Season 10: All Episode Talk

[kassa]

It was less gripping than King's, but interesting. In an era where you have to twist arms just to get people to vote, we forget everything that would have been at stake to turn on your country and your government on the say so of people who had no use for you except as cannon/musket fodder. 

[Zero7]

11 hours ago, Jadzia said:

I got really depressed last night reading some of the comments on WDYTYA's Facebook page. If you can watch a show about the KKK and your main takeaway was that it was "unfair to white people", you just might be a racist. There were also lots of comments from people denying that police kill black people. It's so sad how much denial people live in about things that don't directly affect them.

I think what set those people off is her statement that "nothing has changed" since the time of her great great grandfather.  Injustice against blacks still exists, but she didn't seem to want to acknowledge that anything is any better now.   All white people today are not the same as they were 150 years ago.  A lot of whites are not racist today but are tired of the blanket insinuation that they are.

8 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Have they had the same reaction to the episodes where people find their relatives were killed by Nazi's?

No because no Jews have come on the show saying that nothing has changed in Germany towards their people since WWII.  There has been a recent rise of antisemitism in Germany and elsewhere, but still nowhere near the level that existed in Nazi Germany, as in millions of Jews being killed, etc.

[drivethroo]

13 hours ago, Zero7 said:

I think what set those people off is her statement that "nothing has changed" since the time of her great great grandfather.  Injustice against blacks still exists, but she didn't seem to want to acknowledge that anything is any better now.   All white people today are not the same as they were 150 years ago.  A lot of whites are not racist today but are tired of the blanket insinuation that they are.

When Regina King was saying "nothing has changed," she was referring to how black people are characterized to fit a narrative to justify unjustices.   The same language that was used on her ancestor back in the 1870s is being used on black people today in 2018/19.  That article she read from that "newspaper" from the 1870s could've been written in 2018, so in that she is correct, nothing has changed.

I would say that white people of today are the same as they were 150+ years ago: there are some white people who want to uphold white supremacy and others who feel it's a bunch of bullshit.  The judge in Regina's ancestor's case felt the charges were trumped up and bogus; that's why he only gave him 2 years. The white witness in the first story said the white guy Hollingsworth was actually the one who started the fracas but he was overruled by the other white people in town because that didn't fit the narrative of some "infernal negro" going buck wild and randomly attacking people.  The guys in the military who busted Regina's ancestor out of jail were most likely white.

If people use Regina King's anger and sentiment over the mistreatment of her ancestor and murder of his first wife by white people in the 1860s-70s to justify mistreating black people in 2019, then they have proven Regina correct: nothing has changed.

Edited December 19, 2018 by drivethroo

[Zero7]

3 hours ago, drivethroo said:

When Regina King was saying "nothing has changed," she was referring to how black people are characterized to fit a narrative to justify unjustices.   The same language that was used on her ancestor back in the 1870s is being used on black people today in 2018/19.  That article she read from that "newspaper" from the 1870s could've been written in 2018, so in that she is correct, nothing has changed.

I would say that white people of today are the same as they were 150+ years ago: there are some white people who want to uphold white supremacy and others who feel it's a bunch of bullshit.  The judge in Regina's ancestor's case felt the charges were trumped up and bogus; that's why he only gave him 2 years. The white witness in the first story said the white guy Hollingsworth was actually the one who started the fracas but he was overruled by the other white people in town because that didn't fit the narrative of some "infernal negro" going buck wild and randomly attacking people.  The guys in the military who busted Regina's ancestor out of jail were most likely white.

If people use Regina King's anger and sentiment over the mistreatment of her ancestor and murder of his first wife by white people in the 1860s-70s to justify mistreating black people in 2019, then they have proven Regina correct: nothing has changed.

 

I don't agree that white people in general are anywhere near being like they were in 1870.  Those articles from 1870 were blatantly prejudiced and disgusting, and nothing today even comes close to that in newspaper articles.  To make a general statement that nothing has changed because a comparatively small percentage of white people are still like that is what people think is unfair.  I think there is a perception that things are equal to what they were 150 years ago but in reality they are far from being that way today.  Back then a majority of white people were prejudiced to a very horrible degree that we thankfully don't see today save for a much smaller minority of the white population.  That's why I don't feel it's fair to say that nothing has changed.  It only hasn't changed for a small percentage of people.  Most people today find that deplorable.

I didn't personally see any comments on the FB page from white people that showed that they wanted to justify mistreating people in 2018.  I don't doubt that there were, but maybe they were removed from the site.  But just because there is a relatively small percentage of white people that hold those views is no reason to make a general statement that can be taken as inclusive of all white people.  That's the only thing I or anyone I saw post on that page would say, not that there's any justification whatsoever for mistreating black people in 2018 or 19 or ever.  I know I was not alone in taking her comment that way.  Perhaps you didn't, but that's your opinion which I don't  share.

For example, there are still people out there that believe the world is flat or the sun revolves around the earth.  I don't think it would be fair to say that "nothing has changed" since Copernicus just because of that group of people.   A lot has changed.  Focusing on the injustices alone only keeps people in the mindset of victimhood.  And Regina is far from a victim in my opinion.  Her wealth and fame plus the great advances in civil rights in this country have made that possible.  I understand looking at the past and seeing the similarities to the present, but I would have preferred she used a different way to express it.  The way she worded it made it sound like she's blaming all white people for a situation that's caused by a smaller subset of the white population.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Zero7

[BookThief]

5 hours ago, Zero7 said:

 The way she worded it made it sound like she's blaming all white people for a situation that's caused by a smaller subset of the white population.

Wow. I didn't interpret it that way at all. "The more things change, the more things stay the same." We have made it illegal to discriminate against race, religion, gender, etc. but it's all still out there, lurking around for those willing to see it. It's not even hidden. The conversations they were having during her ancestor's times are the conversations we're still having today. The years have changed. The laws have changed. But the problems have not.

[rhys]

I took her comment to mean that blacks of today are guilty of a crime just because they are black. It's like when we read "driving while back," or just today " banking while black. "  One is guilty of something, anything just cuz he's brown or black skinned.  That it happened in 1870 & happens now is mind boggling.

[buckboard]

As much as I enjoyed hearing about Regina King's former slave g-g-grandfather and Many Moore's Australian relative and  Matthew Morrison's Loyalist six times grandfather, I find it very annoying that this show focuses only on one relative per episode and pretty much ignores everyone else.  Matthew, for example, wanted to know about his mother's side of the family.  All we learned about the rest of them were their names.  

 How did Moore's relatives wind up in America after a side trip to Australia?   Might Regina King be a distant relative of Martin Luther King after all?   What became of the Loyalist's wife and family after he was off fighting and then was hanged? 

I understand emphasizing one relative who has a particularly interesting life, but I'd like to see more of a connection with the rest of the family tree.

[Yeah No]

12 minutes ago, buckboard said:

As much as I enjoyed hearing about Regina King's former slave g-g-grandfather and Many Moore's Australian relative and  Matthew Morrison's Loyalist six times grandfather, I find it very annoying that this show focuses only on one relative per episode and pretty much ignores everyone else.  Matthew, for example, wanted to know about his mother's side of the family.  All we learned about the rest of them were their names.  

 How did Moore's relatives wind up in America after a side trip to Australia?   Might Regina King be a distant relative of Martin Luther King after all?   What became of the Loyalist's wife and family after he was off fighting and then was hanged? 

I understand emphasizing one relative who has a particularly interesting life, but I'd like to see more of a connection with the rest of the family tree.

I agree.  Didn't they used to do that more on this show?  I'm finding the very sharp focus on one relative to be kind of unsatisfying without seeing them in the context of their greater family history.  I thought they used to focus on more than one family member or at least a few generations in one family in this show unless I'm remembering it wrong, but whatever they did I think it used to be more enlightening than it is now.

Anyway, Henry Louis Gates' show "Finding Your Roots" is coming back in January on PBS, so at least we genealogy buffs have that to look forward to since WDYTYA's season was so short.

[rhys]

53 minutes ago, buckboard said:

As much as I enjoyed hearing about Regina King's former slave g-g-grandfather and Many Moore's Australian relative and  Matthew Morrison's Loyalist six times grandfather, I find it very annoying that this show focuses only on one relative per episode and pretty much ignores everyone else.  Matthew, for example, wanted to know about his mother's side of the family.  All we learned about the rest of them were their names.  


I understand emphasizing one relative who has a particularly interesting life, but I'd like to see more of a connection with the rest of the family tree.

This 1000 times. Bogged in the minutia of just one person's life! It's fascinating but it's at the expense perhaps of others who led slightly less compelling lives. But they were still the celebrity 's ancestors and are worthy of mention.

[ChicagoCita]

2 hours ago, rhys said:

Bogged in the minutia of just one person's life! It's fascinating but it's at the expense perhaps of others who led slightly less compelling lives.

I come from a long line of farmers and teachers and farmers and teachers. Absolutely the salt of the earth, and I'm proud that they are my family, but they're not the stuff of prime-time television. I'm sure - in the highly unlikely event that one of our family ended up on the show - the story would concentrate on my one ancestor who was such a scoundrel that when he was arrested, finally, there were sheriffs from seven counties in three states lined up to see who got to bring him to trial first. (Among many other things, he was an actual horse thief!)

It's very probable that the celebrity is given a lot of information about his/her ancestors, because you know that they had to do a ton of research to get to the television-worthy ones, but the viewers don't get to hear about their stories.

[Blergh]

11 hours ago, BookThief said:

Wow. I didn't interpret it that way at all. "The more things change, the more things stay the same." We have made it illegal to discriminate against race, religion, gender, etc. but it's all still out there, lurking around for those willing to see it. It's not even hidden. The conversations they were having during her ancestor's times are the conversations we're still having today. The years have changed. The laws have changed. But the problems have not.

   Absolutely! And even though I have no known ancestors who were slaves, I have to admit that I was rather appalled by what happened here!

 Of course, one sad fact that about the account of Miss King's ancestor Moses's deliberately murdered first wife that didn't get mentioned- her name.  This poor woman was murdered in her bed but even in the account of this atrocity, they didn't identify her by name but just as their quarry's wife.  I wonder if there's any surviving documentation of what  it was? I mean this was just two years after the Civil War and during slavery slaves could not actually legally marry but even that was somewhat pricey to those newly freed slaves who had little if any disposable income so I'm wondering if perhaps Moses may have quite literally jumped the broom with his first wife and they were considered to have been 'common law' spouses rather than official ones. Not to mention that slaves were not listed by name in censuses until after Emancipation.  It's a good probability that Moses's murdered first wife NEVER had had her name recorded. 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Blergh
clarification

[iMonrey]

I totally missed this latest batch of episodes when they aired and now I'm finally getting around to them. I thought Josh Duhamel came off as kind of a dum-dum. Maybe I'm just snobbish because I'm a huge anglophile but I'm surprised he didn't seem to know anything about the Reformation. Matthew Morrison's story kind of bored me, but then I'm never very interested in history lessons about various wars.