Thursday, March 28, 2024

‘Oh Professor, I’m So Sorry’: Larry David Learns His Family Owned Slaves on ‘Finding Your Roots’ (Watch)

*On Tuesday’s season premiere of PBS’s “Finding Your Roots,” comedian Larry David was shocked and appalled to discover that his Jewish great, great grandfather owned slaves in Alabama and fought for the Confederacy.

Host Henry Louis Gates Jr., who said he’s been trying to get David on his show for years, informed the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star that an arm of his father’s side settled in the Birmingham area during the 1840s, where his great-great-grandfather owned two slaves and took up arms against the North to preserve slavery.

Nearly all of David’s paternal relatives came from Hesse-Darmstadt, once an independent state within what is now modern-day Germany. Almost all of those ancestors settled in New York City, where David was born in 1947, with one major exception.

His great-grandmother Henrietta was born in Mobile, Alabama. “What?!” David shouts to Gates over and over. “I’m a little more exotic than I thought I was,” he says. “Is Alabama exotic? I don’t know. Germany’s exotic? I’ve got probably some of the most racist places in the world connected.”

Even more shocking was the fact that Henrietta’s father, David’s great-great-grandfather, Henry Bernstein, was one of only about 3,000 Jewish men to fight on the side of the Confederacy.

“Are you telling me that my great-great-grandfather fought for the South in the Civil War?” David asks. “What?! Are you kidding?! That is mind-blowing to me, I can’t believe it.

“This is just such an odd combination on my father’s side of Germany and the South,” he adds. “Two places that we have fought against as a country. Oh my goodness, I hope no slaves show up on this.” At that point, Gates instructs him to turn the page.

“You did it! I knew it!” David shouts. “Unbelievable.”

“Oh, professor, I’m so sorry,” David says to Gates. “You can see why my father didn’t want to tell me anything about his family. Holy cow.” He then adds, “Well, Henry Bernstein, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Watch below (at the 34:42 mark):

The two slaves listed on the document Gates’ researchers found are labeled “mulatto,” a term that ironically was the focus of a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode called “the Surrogate” in Season 4. In the episode, Larry buys a mixed race doll as a present for a friend’s baby shower and informs the guests, “It’s a mulatto.” As they stare at him in disbelief for using such an outdated word, he asks, “No good?”

Watch below:

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