re: Watching Roots and its making me sick

In the early 1980s, when Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," was speaking at Lincoln Center, investigative reporter Philip Nobile asked him a straightforward question. Since he had paid Harold Courlander $650,000 in a plagiarism suit, why shouldn't Haley be considered a criminal instead of a hero? Haley had no answer. Well, what would you expect from someone who had pulled off one of the biggest con jobs in U.S. literary history? Yet the "Roots" hoax has sustained itself. Every PBS station in America refused to show the 1997 BBC documentary inspired by Nobile's reporting on the book.
Since "Roots" has brought millions of black tourist dollars to Gambia, one Gambian said to me, "Yes, it is a lie but it is a good lie."

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