Michaela Coel Explores Trauma, White Colonialism and Identity in Netflix drama ‘Black Earth Rising’

What is family? Does a shared DNA make a collection of people kin to one another? And if our past experiences are what make us who we are, then who are we when the past we thought we knew isn’t exactly true? These are just some of the existential questions raised in the new Netflix and BBC series Black Earth Rising. Michaela Coel stars in this weighty drama as Kate Ashby, a successful investigator still on the mend after a failed suicide attempt some time prior. But the suicide attempt is merely the manifestation of a lifetime of trauma. Kate is actually a native Rawandan who was adopted by Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter), a White British prosecutor, after being rescued during the 1994 genocide of Rawanda’s Tutsi population. Now an adult investigator working at a top law firm, Kate doesn’t know much about her origins, including her birth name. However, the harsh physical and mental scars haunt her as daily reminders of what she’s survived.

Though Kate and her mother are close, their relationship is pushed to the limits when Eve is called to prosecute a warlord who has allegedly forced child soldiers into combat while in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The only problem? He’s same warlord whose army put an end to the Tutsi genocide that murdered Kate’s family. At first it seems as the story we’ll be watching is one about how a mother and daughter overcome such an insurmountable challenge, but that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Underneath lies a richer, darker mystery…