A childhood belief about tv shows

I was 6 or 7 when "Roots" came on. Everybody who was ever on TV was in it, and everybody in the country watched it. I guess it didn't occur to my parents that a mini-series about slavery might include some pretty uncomfortable stuff. At any rate, the scene where the slave drivers whip Kunta in order to get him to accept his new name? Well, after it was all over one of the actors said, "We sold off what was left of him." I thought they had whipped him so hard that he came apart, and they sold his body for meat! I was absolutely horrified that my parents weren't nearly as outraged as I was.