3rd/4th grade? I don't think we watched it in school but we definitely watched it at home. We talked about it. It was everywhere. I was too young to have been aware of any backlash if it happened.

If it's banned I gotta read it.

Yes this country is barely recognizable from the one I grew up in. It's very very sad.

This continued into the 80s as well, at least it did here in TEXAS

I watched it in the 80s in school.

I vividly remember watching it on TV in 1979 when I was 12. I bawled half the night because I could not conceive of people treating other people that way. It definitely changed how I viewed so many things here in the South that I had previously not questioned.

Could Quincy make it onto TV today? Especially the later series?

I was 10 when it came out. No one required my family or me to watch it. We were glued to our TV each night during the first run. Like nearly half the country. Compelled by choice. That's how much the world has changed. So much for the worse.

And, IIRC, watching the mini series "Holocaust" the next year or so later.

What the HELL in the Holy Klan robe is going on in Knox county?!😾

WTF

My family was not permitted to watch it when it originally aired. My father would not allow us. At the time we were living in Houston Texas and were members of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church.

I was a white kid at a majority black high school when Roots first broadcast, it had an impact! Kids were going around calling “Roots!” to each other, and sometimes to me (it was in good fun, pride not hostility)

So sad. Also if they are just reading select portions to make the case, then they would also be pulling The Bible if it were on the shelves.

I guess it depended on where you lived and if your school was public or private, because i never was required to watch it. I was born in 65

Yes. Not too young to know accurate history, but too young to watch the violence and man’s inhumanity to man.

yes. so were we - - 7th grade . . .

Knox County will never miss an opportunity to be extravagantly and boisterously racist.

Same in the mid to late 80s. Possibly not everywhere but this was in red AF southern Idaho so chances are it was widespread curriculum.

7 year olds in the 70s were REQUIRED to watch a show that started at 9pm on a school night? I had a much different experience as a 70s kid.

The censorship of ‘Roots’ is proof that Americans, as a whole, were more open-minded, curious, tolerant, and enlightened fifty years ago—in 1976–than they are now. It’s a race to the fucking bottom and America just might win!🏅

What is wrong with you people? Which cares what happened in our childhood. We are in the 20s. Quit yapping and call or email.

We had to watch all eight episodes in the 8th grade circa 2003ish.

www.foxnews.com/politics/mis...

Same. Not only that, we had weeks long units teaching about it.

Not the world, just this sad country 🙁🙁

I remember this too.

Actively taking steps to make our kids dumber and then wondering why test scores keep going down.

Ahh yeah ok that makes sense

What justification did they give? Besides the obvious of course

I've only been living in TN for a couple of years, but it's racist AF here...

Hahaha 😂 #Optimism your doing it right! 👍

We watched in 6th grade in 1990. I still remember the way I felt during certain scenes.

It was a TV phenomenon in the UK.

My MOTHER made us watch it. We are indigenous, but her best friend, and my second mother was a black woman, whose family was VERY close to us. The USA is no longer the USA. It is now Germany-1935. Shame on the racist assholes. They need a taste of their own medicine.

roots traumatized me, as it should any decent person

Time to watch it again.

I'm white, and I'm offended.

The remake was even more accurate.

IIRC it was the first miniseries. The word was coined for Roots.

I'm white and I grew up in the USSR and I still watched it with my full attention. It was a great series.