A Slave to his Image

It came to light last week that Ben Affleck convinced producers of a PBS TV show not to reveal that one of his ancestors owned slaves. This wasn’t just a mistake, it was a missed opportunity. 

Several big name celebrities have allowed the show Finding Your Roots to unearth their histories and air them for all to see. Affleck wasn’t the first to have a slave-owning family member on his family tree. How could he be? In fact, Anderson Cooper’s ancestor was apparently such a terrible man that one of his slaves murdered him even though he risked hanging. In fact, the killer was hanged. Investigators with the show say Affleck’s relative treated his slaves well.

A few months ago, I wrote here about how some of my ancestors were slave-owners while, on the other side of the family, they were staunch abolitionists. I’m horrified that anyone, anywhere would have ever “owned” other people but the fact that someone in my bloodline, several generations back did so, is not a reflection on me. In fact, it gives me the chance to openly distance myself from that type of behavior. And that’s the opportunity that Affleck missed. It was foolish of him to deny something that occurred with people he didn’t know, long before he was born. He missed a chance to denounce what they did.

This revelation was made in the leaked Sony documents. Executives at PBS emailed each other about Affleck’s demand and admitted that if it ever got out, their reputations would be tainted. Now that it’s public knowledge, they say the slave-owning detail wasn’t interesting enough to include in the show. The censorship has certainly been interesting for major media to cover.

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