Posted on 04/23/2015 2:07:46 PM PDT by drewh
Ben Affleck has at least three ancestors who owned slaves including a wealthy landowner who bought a young boy who he appears to have set to work in his tanning business.
The Batman star's distant family can be traced to Connecticut and in 1728 they paid 80 pounds for a slave called Tobe who they kept until he was grown up. The bill of sale refers to Tobe as a 'negro boy' which the previous owner 'sold as my proper estate'.
Tobe's owner was called Nathaniel Stanley and was known as a smart man of 'respected piety and evangelical sentiments' - but that did not stop him keeping slaves.
Affleck's other slave owning ancestors were a man in Georgia and an Irish farmer from New Jersey who owned eight slaves.
None of these details were shown in the episode of Finding Your Roots which featured Affleck after host Henry Louis Gates Jr edited them out, leaked Sony emails have revealed.
PBS is now conducting an internal review to see if its own editorial guidelines were breached on the genealogy show.
Affleck has now apologized for asking Gates to make the changes. Gates - a respected Harvard academic - has said nothing for five days and was described by one commentator as 'diminished' by the disclosures.
The Oscar-winning actor said in a post on Facebook that the discovery of his past left him feeling 'embarrassed' and with a 'bad taste in my mouth' - but that he was wrong to censor it.
The row has been damaging for Affleck, who supports a number of liberal causes, has a charity for aid to the Congo, and is a champion of the left.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Names we need names...and dates
LOL
Would have never heard of him unless some FReepers wasted bandwidth on him. Ditto for Bill Maher, etc.
Tell that to the friggin liberal reparation crowd. I can see Affholes dilema, with three slave owning ancestors they would demand everything he owns, because it was built on the back of slavery. Poor little liberal boy must have messed his pants when he was told!
The point of appearing to NOT have any slave owners in your ancestry is so that you can be sanctimonious and superior to everyone else who you can then to proceed to simply call all racists at your whim (you being so pure and all).
That is the point of the whole exercise.
It’s the same as people who assume that if they were living in Germany at the time of the Nazi’s that THEY would not have participated, but of course most everyone else would have. They of course are far superior.
People just love to play these “what if” games and place themselves in the best possible light and most everyone else in the worst. It’s become a national pass time to run around calling everyone and his dog a racist.
HEY !!!
will he be paying compensation to the descendants of the slaves his families owned out of his own extensive pockets ???
:)
Dealers too!
Many poor people rented slaves for a day or two at peak harvest times and such. So you’re not off the hook unless you can PROVE that none of your ancestors did any such thing.
The whole point of this exercise is to prove how pure you are and what snakes most everyone else are.
Oh Ben, how could you and your family do this? Even by today’s standards, slavery in Connecticut must have been brutal. Ben you must pay for this; rid yourself of your dirty wealth.
Oh Ben, how could you and your family do this? Even by today’s standards, slavery in Connecticut must have been brutal. Ben you must pay for this; rid yourself of your dirty wealth.
I have at least one slave and she was white...
Nathaniel Stanley of Connecticut. James McGuire of New Jersey.
Well, if they shot his Georgia ancestor Benjamin Cole and burned down his farm during the Civil War then it all balances out...
Most if not all humans alive today have both slaves and slaveowners in their ancestry.
This calls for another beer summit. Maybe Sharpton could moderate.
Sorry, didn’t read all before posting.
It’s the least he can do. Justice demands it (smirk)
White guilted liberals
I don't have any direct ancestors who owned slaves, but a few distant uncles and cousins did. One branch of my tree is from the north, the other is from the south... I have union and confederate soldiers in my direct line. I suppose I balance, too.
Nothing to be ashamed of at all.
Do not punish children for the sins of the father.
There shouldn’t be a punishment unto the sixth generation for anything.
Just adopt a couple little international kids and all will be forgiven. /S
I don’t agree with his liberal views, or particularly care for his acting, but his slave-holding ancestry is irrelevant to me.
I would love to know about one celebrity’s Kenyan ancestors and whether they sold their brethren to slavers.
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