Pineapple Heart

Last month I wrote about Ben Affleck’s response to finding he had an ancestor who owned slaves. If you missed it, let me explain. (No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) The actor was a guest star on the PBS show Finding Your Roots. He lobbied Sony to send his politically incorrect ancestor to the cutting room floor. The really embarrassing part is they actually complied. Maybe Affleck should have followed Bill Paxton’s lead. In a recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are, (another show that traces celebrities’ lineage) Paxton discovered he, too, was a slave owner’s descendant. “That’s unfortunate,” the actor said. “It’s kind of disappointing from a contemporary perspective. But your history – good and bad – is your history.” The idea that we should atone for the sins of our father’s fathers is an outdated and misguided one. We should learn our story. We should learn FROM it. We should move on.