We are living in divisive and quite terrifying times. The layers of hatred and disdain for and between so many groupings of people are challenging to understand.

The history of oppression is meticulously broken down in Ava DuVernay’s new film Origin, inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

The premise of Wilkerson’s book is that to understand the divisive history of the United States, one must look beyond race and instead focus on caste systems around the world.

In her findings, Wilkerson discovered that caste systems are artificial structures within certain societies that rank groups of people. These rankings go beyond race, setting some people in the superior status and others in the inferior category. This separation of people creates social classes and hierarchies.