Talk:Roots: The Saga of an American Family

message: Any idea why they changed the surnames of the white characters in the TV Mini-series?
Waller became Reynolds, Lea became Moore...etc. Also should this fact be included in the article?
84.153.81.59 19:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is already a separate article for the miniseries, so I'd imagine that would be the best place to include it.  Mwelch 23:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I semi-agree about the name change part going under the mini-series article. But it doesn't look like anyone added anything there yet. So....I'd like to speculate on the name changes: Author Haley was writing about his own family and could probably give his own permission for the fam names to be used. However, there are "Lea's" in Caswell Co, NC to this day (and a small village called Leasburg, once the Co seat). I would guess there are "Wallers" in Va as well. So my speculation is the producers could not get permission to represent these familys/ancestors in the series, and/or wanted to avoid a possible conflict or slander charge from the beginning. After all, we've no proof Tom Lea was an alcoholic; or that the Wallers sold Kizzy away for being literate and forging a Pass, or any of the other things Haley took license with that portray these people in a bad light. Obviously slavery was abhorrent, but casting aspersions ("guilt by association") on the modern families without proof is unaccedptable....I'm no lawyer, but thats my speculation.  Engr105th 00:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Character Surname Changes

message: :Image:AlexHaley Roots pb.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 19:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:AlexHaley Roots pb.jpg

message: :Image:AlexHaley Roots modclassic.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 19:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I concur. I've read the book but never seen the TV version - I was wondering why the Wiki article stated that...Engr105th 21:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:AlexHaley Roots modclassic.jpg

message: In the book, when Kunta is in Africa, he and his relatives walk everywhere they go.  This confirms that the supposedly advanced society that "toubob" interrupted had not yet invented the wheel.  The book, which we now discover was plagiarized, is a plastic fantasy, in which black people are portrayed as uniformly virtuous and white people (with one insignificant exception) are portrayed as uniformly wicked.  Such nonsense merely stirs up interracial friction and is detrimental to society.  If a white person wrote a book that glorified the white race in the same manner as Haley exalts the black race, it properly would be condemned as racist.  If there is to be an objective NPOV analysis of the book on Wikipedia, these factors should be mentioned.    John Paul Parks (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Alas, Wikipedia is not the place for unsourced literary criticism or for sweeping generalizations about whether particular societies are "advanced."  Mgllama (talk) 01:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur... Engr105th (talk) 03:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Interesting Items in Book

message: The intro claims it  "spent ballsack weeks on the new york...."  please correct!!! Ty!!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.25.118 (talk) 00:58, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  VULGARITY IN INTRO 

message: Following the success of the novel and the miniseries, Haley was accused by two authors of plagiarism of their novels. Harold Courlander successfully asserted that Roots was plagiarized from his novel The African, published in 1967. The resulting trial ended with an out-of-court settlement and Haley's admission that some passages within Roots had been copied from Courlander's work; he said it was unintentional.
Edward Kosner, reviewing the volume Alex Haley by Robert J. Norrell, said that Haley "could have avoided all the grief if he and his publishers had simply labeled the book [Roots] what it was—a historical novel valid in its essential narrative but informed by the imagination".
This transition to the second paragraph doesn't make sense. The Edwin Kosner remark concerns the factuality of the narrative (whether the people and events really were as depicted), not whether it was plagiarized. A sentence needs to be added. 178.39.255.25 (talk) 09:15, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing transition sentence 

message: When Chicken George apparently goes to the UK, slavery had been abolished there already, so that could not have happened as described in the recent series (and book?). If that is in the book too, shouldn't there be something about that in the historical inaccuracy section? Can any verify if it is in the book too?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heywoodg (talk • contribs) 09:01, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery in the UK - Chicken George