Barry Jenkins' limited series adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Underground Railroad," is not an easy watch; stories about the enslaved never are. Yet, this glorious television event — stunningly shot, dense and heartbreaking, grounded in both the horrors of the age and the rich, mesmerizing performances of stars Thuso Mbedu and Aaron Pierre — is as important as it is impactful. If we refuse to tell the true history of this country's deeply embedded racism and the journey of Black Americans across all mediums, we are doomed to remain in an endless time loop, continually repeating our past.
In recent years, after mainstream — usually white — praise of films such as "12 Years A Slave," "Django" and the television thriller "Underground," there has been a lot of pushback from Black critics about the plethora of stories centering slavery, Black pain and the antebellum South.
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