David I was also there, and it was exactly as you say, “America was riveted by Roots, but terrorized by Roots. The identity crisis and guilt reflexes triggered all over America were real and profound.”
After eight nights of Roots, people were desperate for a remedy to treat their sudden, shocking, and painful confrontation with historical truths. A sense of helplessness permeated American homes. Parents could not answer their children’s questions, let alone their own. People whispered to each other, why didn’t they teach this in school? How could I have been so blind? Now that we know, what are we supposed to do now?
However, the roots of the terror itself warrant the deepest look. As Roots played on their tv screens, it felt like the deeds of people long dead and gone had risen from their graves to haunt them. Harder still, the terror that Roots brought home was made of sins so great, G-d would surely punish their descendants for generations on end. The bible offered no quick or easy remedy for sins so big they could only be accounted for at the Pearly Gates.
Christians prayed for deliverance. They recited their Lord’s prayer, and when they got to the words “deliver us from evil” they believed extra hard, that G-d would deliver them from the evils of sin, that “others” had done unto “others” during the age of slavery.
Deliverance came a year later, with another tv mini-series. The Holocaust, starring Meryl Street, James Wood, and Michael Moriarty ushered in a new myth. This new myth wrapped itself around the generation that had fought the second world war. Like the Lost Cause, this new myth sold the idea that American soldiers had liberated the concentration camps and saved the Jews from the evil Nazis.
Anyone even slightly versed in American history, knows full well, that American leaders had zero interest in liberating a bunch of Jews from the Nazis. General Eisenhower stated the coldest, harshest truth of all.
After his inspection of one concentration camp, Eisenhower declared, “We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against.” Parse those words, put them under a microscope and examine them.
Not only did Eisenhower admit that American soldiers did not know what they were fighting for. He also admitted that the concentration camps had “delivered” a reason.
And so it came to pass, that a tv mini-series, titled the Holocaust, birthed a myth that once again, delivered white Americans from the retribution of their angry G-d. In the minds of white Christians, the Holocaust myth settled the score for slavery. Some even called it atonement.
Alas, a myth remains a myth. American soldiers had no idea concentration camps even existed, until they stumbled into one. According to soldiers themselves, the living cadavers that stared back at them through barbed wire fences, watched as America’s battle-hardened soldiers crumbled to their knees, wept, vomited, ran away, or stood there too shocked to move. Soldiers who were there, say every one of them asked, why didn’t anyone warn us about these camps?
After Roots, then the Holocaust mini-series, the term “Judeo-Christian values” was heard again – especially in evangelical circles being groomed to serve as the grassroots arm of the newly re-constructed Republican Party.
David, as you point out, a year later Ronald Reagan would ride the new mythology into office and render one of our country’s greatest statesman, Jimmy Carter, a joke.
PS. David, it is good to see you writing again. Sorry, this comment got so long. I’ve been working on a related piece, and you struck that chord.
