The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 79

3 1 I' -5i i JbuMw' iaanir4Vi i- HMM January 23, 1977 Scene Page 5 F. Sunday Examiner i Chronicle In the fat of all this physical torment, though, the menul anguish sccrm-d worst-1 he doubts atwmt family, where they were, unit they were. And after years of education in Juffure, learning to read and write Arabic and rente verses of the Koran, to hear Kunta speaking the slave argot of the American south "Yessuh. tears to the e), His internal monologue is simple but eloquent; externally. Kunta sounds merely like simpleton huh Is how all the slaves suunded.

speaking Englbh as a foreign tongue. In the book, Haley brings his story all the way to the present, recounting his attempts to trace his lineage back to Africa. He hears an old relative say the first of his line to be brought to America was named "Kintay." and with that as his guide be spent 12 years searching for his roots. Back and back he goes, through slave records. slavehlp records, all the way back to Gambia and Juffure, where the village griot, traditional living repository of tribal and village lore, tells of the capture by toubob slavers of Kunta Kmte.

His search is complete. The TV show, however, stops at the Emancipation Proclamation, that masterful political nianuever by Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves in the Confederacy, where Uncoln had no authority. So what Br-. 0. J.

Simpson and Ren Woods play tn African trlbssman and Ms daughtsr In tht first Installment of 'Roots' III The TV series shows us the experience of every man and woman stolen from Africa An odyssey through black history black readers alike can rxerlence the wrenching separation from home and village life from the black point of view the whites say things and do things, but Mnce we are looking out of Kunta's eyes, we have no more idea than he of what the strange language means. In more traditional depictions of slave trading, we see events from the white perspective the newly-stolen blacks usually whimper and Jabber and moan, only driving the cruel whites Into more beatings. Now, in we can understand why the blacks didn't talk, and we can understand what they say among themselves. It's the white who seem to Jabber, whose bodies stink, whose customs seem barbaric, whose houses and clothing seem ill suited to the environment. Due to the demands of television, this one-sided look at slavery has to be tempered, since the white speak English and TV viewers understand English.

The objective eye of the camera makes real the toubob slavers, who seemed misty monsters in the book. Nevertheless, the TV show has enough wallop left to make us start from our seats when Kunta is stolen. "Don't:" we cry, "That's a real person, we know him. we like him. bis parents and village need him:" And that's the way it was for every single black man and woman stolen from Africa and sentenced to a life of bondage.

TV also has to make some concessions to visual standards of taste and decency. The four-month passage of the Lord Ligonier slave ship from Gambia to Maryland was hell on earth for the slaves, 170 of whom were chained In the hold on their backs, with no movement possible. The men and women floated tn an Incredible stench their own excrement piling up around them without relief as scores died. Backs rubbed for months against the hard wooden planks wore away, leaving bones showing through the bloody sores. The white crew members raped the women brutally and repeatedly, but this, too, cannot be show n.

The depiction of the voyage on TV, as repulsive as it Is, looks like a pleasure cruise compared to what these Africans really had to endure. As Haley points out In the book, the end of the ocean crossing was Just the beginning of misery for the Africans. The slaves were sold at auction, open to the whims of masters who might beat, maim or rape them ithout restraint. LaVar Burton plays Kunta Klnta, a young Gamblan sold Into slavery, on tht ABC-TV aarlaa starting tonight She lay thinking of bow she bad never understooil why her pappy bad always felt so bitter against the worrf of white people "toubob" was bis word tor them. She thought of her mother's saying to ber.

You so lucky It scare me, cblle, 'cause you don' really know hat beln a nigger Is, an' I hopes to de good lad you don never ha ve to fin out. Well, she bad found our and there seemed no limit to the anguish whites were capable of wreaking upon black people. But the wont thing they did. her father said, was to keep them ignorant of who they are, to keep tbem from being fully human. "Rooti," by Ale Haley we are left with In the TV version is a story peopled by colorful characters.

As with so much fine story telling, though, there is a moral, a point to be made. Maybe the point can be exemplified in little ways, such as actor Lou Gossett, who plays Fiddler, changing his name on the credits to Louis Gossett. Jr, in honor of his father. Or maybe the point can be seen in the fact that 30 cities in the nation-Including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockton, Sacramento and Bakersfield In California-have proclaimed this Roots Week. Or that 144 colleges in 37 states have agreed to offer college credit for watching "Roots." Or that Roots" has brought more blacks into bookstores, according to reports from around the country, than ever before.

With the exception of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," television has never before shown us the black experience from the black perspective. Watching "Roots" or reading the book will probably bring tears of rage and sadness to the eyes of both blacks and whites. We can only hope that the cleansing emotional effect of that rage and sadness will linger beyond the evening news, and be put to much better use. By Bill Mandel Examiner Bruadcast Columnist view. The show opens in Gambia, West Africa, where a manchlld is born to Omoro and Blnta Kmte (played by Cicely Tyson and Thalmus Rasulala).

We see the thick texture of love and tradition in the village as the child. Kunta (played by newcomer LeVar Burton, grows from a baby underfoot to a young goat herder to a boy of about 13 (referred to as "rains" Instead of years because time Is kept by counting the seasonal rainy spells). A long segment of tonight's episode deals with manhood training, in which boys of Juffure, the village, are taught to hunt, walk the forest without leaving a trail, apeak the secret talk of men and have their Most or pemscs, circumsized, The natural sway of life in Juffure, based as It Is on harvests, hot rainy seasons, hunting seasons, birth and death, is the internal reality. The external reality is the world of the toubob, the white man. who walks the forest making an awful noise, builds cooking fires that are too large and smoky, and smells like a wet chicken.

These toubob have the same status In Juffure that Grendel had in Beowulf's meadeball half mystical, totally frightening, unremittingly evil. Toubob steal people from the village and ship them across the water where they are eaten by more important toubob. One day while out looking for a tree to make a drum, Kunta Kinte Is stolen by toubob slavers. The viewer, having spent time getting to know Kunta and his family, for whom Kunta bears the highest love, is stunned by the blow. It is here that the book and the TV show part company.

In the book, Haley casts the toubob In much the same way adults appear in "Peanuts" comic strips as shadowy, incomprehensible figures with no concrete personalities. They toubob tn "Roots" and adults In "Peanuts" control reality, but cannot be communicated ith. It is the brilliance of the book that white and yak 1 1 TaAaTai 4j 4Qx The St. Francis Suite, filled with white and black people, was tense. On a large TV screen, a hite slave-ship overseer bad Just finished whipping a black man, pacing all the while on the stench of the black man's encrusted bodily excrement.

"Ob. God." one white woman said to herself, hunting another cigarette. 'This makes me ashamed to be white." The television program on the screen was "Roots," a 12-hour, eight-night television adaptation of Alex Haley's epochal story of one family his family from the theft of his seventh-generation African grandfather by slave traders to the present The room was filled with people Invited by KGO to prescreen the first two hours of "Roots," which will be shown tonight on Channel 7 from 9 to 11 p.m. One could sense a feeling of distinct separation between the whites and blacks in the room. At the same time, though, one could sense the catharsis that truth so often provides.

"Roots" is a profoundly radical book. Just as plantation slave owners used to fear their slaves learning to read, write and communicate among themselves, those who still fear retribution for the disgraceful treatment of Africans in the colonial world will be uneasy over blacks being able to trace their heritage. Black people have always known, of course, that their forefathers were stolen from Africa, but until now the origin of each black person has been lost in the mists of time, poorly-kept records, mingling of white blood with black, the capricious changing of family names as slaves went from master to master. With his 12 years of sleuthing. Alex Haley has wiped away the ignorance mentioned in the quote from "Roots" that opens this article by opening up the question of who he is, Haley has made It possible for all blacks to feel, In his words, "fully human." "Roots" Is not polemical.

It Is a simple, straightforward story told in rich, colorful terms about interesting, affecting people. For this reason, ABC decided to spend $6 million and devote eight straight nights of its prime-time programming to a television version of the book. It's my guess that Americans will be willing to spend eight nights In a r.ow in front of their sets to keep track of the characters and events in "Roots." (The schedule Is: tonight, 9-11; Monday, 9-11; Tuesday, 10-11; Thursday, 10-11; Friday, 9-11; Saturday, 10-11; next Sunday, 9-11. All on Channel 7.) In television terms, ABC's decision to break established patterns and air a show eight nights running is viewed in the industry as a risky procedure. But it's apparent that Americans watch TV every night anyway, so why not try to duplicate the feat of the Olympics, and keep people talking about one topic all week long? ABC planned the eight nights carefully to avoid religious or national holidays.

Mother Nature has helped ABC along In much of the country by providing record-breaking cold weather, hich will keep millions more at home, in front of their glowing TV sets. What viewers of "Roots" will be seeing is a touching, angering, tearful story of a family's life torn asunder in Africa by the theft of a young boy, his shipment in the hold of a slave ship to Annapolis, his life as a plantation slave, his child's life and her child's life. What will make "Roots" so special is that rarely, if ever, have these events, so lightly enumerated above, been shown with such feeling. As with the book, but without equal impact, "Roots" shows us everything from the black point of Vi 9r A Vj 7 calA 1 1 aTa oivas VGU an altar ego. v.

I fx A 'A I i( 1 i 1 i i I lu i 'I IILX i- I 4L "'I1 i'-rj ft. fet Si 4 j4 i mm artS af 4 va fexwrav- ail Va jFK a I aaa aaa KV(K sV KtK Coordinating tweeds, stripes, and diagonal weaves you've seen these at your favorite shops! Rich colorings and textures, mostly from Italy, and mostly A buy to boast over, at Upstairs, of course! Your wedding is the day of perfection Trust Selix in your choice of Formal Wear. We've accompanied more brides down the aisle than anyone In the westl ONLY FIRST QUALITY LABELED GARMENTS 2.99 yard DRESSES COATS FURS SPORTSWEAR RAINCOATS no mail or phone orders open Monday and Thursday nights till 8 rut KIHMAI. WfcAH HPK miM 1904 MUCH LESS THAN YOU WOULD EXPECT TO PAY SAN (RANCISCO U' Ki'jmM Si 2HU Or.ttMl Avf SAN MAILO f.Jtl Md Avt HALO ALIO LrS UtiHvNty Ave SANTA CLARA 4hl Stutum Ciuuh BW SAN JOSE 60 South 2nd St. OAKLAND iT'A EL CF KKIlu VUA Son Pjblo Aw HAYWAKD I OKI i Siret't CONCORD IU.rill C.nlin Costa Bltd SACRAMLNIO 120b street 3030 Aidtn Way BR1TEX RM1CS 146 GEARY ST.147 MAIDEN LANESAN FRANCISCO VISITORS WELCOME-SHOP LEISURELY EHRENBERR 140 GEARY 6th Fir.

('' block from Union Sq.) S.F. Matter Charg, BankAmtricard or Lay-A-Wayi In oth nea consult vour local phone bonk.