Monday Open Thread | TV Shows That You Should Be Watching: Underground

I’m a tv junkie. So, this week I thought I’d share some shows that maybe you should be watching.

Today’s selection is Underground.

undeground-1

Underground is well-written.
Underground is well-acted.
The production quality is top-grade. I mean, each episode is like a well-done 42 minute film.

Every week, at some point in the series, you are reminded- just what don’t you understand about you being PROPERTY?
And, all that means.
Each week it’s like watching 12 Years a Slave. There is a moment that sucks you in the gut, and brings you to the verge of tears, if it doesn’t actually make you cry. There isn’t a moment in the episode where you can detach yourself and be comfortable watching. The layers of evil, the layers of our oppression- all there to see.
I think that it should be given out to schools around the country as a teaching tool about the TRUTH about slavery in America.

For those who criticize Underground because ‘ Haven’t we had enough pieces about slavery?’

I say this: NO. We haven’t had ENOUGH pieces about slavery where THE TRUTH about American Slavery has been told.

Underground can be found on the WGN Network, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. EST.

underground-2

underground-3

Episodes on Youtube.
I watch a few podcasts about Underground.
AfterbuzzTV
MuchLoveFromKY
MikeB

This entry was posted in African Americans, Black History, Heritage, History, Open Thread, Politics, Slave Auctions, Slave Breeding in America, Slavery, TV Shows, White Supremacy and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

73 Responses to Monday Open Thread | TV Shows That You Should Be Watching: Underground

  1. rikyrah says:

    Look at all those Black folks in Suits at the baseball game watching Jackie Robinson :)

  2. rikyrah says:

    Jackie and Rachel looked gorgeous on their wedding day.

    She got her dress at Saks!

    LOL

  3. rikyrah says:

    About Jackie Robinson: He was always shooting off his mouth about his ‘ Constitutional Rights’.

  4. rikyrah says:

    Rachel Robinson: He didn’t just respect me. He needed me. He adored me.

    • eliihass says:

      That more men would respect, need and adore their wife so openly and unapologetically…

      …And without ever worrying or giving thought to what anyone else thinks – And not especially those who fiercely guard their own marriage or relationship and spouse, but are quick to want to hijack another woman’s husband and have him do and be what they’d never want their husband to do and be…

      …And that many more women could confidently and categorically make this pronouncement…

      That more black women could even truthfully utter this about their husband..

      …And not be blindsided – or have the rug pulled from under their feet in time…

      …Or have other people – especially other women, looking to sabotage and disrespect their marriage and their sacred union…

  5. rikyrah says:

    Jackie Robinson didn’t take any *&^%!!!

  6. rikyrah says:

    Jackie Robinson lettered in FOUR VARSITY SPORTS at UCLA.

    FOUR!!!

  7. rikyrah says:

    Rachel Robinson: He was NEVER EVER ashamed of his color….

    that’s right.
    that’s right.

    Jackie Robinson was a ‘Race Man’ – through and through.

  8. rikyrah says:

    Joe Louis got Jackie Robinson into Officer Candidate School?

    wow.

  9. rikyrah says:

    This Jackie Robinson documentary is wonderful.

    • eliihass says:

      For having such awful, inhumane and corrupt policies…and for being such a phony and annoyingly rehearsed and corny guy…Kasich’s daughters are both normal and lovely girls…

  10. eliihass says:

    The historic – and current FLOTUS gets the lower case ‘first lady’ treatment from the Today Show – but they are careful to capitalize ‘First Lady’ for former ones – who also happen to be approvingly white…

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BD81Y9IQLdt/

  11. eliihass says:

    So, looks like the Today Show only capitalizes ‘First Lady’ when you are a former one, but uses lower case ‘first lady’ for the sitting First Lady…so we’ll see if that happens for our historic FLOTUS…or if the rules change again once she’s left the White House…

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BC70KbowLV1/

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BCnoCAlQLbz/

    • eliihass says:

      Oh my…what a revelation…

      So… Jackie Robinson’s wife Rachel was the key in his life …and key to – and the most important person in his historic success…

      Oh my…what a concept…

      His wife…? You mean the woman who suffered and built a life together with him from scratch…

      Nah…can’t possibly be…

      You mean it wasn’t all those other random folks, like say …the guy who manned the hotdog stand…or the announcers at the game…what about the guy who maintained the equipment..? You sure it wasn’t the road manager or the benevolent team owner…or the makers of the team uniform he wore…

      Somebody quick…please alert the many who insist that they and every other random person that even remotely crossed path with the President from his birth to adulthood…and those they specifically ascribe importance to in the President’s life….and not his brilliant wife who sacrificed and suffered and lost so much in the process…and will forever have a target on her back – are key to this historic President’s life and success…

  12. check your email, ladies.

  13. eliihass says:

    What do former First Lady Laura Bush, IMF chief Christine Lagarde, Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, and comedian Mindy Kaling have in common? They are all women. And… and??

    And? I confess that I cannot answer the question. Though not for lack of trying. I spent yesterday at Tina Brown’s Women In The World Summit, a summit celebrating—as far as I could make out—women, with no further claim to intellectual coherence.

    The event was held in the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, which is just past the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center and across from the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, at the epicenter of America’s worst billionaire Davids. The lavish three-day summit was sponsored, we were reminded from the stage, by Toyota, Flex, MasterCard, PepsiCo, and many others—which may or may not have contributed to the editorial decision to include in the program several documentary clips “Presented by Toyota,” a panel discussion on technology with a Flex executive, and separate onstage interviews with the CEO of MasterCard and the CEO of PepsiCo.

    Then again, they’re all women. That could have been it, also.

    The event, attended by many hundreds of determined-looking women who looked ready to solve world hunger in the morning and pilot a Fortune 500 company at night, certainly offered sustenance in discrete bites. It is only in the search for some sort of overall theme or message or unifying philosophy that its frustrating aspects seeped out. Yesterday morning, in order, we heard from IMF chief Christine Lagarde on global economic and humanitarian issues (newsworthy!); a panel of Turkish political leaders and activists spoke on Turkey’s alarming rates of violence against women (distressing!); famed British scholar Mary Beard discussed how trolls on Twitter resemble misogynists in ancient Rome (odd—but interesting!); anti-hunger activists spoke about fighting hunger (inspiring!); two documentary filmmakers from Saudi Arabia and China described the perils they and their subjects faced in those repressive regimes (frightening!); journalists and an elephant expert told us of the dire poaching and ivory-smuggling problems in Africa (sad!); Mindy Kaling was interviewed about being Mindy Kaling (funny!)

    After lunch, though, things took a turn. Following a foot-stomping song by Afro-Cuban singer Dayme Arocena, four chairs were placed on stage for an intimate chat between Today show host Savannah Guthrie and “three women I’m lucky enough to call friends.”

    “They’ve left Washington,” proclaimed the video screen looming over the dark auditorium, “But they’re still campaigning. For literacy. For health care.” Now, who would you guess came out next? That’s right, it was Laura Bush and her two daughters, Jenna Bush (a Today show colleague of Guthrie’s) and Barbara Bush Jr. You may know these women as “part of the ultra-powerful family that launched an unjust war in the Middle East and profoundly eroded American civil liberties,” but that is not at all how they were presented at the Women in the World Summit.

    They were presented as Laura Bush, advocate for Afghan women; Jenna Bush, loving mother and educator; and Barbara Bush, founder of the nonprofit Global Health Corps, crusader for health care for the global poor. This was a neat trick.

    These three women appeared on stage because they are famous because they are family members of George W. Bush. George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, directly caused hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East to die, and did nothing to institute public health care in America. And yet these women were allowed to not only trade on their association with the Bush White House, but also to claim to be advocates for Afghan women and the poor and people without health care. “We have the medicine we need to save lives,” Barbara said with no trace of irony, “yet systems are broken.” This is the first family of the party that is seeking to dismantle Obamacare. As I said, a neat trick.

    Savannah Guthrie, who may even be considered a journalist (?), went on to say this, to the family of George W. Bush, who many nonpartisan historians consider one of America’s most disastrous presidents: “You all remind me of a time when politics was a higher calling.” An interesting notion. “I have a six month old baby,” Jenna chimed in, “and I worry about her future—because you want smart, capable people to run, but now you have this.” I suspect that Jenna Bush’s child will be well taken care of regardless of who the next president is, but again, we were offered the spectacle of the family of George W. Bush calling for competence in politics. It was really something.

    Guthrie was too busy laughing over the fact that her expensive Manhattan apartment looks into Jenna’s expensive Manhattan apartment to issue any challenges. And anyhow, that would have interrupted the pro-woman, pro-mother, pro-sister lovefest that we had going in the arena. It was indeed glowing with pro-Bush warmth in there. And after some heartfelt chatting about the importance of family and several instances of Jenna Bush choking up over the sheer amount of love on display, Savannah Guthrie summed it all up with her benediction of Laura Bush. “If you raise your kids right,” she said, “nothing else matters.”

    Forget the Patriot Act. The Bushes raised their kids right. We had gotten to the heart of the problem with the Women in the World Summit. When you purport to celebrate all the world’s women, you end up putting brave activists who risked their lives to fight against violence and repression on the same stage as the Bush family the CEO of PepsiCo. And you clap for all of them equally. And at the end you have a moral whitewashing of powerful interests under the cover of empowerment and equality.

    Everyone in the fucking world does not deserve applause.

    http://gawker.com/all-the-women-in-the-world-are-equally-good-and-nothing-1769844038?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+jezebel%2Ffull+%28Jezebel%29

  14. eliihass says:

    Carter dismisses Clinton’s State work

    By Rebecca Shabad – 04/10/14 11:03 AM EDT

    Former President Carter says Hillary Clinton “took very little action” as secretary of State to bring about peace.

    Carter, 89, made the remark about the former secretary of State and 2016 Democratic front-runner in a phone interview with Time magazine Wednesday night after he spoke at the Civil Rights Summit in Austin, Texas.

    John Kerry has been successful as secretary of State, Carter said, because President Obama has been deeply involved in the foreign policy issues of his second term.

    “In this occasion, when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State, she took very little action to bring about peace. It was only John Kerry’s coming into office that reinitiated all these very important and crucial issues,” he said.

    Kerry’s efforts in the Middle East are “notable,” said Carter, who added he has “great admiration” for him.

    http://thehill.com/policy/international/203189-carter-on-clinton-she-took-very-little-action

    • Liza says:

      Jimmy Carter is right.

      • eliihass says:

        It’s common knowledge she accomplished nothing as SoS – A position, which just like the Senate seat in New York, she’d never ever have been even remotely considered for had she not been married to a Bill Clinton who was once president.

        …yet everyone is weirdly required to effusively praise Hillary…tout her ‘accomplishments’, ‘experience’, ‘qualifications’…insist she was a ‘great SoS’…and will be a ‘great’ president…while completely ignoring the many elephants in the room..and turning a blind eye to all the glaring problems and inconsistencies..

      • President Carter spoke the truth about Hillary. He’s not covering for anyone. She did very little to make peace.

  15. rikyrah says:

    RIP Legendary Radio Personality Doug Banks, who has passed away at the age of 57.

    Sigh.

    2016 has been a rough year.

  16. Ametia says:

    Looking forward to checking out

    UNDERGROUND

  17. rikyrah says:

    2 Southern University Students Killed in Apartment Shooting
    Lashuntae Benton, of Lake Charles, La., and Annette January, of Gary, Ind., both 19, were shot as they stood outside a Baton Rouge, La., apartment complex.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.
    Posted: April 11 2016 8:48 AM

    wo female Southern University students were shot and killed early Sunday outside a Baton Rouge, La., apartment complex.

    Lashuntae Benton, of Lake Charles, La., and Annette January, of Gary, Ind., both 19, were shot as they stood outside the apartment complex in the parking lot. A 24-year-old man also was shot, but was expected to survive, WDSU reports.

    According to the Times-Picayune, Benton was pronounced dead at the scene, and January was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

    Both women participated in sports at the school; January, a freshman, was a member of the university’s track team and Benton, a sophomore, was a student athletic trainer, the Times-Picayune reports.

    January’s mother, Dawn January, told the newspaper that the women were attending a party thrown by one of the members of the track team when the shooting occurred.

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/04/_2_southern_university_students_killed_in_apartment_shooting.html?utm_content=buffer95bb8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

  18. rikyrah says:

    MEDIA ALERT:

    Ken Burns on How Race Is the Common Thread in His Work + Why Jackie Robinson’s Story Is Still So Relevant
    By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
    April 8, 2016 at 12:34PM

    Here’s a first look at Ken Burns’ upcoming 2-part/4-hour Jackie Robinson documentary that will premiere as part of PBS’ winter/spring primetime lineup this year. The network has officially set April 11 and 12 premiere dates, from 9-11 pm ET on each night.

    Titled simply “Jackie Robinson,” the film – co-directed and produced by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon – will memorialize the life of the legend, who was the first African American player in Major League Baseball.

    “Jackie Robinson is the most important figure in our nation’s most important game,” said Ken Burns. “He gave us our first lasting progress in civil rights since the Civil War and, ever since I finished my BASEBALL series in 1994, I’ve been eager to make a stand-alone film about the life of this courageous American. There was so much more to say not only about Robinson’s barrier-breaking moment in 1947, but about how his upbringing shaped his intolerance for any form of discrimination and how after his baseball career he spoke out tirelessly against racial injustice, even after his star had begun to dim.”

  19. rikyrah says:

    Frankie Faison Will Play Jerrika Hinton’s Self-Made Father in ABC/Shondaland Pilot, ‘Toast’
    By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
    April 8, 2016 at 2:01PM

    Frankie Faison has booked a series regular role in the ABC/Shondaland comedy pilot titled “Toast.”

    He joins “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Jerrika Hinton who was previously cast as the female lead opposite Jono Kenyon in a project to be executive produced by Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland partner Betsy Beers, as well as Scott Foley and Greg Grunberg, who are also the writers.

    To be directed by Gail Mancuso, “Toast” follows an engaged couple Max (Jono Kenyon) and Page (Jerrika Hinton) who have their eclectic family and friends give toasts during their wedding rehearsal dinner, which lead to flashbacks that show as the audience watches the “complicated, funny and relatable” true story of their path to marriage.

    Hinton’s Page character is from a wealthy Texas family, and is described as “confident, no-nonsense, and self-aware” and hardworking, as she takes a risk with the charismatic but awkward Max.

    Faison has signed up to play Big Earl, Page’s self-made and energetic father, who is funding her over-the-top wedding with the wealth he’s built from the family auto business.

    http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/frankie-faison-will-play-jerrika-hintons-self-made-father-in-abc-shondaland-pilot-toast-20160408

  20. rikyrah says:

    I think Cheadle is going to be FABULOUS:

    Here Are All the Cities and Theaters That ‘Miles Ahead’ Is Set to Open in Over the Next Month
    By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
    April 5, 2016 at 11:30AM

    I read some tweets today from frustrated folks who want to see Don Cheadle’s “Miles Ahead” (which opened on 4 screens over the weekend) but cannot just yet because it hasn’t premiered in their respective cities. And some of those people said that they’d bootleg it if they had to.

    No, please, don’t bootleg it.

    Yes, it’s frustrating that a film you really want to see isn’t yet playing at a theater you have access to, but you’ll have to be patient and wait for it to get to you. I know we’re living in a time when we’re all only a matter of a few clicks away from just about anything we want, whenever we want it – including movies – but it’s not always that simple. “Miles Ahead” is not “Batman v Superman” which opened on 4200 screens nationwide, with a marketing budget that’s reportedly in the $150 million range (on top of its roughly $250 million production budget, for a total of at least $400 million). “Miles Ahead’s” entire budget (the cost to make the film, market and release it) is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that. So it simply can’t be expected to open nationwide simultaneously (whether it’s 1,000 screens or 4,000).

  21. rikyrah says:

    Go Lupita:

    ……………

    Mira Nair’s ‘Queen of Katwe’ Starring Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Madina Nalwanga Gets Awards Season Release Date

    By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act

    April 8, 2016 at 5:35PM

    Disney has slotted Mira Nair’s drama “The Queen of Katwe” for a September 23 theatrical premiere in the USA. It will open in a limited release to start, and then expand it a week later on September 30, to other cities around the country.

    Lupita Nyong’o co-stars in the film which is based on “The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster,” by author Tim Crothers, which tells the true story of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, also known as “The Queen of Katwe.”

  22. rikyrah says:

    I can’t believe how happy this just made me.

    ………..

    “GILMORE GIRLS” FIRST LOOK

    Posted on April 11, 2016

    Kittens, if you’re counting down the days until you can return to Stars Hollow, then you don’t want to listen to anything we have to say. Just this once, you’re gonna want the PR department to do the talking:

    “It’s a lifestyle. It’s a religion. It’s ‘Gilmore Girls’ on Netflix.

    Netflix releases first look images of ‘Gilmore Girls,’ which will launch later this year, everywhere that Netflix is available.

    The four, 90-minute movies, are bringing your favorite Stars Hollow residents back together – Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) and many more – picking up life nine years after the original ‘Gilmore Girls’ signed off the air. Amy Sherman-Palladino is the creator and executive producer. Daniel Palladino is also an executive producer. They are both writing and directing the series. ‘Gilmore Girls’ on Netflix is produced by Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.”

  23. Rikyrah

    Underground. The last episode I watched was 2 men running away and the other shot him in the kneecap. I was like….. OH….. MY……GOD. Big dude put up a hellava fight tho.

  24. rikyrah says:

    DeRay Mckesson Won’t Be Elected Mayor of Baltimore. So Why Is He Running?
    By GREG HOWARD
    APRIL 11, 2016

    DeRay Mckesson will not be the next mayor of Baltimore. He’s a 30-year-old with no experience in city government who registered less than 1 percent support in a recent poll. He has no clear local support network and has been rejected by his most likely constituency — the city’s young black activists. At least one competing candidate has been embedded in Baltimore politics nearly as long as Mckesson has been alive.

    And yet here he was on a recent Monday afternoon, in a coffee shop on the city’s north side, signing campaign fliers. He said he couldn’t sleep last night and got up to get dressed well before the sun rose over Roland Park, the tony North Baltimore neighborhood where he lives with a childhood mentor. (Navy chinos, eggshell Oxford shirt and, of course, his trademark royal blue Patagonia puffer vest, now faded and fraying around the collar.) He had been getting pulled here and there all day, doing interviews with Mashable and Mother Jones, taking calls from the Museum of Modern Art and journalists in Italy and Germany. He’s exceptionally charming; all day, he fielded questions graciously, smiling and laughing, joking and gossiping. Through it all, he had been signing fliers. “I don’t even know what I’m writing anymore,” he said, scribbling.

    Baltimore’s Democratic primaries — which, in a city with as many as 10 Democrats for every Republican, might as well be the general election — take place on April 26. But for a few reasons Mckesson is willing to admit (he took time to ask scores of people for advice, he couldn’t find an available lawyer versed in Maryland election law) and a few he’s not, he didn’t officially file his papers until Feb. 3, leaving him the last of 13 Democratic candidates to throw a hat in the ring.

    For an ordinary mayoral candidate in a major American city, filing minutes before the deadline — months or even years after competitors started eyeing the office — would be a waste of time bordering on farce. But Mckesson isn’t an ordinary candidate: He’s famous. He has more than 325,000 followers on Twitter. He has made appearances on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” and has been to the White House so many times that he says he doesn’t get nervous anymore. He was on Fortune’s “World’s Greatest Leaders” list last year. He collects celebrity “friends” (Azealia Banks, Jesse Williams, Susans Wojcicki and Sarandon, Rashida Jones, Tracee Ellis Ross), refers to them solely by their first names and often follows by asking if you’ve ever met them. All because, over the last year and a half, he has been the best-known face of the Black Lives Matter movement, traveling the country to protest police violence.

    Now he’s asking voters to put him in charge of everything from Baltimore’s police force to its potholes. His campaign is by far the highest-profile example of a Black Lives Matter protester running for public office, and it was initially greeted with nationwide excitement. Mckesson has already inspired thousands around the country to protest police brutality, but the viability of any civil rights movement lies in its ability to move from the street to the places where governance happens. The question was whether Mckesson could parlay his national following into local action. “I get it,” he says now. “I get that that doesn’t translate.”

  25. Underground is powerful. I watched every episode on demand. I thought it came on on Sunday nights. I was so disappointed. I think it’s the best told story of slavery. I agree our kids need to see this all of them black and white. It’s history undiluted.

  26. rikyrah says:

    Cain S. LaTrans‏@snkscoyote

    Kris Kobach’s office’s Spanish-language voter guides list incorrect info on registering to vote http://fb.me/3GRohzryQ

  27. rikyrah says:

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    Paul Ryan, a Mirage Candidate, Wages a Parallel Campaign

    By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
    APRIL 10, 2016

    WASHINGTON — As the Republican candidates for the White House battled in Wisconsin last week, Speaker Paul D. Ryan was conspicuously absent from his home state — but he was very much on the political stage.

    He visited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, where he also met with local reporters and made several statements affirming the United States’ commitment there, before heading to other Middle Eastern nations and Germany to discuss security and intelligence issues.

    Back in Washington, his staff churned out its latest flattering video of Mr. Ryan, deploring identity politics and promoting a battle of ideas — set to campaign-style music. And his office continued to beat back the not-exactly-library-voice whisper campaign favoring a coup at the Republican convention in July that would elevate Mr. Ryan to the top of the ticket.

  28. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

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