L-R: “Roots” exec producer Will Packer, actors Malachi Kirby, Erica Tazel and Rege-Jean Page, exec producer Mark Wolper; Larry Busacca/Getty Images for the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival(NEW YORK) — That video rapper Snoop Dogg posted online Tuesday in which he blasted the Roots reboot has certainly drawn a lot of notice. And one of the folks responding to it is Roots executive producer Will Packer.
“They’re uncomfortable revisiting the reality of that time,” Packer tells the Tallahassee Democrat. “I understand it. But at the same time, I vehemently disagree.”
In a profanity-laced video, Snoop declares, “I can’t watch no more mother f****** black movies where n***** getting dogged out,” adding, “I don’t understand America. “They just want to keep showing the abuse that we took hundreds and hundreds of years ago. But guess what, we taking the same abuse.”
Saying that he doesn’t judge Snoop, Packer does point out, “I just think [of] the irony of having him saying and using the n-word, saying, ‘A real n-word like me wouldn’t watch this.’ I couldn’t help but think there’s a ghost of some horrendous slave owner that is smiling and smirking as he watches this black man say that and call himself that …I think that slave owner probably said, ‘Preach. I agree.’”
Snoop goes on to call on people to celebrate black successes today: “When are you going to make a mother f******series about the success that black folks is having? … Let’s create our own s*** based on today on how we living and how we’re inspiring people today.”
It doesn’t sound as if Packer disagrees, but he notes, “I don’t think we should get too comfortable as a country, as a society or as a race of people. I think this is a story that’s important enough it should be told in repeated ways.”
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