You recall that moment when Kunta Kinte could not stand those chains on him and he had struggled hard and long to throw them off? More specifically, he cut them off with what appeared to be a sharp piece of iron. And at about the time he was able to free himself from the chains, Fiddler had walked in the slave quarters.

"Look what I got from the kitchen!," said ole happy Fiddler to Kunta. At this time Kunta is looking at Fiddler unsure as to how he (Kunta) should react to having just broken the chains of enslavement. What's more troubling to Kunta is that he doesn't know how Fiddler will react. But he finds out soon enough.

Looking at the broken chains, Fiddler puts the kitchen goodies down on the ground, walks over to Kunta, back slaps him and says:

"Damn you niggah, didn't you think nothing about me?" he angrily said to Kunta.

Scared of Fiddler, Kunta then responded with confusion, "about you Fiddler?"

"Yea, me!" said Fiddler. Fiddler continued:

"Me, me, me. You go runnin off in the hills, you know what's gon happen to me? I gets to sleep on a mud floor. I get to eat what the pigs won't eat."

Then Fiddler announces his assigned mission for Kunta:

"You was mine, to turn into a good niggah. You go runnin off, everything I got, everything I worked for-and it ain't much- it'll all be gone."

{Source "ROOTS", the Movie by Alex Haley, second chapter}

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© September 2005 Afromerica