Ben Affleck requested that the PBS documentary series “Finding Your Roots” not reveal he had a slave-owning ancestor, according to emails published online by whistleblower site WikiLeaks, and the information never appeared on the program.
PBS and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, host of the show that traces the ancestry of well-known guests, said in separate statements that they didn’t censor the slave-owner details. Instead, more interesting ancestors of the actor emerged and Gates chose to highlight them in October’s segment featuring Affleck, they said in the statements posted on the PBS website.
“For any guest, we always find far more stories about ancestors on their family trees than we ever possibly could use,” Gates said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. He said finding slave-owning ancestors was very common in the series, and noted Ken Burns and Anderson Cooper were two guests with slave-owner relatives.
In Affleck’s case, “we decided to go with the story we used about his fascinating ancestor who became on occultist following the Civil War. This guy’s story was totally unusual: we had never discovered someone like him before,” he said.
Affleck’s rep did not immediately respond to an email request for comment Saturday. The award-winning actor and filmmaker (“Good Will Hunting” and “Argo”) has also organized humanitarian work in Africa.
More at ABC News
Some liberals possess such race-guilt that they cannot even allow facts of a distant ancestor that owned slaves go leak out. Sheesh, what idiots.
Then, with Henry Gates making the call, do you think he would have honored this request had the subject been a conservative?
Just shows you how celebrities live in some fantasy world. Regardless what his ancestors did do not reflect on him. Now if he continued the practice it would be another issue.
Both Afflect and Gates are students of Howard Zinn, the father of revisionist history in America.
Matt Damon (Affleck’s acting buddy) gave Zinn’s revisionist US ”history” book a part in one of his movies even.
Picking and choosing for the purposes of laying out a narrative that fits one’s agenda is basic to American revisionist history.
Keep in mind the way liberals think; no doubt, Affleck is thinking of how much use could be used on a conservative were it found he/she had a slave owner in their background, regardless of how it relates to their current actions, views or opinions.
Perhaps he, the millionaire liberal hypocrite, is worried about having an ancestor that was wealthy enough to actually OWN slaves; slaves were very expensive and one only needed them if one had great amounts of assets and wealth.
Time for Ben to pay up. Start writing those reparation checks Ben ol boy.
On the whole subject of reparations…notice how liberals insist muslims and islam cannot be blamed for the acts of muslim terrorists, but the entire group of current white Americans are somehow responsible for the history of antebellum slavery?
What’s next, rewriting American history to remove references to the slave trade? Oh, wait, they’re already trying that in Texas How Texas’ School Board Tried to Pretend Slavery Never Happened and Why Your Kid’s School May Be Next.
It does seem there are no levels to which liberals won’t stoop sometimes…
Update to this story:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/28/exclusive-ben-affleck-s-ancestor-did-not-own-slaves-tax-documents-show.mobile.html
Since moving to Utah I am surrounded by nice folks absolutely obsessed by who their ancestors were and what they did.
Ancestry.com was an LDS invention (used for FREE by any Mormon) because of the huge incidence of birth defects in their Utah population.
Apparently, back when polygamy was common among them a few men fathered many children whose grandchildren today are falling in love and wanting to marry.
But we are NOT responsible for the failings of our parents.
Ben is NOT a slaveholder, nor was he ever.
His ancestors might have done other shameful things, but, again, so what?
It has nothing to do with him.
Unless you are worried about having children carrying the same genetic recessive you and your spouse both carry, therefore expressing that recessive in a bad way, you really needn’t worry about your ancestors.
And bragging based on them is silly, too.
@Wordsmith:
And yet: