It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Entertainment => Topic started by: trapeze on January 22, 2013, 02:07:55 PM
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I did not know that.
Such is the continual coverup provided by the MFM.
Just read this article (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/01/21/Alex-Haley-Lance-Armstrong-Of-Literature) at Breitbart. Very informing for me. Perhaps this is news to others.
Much like our current president, Haley's supposed non-fictional family "history" was pretty much made up out of whole cloth. It's pretty stupid, actually, to write a work of historical non-fiction and get caught plagiarizing from two different works of fiction.
From a wikipedia entry: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Courlander)
Courlander wrote seven novels, his most famous being The African, published in 1967. The novel was the story of a slave's capture in Africa, his experiences aboard a slave ship, and his struggle to retain his native culture in a hostile new world. In 1978, Courlander filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging that Alex Haley, the author of Roots, had copied 81 passages from his novel. Courlander's pre-trial memorandum in the copyright infringement law suit stated: "Defendant Haley had access to and substantially copied from The African. Without The African, Roots would have been a very different and less successful novel, and indeed it is doubtful that Mr. Haley could have written Roots without The African.... Mr. Haley copied language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character."
In his Expert Witness Report submitted to federal court, Professor of English Michael Wood of Columbia University stated: "The evidence of copying from The African in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying is significant and extensive. ... Roots... plainly uses The African as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted. ... Roots takes from The African phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. Roots finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave's thoughts of escape, the psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in Roots, they are the life of someone else's novel."
After a five-week trial in federal district court, Courlander and Haley settled the case with a financial settlement and a statement that "Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way into his book, Roots."
During the trial, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, "Copying there is, period." In a later interview with BBC Television, Judge Ward stated, "Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public."
During the trial, Alex Haley had maintained that he had not read The African before writing Roots. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed The African with Haley in 1970 or 1971 and had given his own personal copy of The African to Haley, events that took place a good number of years prior to the publication of Roots.
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Figures.
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Mama Kizzy and Chicken George would be so ashamed, not to mention Toby.
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I knew about this years ago. Just like MLK was a plagiarist at Harvard Divinity School.
/But they're black, so it's okay. The racism of lowered expectations.
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I didn't know about it. Can't say as I'm shocked, though. I'll have to spread the word.
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Aaaand, sure as shootin', I just heard a radio advert for the coming re-showing of "Roots" -- with appearances by Lavar Burton and one other -- being that our much beloved Black History Month is almost upon us.
::saywhat::
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When is White History Month? I must have missed it.
And Yellow History Month.
And Brown History Month.
Is there a Rainbow History Month for fags?
What about a Pink History Month for feminists?
I gotta call the History Channel. They must know.
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Fake but Accurate. That's all the justification a good Leftist needs.
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I remember hearing this years ago. But since everyone decided that ROOTS was the best thing to ever happen to blacks it quietly went away.
Never read the book or saw the show.
I'm always suspicious of things that get super-hyped especially when race is involved.
(Rainbow history month I believe is in the fall--October maybe.)
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I gotta call the History Channel. They must know.
History Channel? Too busy with aliens in our bible and all
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I used to watch the History Channel all the time. Now it's more reality shows with a tenuous-at-best link to history. They used to just always show stuff like The World at War and Hitler's Henchmen. If it had Lawrence Olivier doing voice narration, it was usually worth watching.
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They've got "The Bible" and "The Vikings" coming up
if I can make it through the first fifteen minutes
I may be able to watch it. I'm not making bet.
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I used to watch the History Channel all the time. Now it's more reality shows with a tenuous-at-best link to history. They used to just always show stuff like The World at War and Hitler's Henchmen. If it had Lawrence Olivier doing voice narration, it was usually worth watching.
The old History Channel programming is now on The Military Channel. I used to call the History Channel the Hitler-y Channel and my ex called it the Rick-tory Channel. I have yet to figure out how Axe Men or Ice Road Truckers has anything to do with 'History'. At least Pawn Stars has some interesting history 'walk through that door'. But I'm 'meh' on the spinoffs and those picker guys as well. Plus any other 'oh my gawd we're doing our jobs in front of a camera and need drama' crapola.
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Yeah, unfiltered history is interesting enough to me, it is probably why I read 10x's more than I watch, if not more...
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I used to watch the History Channel all the time. Now it's more reality shows with a tenuous-at-best link to history. They used to just always show stuff like The World at War and Hitler's Henchmen. If it had Lawrence Olivier doing voice narration, it was usually worth watching.
The old History Channel programming is now on The Military Channel. I used to call the History Channel the Hitler-y Channel and my ex called it the Rick-tory Channel. I have yet to figure out how Axe Men or Ice Road Truckers has anything to do with 'History'. At least Pawn Stars has some interesting history 'walk through that door'. But I'm 'meh' on the spinoffs and those picker guys as well. Plus any other 'oh my gawd we're doing our jobs in front of a camera and need drama' crapola.
I know what you mean. I used to watch TLC for the history lectures but alas it couldn't continue as people would actually learn history and you can't have that so they fired program director and enlisted the help of a propagandist and now you have a wasted frequency.
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I love how the history channel would make the most insignificant event sound like a big deal that got overlooked by the masses.