Identity In Alex Haley's Roots

In the African American community, slaves are a big yet sensitive topic. The way our people were treated for many years, forced to obey to the white supremacist in hopes to live another day said a lot. It was not until the late 1970s that a man of color had spoken about it which later became a hit show. Alex Haley’s novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family erupted into a hit miniseries in 1977. The show displayed a visual image of Alex Haley’s family line of ancestors who were enslaved. Kunta Kinta, known as the main character, embarks a life changing decision when he is captured and enslaved. Throughout the miniseries, we see him growing as a person while also fighting to gain his freedom back. The miniseries brings about some aspects

Audience Reception is the focus on how diverse audiences interpret texts differently. While viewing quite a few episodes of Roots, Kunta Kinta character encounters a shift. He goes from a boy working to learn the means of becoming a man to “Tom.” As I watched the experience of him after getting enslaved, one can see through forceful training and restructuring of identity, Kunta Kita was shaped to be a “hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-vey kind” nigger. (Bolge, 6). This form of identity as I interpreted from an African American perspective is the ideal person any slave owner of that time wished for. He learned that in order to survive under the watchful eyes of the white males was to obey and respect them as his masters. “Toby” the slave name given to him which he refused to claim for a while but later accepted it was the first sign of “Tom.” It can be understood that this was not an act of weakness, but a decision made in which became the answer to every black man’s problems. To survive in a place where whites over power the blacks, capitulating to their demands became what was best for Kunta. In addition to that, we can’t ignore the fact that what lead to this understanding came from a group of writers; “not one Black writer among the script writers for the show or directing the film” (Arnez, 369). A black story being broadcasted by a white perspective. Their vision of a typical slave from a novel was different from what I thought of Kunta Kinta. Therefore, what the writers had encoded into the work of this miniseries lead me to decode it to be a man whose being rebuilt to symbolize the ideal