Boston-born actor Ben Affleck has found himself in some hot water that dates all the way back to before the Civil War, and WikiLeaks is the stove that heated the kettle.
The PBS show “Finding Your Roots” is a television series that traces families back centuries to learn about their good deeds or wrongdoings. And in Affleck’s family’s case, it was a clear misdoing: the show discovered that one of his ancestors allegedly owned slaves.
Affleck did what any other embarrassed man would do when confronted with the revelation that someone in their family used to own slaves. He contacted show host and producer Henry Louis Gates Jr. and asked him to edit that part out.
In the episode of the PBS show that featured the actor, which aired in October 2014, his slave-owning relative was mysteriously not mentioned. Gates said they didn’t censor the details about Affleck’s family’s history of slavery, but instead chose more interesting ancestors to highlight.
However, here’s where WikiLeaks comes in: an email chain between Gates and Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton that was released in the massive Sony leak consisted of Gates asking Lynton for advice on what to do about Affleck’s request not to include the unsavory details.
“Here’s my dilemma: confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors — the fact that he owned slaves,” Gates wrote in a July 22, 2014 email. “We’ve never had anyone every try to censor or edit what we found. He’s a megastar. What do we do?”
Affleck took to Facebook Tuesday to explain this away, apologizing in a long post to any fans that may have been hurt by the ordeal.
“We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors, and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery,” he wrote.
On Saturday, PBS said they did not know about the emails that were sent between Gates and Lynton, and they didn’t know that there were any details left out of Affleck’s episode of the show, The Boston Globe reported. The network claimed it had nothing to do with the editorial decisions Gates and the rest of the producers made.
PBS also announced that they will be conducting an internal review of “Finding Your Roots” to ensure that the episode, entitled “Roots of Freedom,” was up to editorial standards. The review began Saturday, according to a statement released by PBS spokeswoman Anne Bentley on Tuesday.
“It’s important to remember that this isn’t a news program,” Affleck wrote on his Facebook page regarding the controversy. “You voluntarily provide a great deal of information about your family, making you quite vulnerable. The assumption is that they will never be dishonest, but they will respect your willingness to participate and not look to include things you think would embarrass your family.”
Affleck claimed on Facebook that he “lobbied” the producers to cut the part about the slave-owning ancestors “in the same way I lobby directors about what takes of mine I think they should use.” But this isn’t a big-budget movie. It’s real life. It’s not acted slavery. It’s real slavery, and real people were and still continue to be affected by slavery’s legacy.
When it all comes down to it, this is a television show that was meant for entertainment purposes first and foremost. It educates as well, but it mostly educates for the person who is the subject of the specific episode. If you take away the cameras, it’s Affleck’s family, and if he’s agreeing to air things about his family, he also has the right to edit out whatever he wants to be edited out.
It doesn’t say much about Affleck that he wanted to edit out the revelation that his ancestors owned slaves, but it is important to acknowledge it. Not only does editing this huge part out ruin the purpose of the show, but it also keeps it totally under wraps. Had WikiLeaks not released the emails between Gates and Sony, the public would never have known about this. He doesn’t have to apologize for it, but it’s important to understand, to acknowledge and be truthful about the wrongdoings of our ancestors.
We’re taught in school that the purpose of learning history is to not repeat the past. Affleck has a right to be embarrassed by the wrongdoings of his ancestors, but he had the opportunity to bring the legacy of slavery to the forefront of 21st century conversation, and rather than rise to the occasion, he shoved the topic behind the curtain. Let’s not have shame for what our ancestors did wrong. Let’s instead learn from them and move forward as one united front.
