Robert Noye Cedar Rapids Iowa black man kidnaps white woman forces her to watch 9 hour slavery miniseries Roots so she could understand racism.
An African American man has been accused of kidnapping a white woman and forcing her to watch nine-hour slavery miniseries so she could ‘understand her racism’.
Robert Noye, 52, come Monday, was booked on charges of first-degree harassment and false imprisonment, Cedar Rapids police said.
The Iowa woman, who was not clearly described as being white, was allegedly forced to sit with Noye and threatened when she tried to move from watching the 1977 TV miniseries, ‘Roots.’
Noyce is alleged to have forced the un-named woman to watch the nine-hour show, which details the ancestral line of the author Alex Haley, ‘so she could better understand her racism’, a police complaint said.
Noye threatened to ‘kill her and spread her body parts across Interstate 380 on the way to Chicago’, when she tried to move away, according to the Gazette.
Not clear was how long the woman allegedly was made to sit with Noye, or how she and Noye came to know each other.
Understanding America’s slave roots:
Roots, which was penned in 1976 by US author Alex Haley and was first aired on TV in 1977, follows the struggles of one African American family told over several generations, starting with Kunte Kinte, an African warrior sold into slavery, in the late 1700’s through to his great-grandchildren fighting for their freedom during the Civil War.
The show which was deemed highly controversial when it first came out remains the third most-watched US telecast of all time after the final episode saw around 100million viewers tune in.
The book and subsequent miniseries were seminal in opening the discussion about the legacy of slavery and race in America which continue to be divisive issues some 400 years later since the nations founding off the labor and exploitation of another race.
