Ben Affleck wanted his slave owner ancestor 'censored' from Finding Your Roots

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Ben Affleck persuaded the producers of Finding Your Roots to edit out details of how his ancestors were slave owners even though it was a breach of PBS editorial rules.

The new Batman star, who supports a number of liberal causes, objected to the ancestry TV show airing how his distant relations were racist, leaked Sony emails reveal.

Instead viewers were shown heartwarming stories of how his third grandfather was a mystic in the Civil War and how his sixth grandfather was a patriot who fought in the American Revolution.

Daily Mail Online has reviewed a transcript of the show and watched the video and there is no mention of slavery in the part featuring Affleck.

The Sony emails show that the makers of Finding Your Roots, including Emmy Award-winning host and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, engaged in a deliberate cover-up.

The emails raise serious questions over the integrity of Finding Your Roots, the publicly-subsidized broadcaster PBS and Mr Gates, who is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

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Not meant to be political, but a friendly reminder how spoon fed we are, even when concerning benign family history shows.

As a reminder Dr Gates was the initial victim of police profiling that led to president Obama's "beer summit" in 2009.

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