Snoop Dogg: Don't Watch Roots

To Snoop Dogg, Roots, 12 Years a Slave, Underground, and other depictions of slavery apparently aren't important history lessons, but attempts to rub black people's faces in the oppression they suffered centuries ago. In an expletive-filled Instagram video, the rapper urges fans to steer clear of the History Channel's Roots remake, People reports. "They gonna just keep beating that [expletive] in our heads of how they did us, huh?" he says. "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." He then wonders: "When you all going to make a [expletive] series about the success black folks is having?"

Many Instagram commenters strongly disagreed with Snoop. "If the main theme one gets out of Roots is people getting beat then they may be viewing the series with tunnel vision and miss the resilience, strength, and humanity of a people in the face of unimaginable conditions," wrote "monecho1." Before Snoop's comments, Roots remake co-producer LeVar Burton, who starred in the original series, told USA Today that the new series should be part of the national conversation. "If you are living in America right now, then the story of slavery is relevant to you, because it's shaped the country and the culture in which you live, whether you want to admit that or not," he said. The Guardian notes that Snoop said black people should create works based on "how we inspire people today" and is walking it like he talks it: He's starring in the Coach Snoop reality series about the Snoop Youth Football League, which he set up to help inner-city children. (More Snoop Dogg stories.)