I've just watched the final episode on my Virgin catch up box. The series was powerful and moving about the struggle against unthinking racial or tribal oppression, the ease with which a dominant culture assumes it has all the true values and the ways in which those who have power and authority justify any means they have to retain their position.
I watched the original series when it was first broadcast and remember it as being good but not it having this impact on me. I don't know if that reflects the relative merits of the two series or my journey an almost thirty something who hadn't lived in the US to being almost 70 and having lived in/visited the US for about 4 years.
As someone who loves both the US and the UK for the good they can and sometimes have done, it seems all too relevant to what is happening in President Trump's America with its demonisation of the different, the stranger and the disadvantaged. Sadly it's relevant also to the UK dominated by a government in thrall to the powerful, which rewards the rich with more riches and takes from the poor and disabled, with a pitiful opposition, a country that has rejected its own best interests by stupidly deciding to sever its links with the EU.
Roots ends on a positive note. I hope that our two great countries also come through this dreadful period and move back soon to being examples of the shining city on the hill instead of showing how badly countries can get it wrong.
I watched the original series when it was first broadcast and remember it as being good but not it having this impact on me. I don't know if that reflects the relative merits of the two series or my journey an almost thirty something who hadn't lived in the US to being almost 70 and having lived in/visited the US for about 4 years.
As someone who loves both the US and the UK for the good they can and sometimes have done, it seems all too relevant to what is happening in President Trump's America with its demonisation of the different, the stranger and the disadvantaged. Sadly it's relevant also to the UK dominated by a government in thrall to the powerful, which rewards the rich with more riches and takes from the poor and disabled, with a pitiful opposition, a country that has rejected its own best interests by stupidly deciding to sever its links with the EU.
Roots ends on a positive note. I hope that our two great countries also come through this dreadful period and move back soon to being examples of the shining city on the hill instead of showing how badly countries can get it wrong.