In October 2014, he was the subject of an episode of "Finding Your Roots" on PBS hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (of Beer Summit fame). On the show, Dr. Gates researches the guest's family tree and then they sit down and ooh and aaaah about their ancestors. But the email revealed that there may have been a few branches cut out of Mr. Affleck's tree for the show. It turns out that one of the branches on Affleck's family tree was a 19th Century Southern slave-owner named Benjamin Cole of Georgia. He was so embarrassed that someone like that could have been an ancestor that he asked the producers to cut out that particular branch from his episode and they obliged. Not only has this revelation landed the PBS production in hot water for breach of integrity, but poor Ben's embarrassing secret has been revealed.
"I didn't want any television show about my family to include a guy who owned slaves," Affleck wrote. "I was embarrassed. The very thought left a bad taste in my mouth."
Affleck is now on his apology tour and it just smacks of being way overly sensitive in that Liberal way that only Liberals can be. I mean, seriously, what difference does it make (thanks, Hillary!). Does Affleck really think that he will lose his Liberal street cred and people will refuse to see his movies because of something one of his distant ancestors did 150 years ago?
Now I should say this. I have at least one Southern slave-owner in my family tree too and the papers to prove it. And depending on how far back I go, I have ancestors who were slaves in Eqypt. But as a half-way intelligent person, I have the ability to put that kind of thing into its proper historical context. It was what people did in this country and we have to admit that it was perfectly legal up until Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I cannot be embarrassed by my ancestors because A) there's is nothing that can change that history and B) my family hasn't owned slaves for generations now. Am I being a little bit insensitive?
Let's discuss. And if any of you have any embarrassing ancestors, the time to reveal it would be now...
On a similar note, New York City will soon be revealing its slave selling past. A memorial plaque will be set up on June 19th at the site of a 18th Century slave market ironically on Wall Street.
27 comments:
I wax philosophical when I'm hammered, so here goes, Afleck is full of it....Look, as we say down here in the South, "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your kin folks..." Just because someone is something, ie, a slave owner does not mean that they were evil people, nor does the fact that someone hated slavery mean they were pure,,,ie. John Brown. My ancestors were a mixed bag of fairly wealthy planters, on my mother's side, and saw-miller/merchants, (who didn't have any slaves) but still fought with Forrest. At the Battle of
Franklin, Tenn. our family lost men on both sides...Tennessee was like that. You can't change history, it happened..
Bev, At moments like these, I go back to the old question: if a conservative had done this how would Ben Affleck respond then?
I think the answer is that Afleck would join the chorus on the left in trying to make that conservative into the face of slavery and would do their best to sell the idea that he/she wanted to return to slavery. He would also scream about censorship and the suppression of the truth.
So I take the same position against Afleck now. Clearly, Aflleck loves him some slavery and he's a Nazi for trying to censor the truth.
BTW, I can't imagine the program would have agreed to protect a conservative.
Bev, P.S. I just realized that I messed up the schedule by posting yesterday. Sorry about that.
My family tree: the brother of Francis Marion, at least one confederate soldier, Irish, a Jewish woman who converted to Christianity, and, on my mother's mother's side, a long line of Methodist ministers.
As we saw a few weeks ago the Confederate lineage has not impacted my views on the Civil War in a way that one might predict and my brother is a Baptist.
Never been deeply interested in the roots of my family tree. The white side of my very mixed mother's family tree (who owned plantations in Jamaica) has been attending family events (including my mother's funeral last week) for the past couple years.
One of my oldest daughter's best friends lost both her parents to drugs (before we met her) and the tale of woe doesn't end there (several years down the line there was a rape attempt from an uncle who committed suicide a few months later) but while I keep an eye on her the same way I keep an eye on all my daughters' friends but I don't hold people who actions she couldn't possibly control against her.
I've been disappointed by family members, but the only people whose actions I feel responsible for (and thus would feel guilt about if they did something bad) are my daughters.
I don't think parents are 100 percent responsible for their kids (at some point everyone starts making their own decisions/mistakes) but the reverse isn't true at all.
This is a great example of Liberals eating their own; kind of like the image of a snake eating its own tail. Most likely, if his relative owned slaves he was probably also a man of wealth and stature at the time. Even the warts in our family can be interesting. I don't know of a lot of warts in my family. I know a distant relative on my mother's side was hung as a road agent. But also on her side was a territorial judge. On my father's side, there is a different distant relative hung for rustling. There was also a great, great grandmother (maybe further) who was Native American. Not sure which tribe but I think one from the Midwest, possibly Wisconsin area. Interestingly, I never knew about this until just a few years ago. My father also told me of a cousin who was a complete hermit who lived in the mountains. He remembers as a boy going to his father to the man's cabin to bring in supplies (flour, shells). He said you would never surprise him. Sometimes he would come of the woods and talk with you and sometimes he wouldn't. If you didn't see him, his father would just leave the supplies and go home. If he saw you he would offer some of his rabbit stew. Dad said it was awful. Weird, kooky, and completely interesting. Over the years, I have heard many interesting stories about my paternal grandfather such as burying a guy who was murdered; I guess it was felt he deserved it.
Anyone notice how you never hear anyone talk about slave reparations anymore?
Anthony. - I am so sorry to hear about your Mother's passing. My prayers and condolences to you and your family.
You are right about "the sins of the father". Our ancestors and even current relatives do not dictate who we are or will be. They can be inspiration or cautionary tales. But you can't choose who they are.
Koshcat - my father had a crazy relative who decided to only talk on Thursdays. He thought that he could extend his life by saving energy by not talking.
Thanks Bev.
Anthony, I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I wish you and your family the best.
Anthony,
My sincerest condolences and prayers to you and your family. God bless.
Anthony, God bless your mother, yourself, and your family. May she be at peace.
You're in my prayers, my friend.
Anthony, you have my prayers and condolences as well. I actually lost my mother a few weeks ago, too, so I know what it feels like. Let me know if I can help somehow.
As for the topic at hand, I'm not too familiar with my family background, with the only things I know for sure is that I had some Cherokee and Jewish ancestors somewhere. I don't hold things like slave owning ancestors against people, either, or believe it makes them a worse person unless they try to actively emulate their more distasteful ancestors somehow. I can't say I feel too sorry for Ben Affleck, though, as obnoxious as he gets and, as Andrew pointed out, considering what would have happened if a conservative entertainer had done this. The fact that the whole show was done by Beer Summit Gates adds another amusing level of irony to it as well.
- Daniel
Daniel, I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I wish you the best!
Thanks, Andrew. It's been a lot to deal with on a lot of levels, given how her condition had been these past few years, as well as what it may mean for the future. If you don't mind I'll e-mail you soon... There are a few things I could definitely use your take on.
- Daniel
Daniel, Sure. I'm happy to offer any advice I can.
Thanks guys.
Back on topic, can anyone think of a scandal caused by someone having a bad apple in the roots of their family tree? Neither I nor the first several pages of a couple google searches brought up any examples.
The problems I found came not from family trees but from lies sbout them (Elizabeth Warren springs to mind).
Moving on to random news, Bruce Jenner has come out as a conservative and Dog the Bounty Hunter is a big Clinton fan. Truly we live in strange times :) .
"Moving on to random news, Bruce Jenner has come out as a conservative and Dog the Bounty Hunter is a big Clinton fan. Truly we live in strange times :) ."
Wait, what the f**k?!
Ben Affleck's mother has stated that contrary to Gate's claims, she was never a Freedom Rider.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/04/24/more-trouble-for-pbs-afflecks-mother-says-she-was-never-a-freedom-rider/
Chris Affleck, now 72, told the Daily Mail this week that her “heart was with” the Freedom Riders, but that she was never a member of the group. According to the outlet, Mrs. Affleck was not even in the South in 1964, but one year later instead.
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So we have established not only that Henry Louis Gates lies upon request, but he is a sloppy researcher. Truly disappointing.
Anthony, I saw your comment and I've been thinking about. While the idea of a scandalous ancestor works great in films, there really isn't anyone I can think of who has faced a scandal because of who their ancestors were. The only one that comes to mind is Arnold Schwarzenegger had to deny that his grandfather had been a Nazi, but that never became a problem for him.
I think that Afleck's actions are either the result of his desire to see himself as infallible or he senses that the modern left has become so hypersensitive that he's afraid that any blemish could lead to him being made a target by his "friends."
As for Afleck's mother, I saw that and had to laugh. I'll bet Ben told him that too. So Ben is lying all around to give himself liberal credentials... and Professor Beer Summit proves to be a really bad researcher.
On the other point, Jenner doesn't interest me.
But I find it funny that conservatives thought Dog the Bounty Hunter was a conservative. This is a classic example of how conservatism has gone off the rails: "He is tough and macho, ergo he must one of us!! Yeah!! (//grabs balls)"
Yeah, except if you ever watched his show, you would see all the signs of a man who lives firmly within white trash culture. That means he lives in a world of very poor choices... serial fatherhood with multiple women (6 to be exact), serial divorces, drug addiction, criminal records (Dog murdered his drug dealer in the 1970s and spent 5 years in jail), government dependency, family feuding, tattoos and strippers, petty law breaking with an emphasis on domestic violence arrests, etc.
Sure, he "found God," but that is who this man and his family are. People like that aren't conservatives, they are liberals because they believe (1) the government should get off their back about their crimes and (2) the government should keep handing them money.
90% of what I know about Dog the Bounty Hunter came from South Park.
The Bruce Jenner thing is more surprising. Pleasantly surprising, but surprising.
I watched his show for a bit because it was interesting to see Hawaii from the ground level. He comes across as an interesting guy who might be fun to hang with for a while, but make no mistake about who he is and who he reverts to the moment he finds himself stressed out by his family... who are exactly like him.
P.S. Bruce Jenner is surprising. BUT I'll believe it when I see it for any length of time. Right now, I suspect he's a fake Republican who plans to do a "coming out" and announce that because he's transgender and the Republicans have been such meanies, he's now becoming a Democrat! Yeah, right.
Andrew,
The only thing holding me back from fully embracing Bruce Jenner into the Dark Side is that the Left has not attacked him. No oppo dumps, no trashing out as a "traitor" or something like that.
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