Building And Presenting Power Relations In Roots

Original: Examining the Role of Language in Exploring Identity

Paraphrased: Investigating the Influence of Language on Identity Exploration

Roots, Alex Haley’s 1976 novel, told the story of a Kunta Kinte family’s struggle for survival. Haley’s story told the story about a man and his loved ones who were torn apart under American enslavement. Kunta Kinte was subject to a series of events that destroyed his family’s lives. Kunta Kinte, Bell, and their family have limited institutional power. Haley’s portrayal enslaved relatives is in contradiction to sociologists E. Franklin Frazier (Moynihan Report) who have reported on black families. This report supports a matriarchal family. Roots portrays Bell and Kunta as equals in terms of the power they have. The male and female have equal power. Both are practically powerless. Haley’s novel Roots depicts the struggle between institutionalized powerlessness and familial power.

Roots was published in an era when the history and structure the American black families was controversial. The Moynihan Review was published by U.S. Government in 1965, roughly ten year before Roots’ publication. Franklin Frazier was a prominent black sociologist who first published the Moynihan Research in 1965. Frazier said that the “Negro woman as wife/mother was the mistress at her cabin…and she had the final say in matters of mating and family.”3 The Moynihan Review updated Frazier’s earlier observations and findings. Robert Staples was one of the scholars who challenged Frazier’s assertions. Angela Davis is another. Staples explained that a “matriarchy” is a society that has some, but not all, the legal power to order and govern the family, including the power over property, the inheritance and the marriages, in women and not men.5 Davis was another sociolog who challenged the matriarchy thesis.6 She said that some matriarchal structures ignored the “deep traumas” the black woman had suffered when she was forced to give up her child-bearing rights to predatory and alien economic instincts.

Alex Haley, in Roots, depicts the struggle of an enslaved couple. Kunta Kinte is enslaved and Bell lives under the control of Master Waller. Bell only has limited power over trivial things like how her cabin looks, but Bell (and Kunta), have no institutional power. Kunta and Bell are selling Kizzy, which provides evidence to refute Frazier’s assertion that Bell was the mother. The horrible fate of their child is unchangeable. Bell begs Master Waller to “Don’t split us up!”7 but it is not enough. Kunta tries physical rescue of his daughter, but he “crumples down to his knees”,8 after he’s hit by the buttof the sheriff’s gun that “crashed above the ear”.9 This leaves both the mother as well as the father, female or male, without any power in this situation. Davis’ thoughts about the inability of enslaved women to exercise institutional power against the will of their masters is illustrated by this example.

At any moment, enslaved women’s lives could be ended. Kizzy was taken from her home and sold to Tom Lea2E. He raped her the first night he had Kizzy under his care. “Then came a terrible pain as he tried to get into Kizzy, and her senses seemed like they were going to explode.”11

Kunta and other Africans get off the “canoe”, and wait for the auction to begin.12 Kunta and his mates were left with nothing to do but to watch their women suffer the incessant rape at the hands the “toubob”.

The men couldn’t help the women, so they were powerless. Another instance where Kunta feels hopeless because he cannot aid a woman in need, occurs while at a slave auction, he hears “a chained Jola woman shrieking piteously…beseeching him to help her”13 he feels a rush of “bitter, flooding shame”14 at the prospect that he could not or did not do anything to help the woman.

Bell wept after an argument about Missy Anne’s visit to Kizzy. Both were crying.15 They couldn’t control their child’s fate, because they weren’t allowed to. Master Waller told Missy Anne that “he promised Missy Anne to Drop Kizzy Off at Massa John’s”.16 Kunta was against this, but he couldn’t change it. It was beyond his ability to do anything.

Slavery meant that the family structure of enslaved people was not patriarchal or matriarchal. It could not be! The master had total control over all aspects of the lives that were held captive to slavery. Kunta was even given a new name, Massa say your name Toby! Kunta arrived at “home” on his first plantation. Massa said Toby, and Kunta was “flooding.”18 Kunta wanted to shout “I Am Kunta Kinte first son Omoro, who was the son o holy man Kairaba Kunta Kinte”,19 yet he couldn’t say a word. Kunta was powerless.

Roots was one of the few places where Kunta or Bell had power to influence their lives. Bell, her daughter Kizzy and her husband had worked on Waller’s plantation for many decades. Bell also had partial literacy, which gave them another form of power. However, this power ultimately hurt Bell and Kizzy’s interests. Even though Bell held a high standing in Master Waller’s eyes, she was still unable to influence the sale. Kizzy was sold partly because she could read and write. Kizzy was ultimately defeated by her intellectual power.

Kunta struggled with power in his relationship with Bell and in his personal life. Kunta was assertive in asserting power with the naming ceremony for their daughter. Kunta wanted the traditions of his home country to be preserved. Kunta named Kizzy using the same Juffure ritual. Bell was reluctant but she was afraid of what Kunta would think if she did not allow it.21 Kunta gave their child the name Kizzy. This meant that he could either sit down or stand, which is how Bell explained to Bell. Unfortunately, Kunta didn’t get his wish for Kizzy. Kunta was unable to stop Kizzy’s (and Bell’s) worst fears from becoming a reality.

Roots, Alex Haley’s heartbreaking novel, describes the struggle for survival that the Kunta Kinte families experienced. The novel shows the brutal struggle between the institutionalized power of slaves and their family’s power. Haley shows Kunta and Bell, through many horrifying experiences, as powerless against their oppressors. The novel depicts the precarious, vulnerable lives of Kunta Bell and Bell but also highlights the resilience of this family. Contrary the belief of Frazier, Moynihan “the slave system didn’t — and couldn’t — engender or recognize matriarchal families.” Roots shows the enslaved people as an example of the mythical black matriarchy. The novel doesn’t attempt to prove a patriarchal structure of family members, but it does show the powerlessness of those enslaved.

Notations

1. U.S. Dept. U.S. Dept. of Labor, The Negro Family, The Call for National Action (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1995).

2. Robert Staples. The Myth of Black Matriarchy, Black Scholar, 2 Jan. – Feb. 1970, 341.

3. Deborah White, “Female Slaves”: Status and Sex in the Antebellum Plantation South, Journal of Family History 8 Fall 1983, 248

4. Staples, 336.

5. Staples, 335.

6. Angela Davis, “

Reflections on Black Women’s Role In the Community of Slaves,” Massachusetts Review. 13 Winter/Spring 1972. 84.

7. Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots recounts the story of an African-American family’s journey through slavery and emancipation, as told from the perspective of the protagonist Kunta Kinte. The book, published by Dell Publishing Co., details the struggles of Kunta and his descendants as they navigate the complexities of a life in bondage and freedom (Haley 452).

8. Haley, 452.

9. Haley, 452.

10. Staples, 334.

11. Haley, 455.

12. Haley, 214.

13. Haley, 322.

14. Haley, 322.

15. Haley, 385.

16. Haley, 385.

17. Haley, 385.

18. Haley, 232.

19. Haley, 232.

20. Haley, 336.

21. Haley, 367.

22. Haley, 368.

23. Davis, 82.