Origin (2023) Movie Script
1
Ella, I know you wanna say it.
Go ahead.
I'm not gonna say it.
But you wanna?
Yeah, I do.
I know. Go ahead.
I told you so.
See? Always with
the "I told you so."
'Cause I told you so!
You's right this time.
Uh, what you mean, "this time"?
I'm always right.
Aight, aight, I got you.
Calm down, calm down.
Aight, so get your
little candy or whatever.
- And call me back.
- Aight.
Hey.
3.50.
Like, I don't know, some...
Oh, oh, oh... You know,
like, breakfast.
- Okay, breakfast.
- I like me some eggs...
You like grits, berries.
I got you.
You got me? I don't know if
I want... You like berries?
What, you be eating berries
with pancakes?
Yeah, I eat berries
with pancakes.
Like blueberry pancakes.
They're so bomb.
See, okay, okay.
We've gotta have fun.
We gotta do our own thing.
I feel like...
We gotta do our own thing.
It's gonna be amazing.
I'm really excited...
- Tray?
- Hey, I think...
I think this car's following me.
What? For real?
It keeps looping
around the block.
Dang. Try goin' another way.
Call me when you get home, okay?
All right.
Mama?
Mama?
Afternoon.
Afternoon.
Are you sleeping or kinda?
Kinda.
Hey, Sleeping Beauty.
- Hello.
- Hey. Hi. Hi.
Want to sit up? Sit up.
There you go. All right.
Come on, one more time.
- That's good. That's good.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- How's that?
Yeah. There we go.
Sweetie with you?
He's bringing the trash
around back.
Ah, yeah, garbage day.
Everything in its right place.
Of course you know how to do it,
but you don't have to do it,
not while I'm here.
Don't take my job from me, please.
There's only so much joy left
for me in this world,
you gotta let me have it now.
Okay.
You ready?
Come here.
Okay.
Go slow, okay? Come on.
I got you. Okay.
Could you tell me how
many apartments there are in...
We have 200 units.
- 200, okay.
- 200 units.
And everything...
Kitchen, full kitchen...
Full kitchen and...
Yeah, that's...
Well, everyone looks
really nice.
- Yes. It's a great group.
- You know, Mr. Mayhew,
my husband was
a Tuskegee Airman.
Fought for America
in World War II.
Oh.
Oh, this is a gym here, yeah?
Beautiful, open 24 hours.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
So, um, you've got
a really nice kitchen.
Hey.
- At least there's good light.
- Mmm. Yeah.
Look at that cloud.
I see a swimming pool
with boys jumping in.
- Where?
- There. Look.
There's the arms.
Oh, yeah, I see it.
I see it. I see it.
They're a Little League team,
just won the big game,
celebrating and having a ball.
See the splashes?
Mama.
Little League team. Splashes.
It's true.
You and your imagination.
You gonna be all right?
Yes.
I'm gonna be all right, honey.
I'm going to be all right.
Okay.
If anybody can maneuver,
it's your ma.
Okay?
What's she say all the time?
"My husband was
a Tuskegee Airman."
Listen, I know
keeping elders at home
is supposed to be a noble
thing and all,
but there's something to be said
for keeping her as independent
as she can be.
- Where'd you find them?
- Next to the lamp.
Under a scarf
with the ringer off.
Ugh...
You've got to use the hook.
That is what it is there for.
Is that Mr. Brett?
- Oh!
- Ready to go out?
Is this Marion? How's Teddy?
You know, working my nerves,
but what else is new?
- You need some paper towels?
- Yeah.
Let's not miss this flight, okay?
I love you. Please be safe, okay?
Okay.
You got your boarding pass?
- I knew you had that.
- Yeah, you knew it, huh?
- You got it.
- Bye.
Bye, baby.
The shipyard owners
of Blohm & Voss
gather for a ceremony
celebrating the company's
new 295-foot vessel.
Adopted by the Nazis,
a "heil" salute was mandatory
for German citizens.
But if you look closely,
you'll find someone
who defied this.
His name is believed
to be August Landmesser.
He had joined the Nazi Party
two years before this day,
but in that time,
August met and fell in love
with a woman
unlike any he'd ever met.
Unlike any he was supposed
to have met.
Irma Eckler.
A Jewish woman.
An unexpected treat.
You're early.
I'm a surprise.
That you are.
A handsome one.
Although a member
of the dominant class,
August saw in Irma what others
like him chose not to see.
Her humanity, her beauty,
her love.
On this day,
he folded his arms
rather than salute a regime
that deemed that love illegal.
On this day, he was brave.
He couldn't have been the only
one who felt something tragic
was happening.
So why was he the only one
among the men
to not go along that day?
Perhaps we can reflect
on what it would mean
to be him today.
I'll leave you with that.
Thank you.
- Good luck.
- Thank you.
Bye.
Let me get this.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Water?
- I'm fine. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Isabel, Isabel. Hey!
Amari!
I didn't know you were speaking.
No, no, no, one of my reporters is.
Hey, can you guys give me
a minute? Okay.
- You were solid.
- Uh...
- Nice work.
- I am a better writer
than I am a speaker.
Yeah, well,
you're a better writer
than most people do anything.
So, listen, I was gonna reach
out to you on something.
So I'm gonna take
seeing you as a sign.
This... This Trayvon Martin
case.
- I know.
- Have you heard the tapes?
No. Of what?
Not the murder?
911 calls.
This killer called 911
before he did it.
And tapes of people that heard
the boy screaming out
and called the police.
- Is this public?
- No.
But it's being released.
Slowly.
But we got him.
Are you interested in listening,
to consider writing
something for us?
Amari, you have a stable
of writers.
They don't have Pulitzer Prizes.
Some of them do, actually.
Yeah, well, then they're not
as brilliant as you
on things like this.
- You know what I do.
- Yeah, and I know what you used to do.
Some of the best reporting
I've ever edited.
I write books now.
So, that one book you wrote
took way too damn long.
It was a masterpiece
and whatnot, but...
it took too long, Isabel,
if you ask me. Writers write.
So write.
I don't do assignments anymore.
I...
I wanna be in the story.
Really inside the story.
And, yes, that takes time.
Okay.
Maybe after you hear the tapes.
I'm gonna send them to you.
- Okay.
- Okay. No pressure.
Sanford Police Department.
Is there a report of the shots?
Hey, we've had some
break-ins in my neighbourhood.
And there's a real
suspicious guy, uh...
This guy looks like
he is up to no good,
or he's on drugs or something.
Okay, he's just
walking around the area...
Looking at all the houses.
It's raining
and he's just walking around,
- looking about.
- Okay.
And he's a Black male.
Now he's just staring at me.
Did you see what he was wearing?
Yeah, a dark hoodie,
like, a gray hoodie,
and either jeans or sweatpants,
and white tennis shoes.
- Shit, he's running.
- He's running?
Which way is he running?
Down towards the other
entrance to the neighbourhood.
These assholes,
they always get away.
Are you following him?
- Yeah.
- Okay, we don't need you to do that.
Okay?
All right, sir,
what is your name?
George.
He ran.
All right, George,
what's your last name?
Zimmerman.
911. Do you
need police, fire or medical?
Maybe both, I'm not sure.
There's just someone screaming outside.
Okay, what's
the address that they're near?
1211 Twin Trees Lane.
And is it a male or female?
- It sounds like a male.
- And you don't know why?
I don't know why.
I think they're yelling "help,"
but I don't know.
So you think
he's yelling "help"?
Yes.
I can't see him.
I don't want to go out there,
I don't know what's going on,
so...
Just... gunshots.
- You just heard gunshots?
- Yes.
- How many?
- Just one.
Is he right outside
1211 Twin Trees Lane?
Yeah, pretty much.
Out the back, yes.
- Good to see you.
- Thank you. You too.
Hi.
- Hey.
- Hi!
Looking gorgeous.
- Oh, Brett. How are you?
- Hi. Yeah. How are you?
- You well? Great to see you.
- Okay, and you.
He's wearing that tux very well.
Very well.
- He can hear you.
- Well, he can.
But he's grateful, thank you.
- Hi.
- Hello.
Amari Selvan asked me twice
if you were coming.
He wants something
for the paper.
He's made that very clear.
You interested? We can time it
with the audiobook.
Did you listen?
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a lot.
- Yeah.
- It's a lot.
There's a lot there.
But longer-form stuff,
questions that I don't have
the answer to.
So ask them in a piece.
I don't write questions.
I write answers.
Questions like what?
Like why does a Latino man
deputize himself
to stalk a Black boy to protect
an all-white community?
- What is that?
- The racist bias I want you to explore,
excavate for the readers.
We call everything "racism."
What does it even mean anymore?
It's the default.
When did that happen?
- Hey, Brett.
- How are you doing?
So, what? So you're saying
that he isn't a racist?
No, I'm not saying
that he's not a racist.
I'm questioning,
why is everything racist?
- This feels like a setup.
- I've been there.
Okay.
- Home ownership.
- Okay.
Covenants were written
into land deeds
barring Black people
from having wills.
No generational wealth allowed.
We could not pass
on what we earned
to our kids
for almost 500 years.
Every time,
we'd have to start from zero.
So, if we are not allowed
to pass on the fruits
of our labour to our family,
is that the same racism
that took Trayvon's life?
Systemic racism. Yes, same.
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
What does it mean?
Murders of Black people
by the police,
we call that racism.
- Everything's the same.
- I get it.
Being followed
in a department store
and being lynched shouldn't
be called the same thing,
- I get that.
- Racism as the primary language
to understand everything
is insufficient.
- See, this is good.
- That's all.
This is good.
Look, I need a piece delving
into what the Martin case means.
Set the context
with these questions,
it's what you do best.
Make the hard stuff digestible.
And this is a hard one.
"What does it all mean?"
These questions are the piece.
Hey, I'll make it splashy,
prime placement, Sunday.
- Maybe even the cover.
- You're terrible.
You're terrible, Amari.
I'm just saying.
Your face on the cover?
There's a lot there.
There's a lot there.
But I am on hiatus.
- Isabel, come on. Come on.
- I am. I am.
I... I have family
responsibilities.
Well...
Well, good for you
for taking time.
- We'll talk again.
- All right.
Hey, you two take care,
all right?
Good to see you. All right.
- I don't like this.
- Okay.
Okay. Okay.
- I don't...
- She's wrong.
She just said
the only movie she knows.
Oh, she deserves
to lose that money.
Speak to an issue that
obviously has gotten a lot of attention
over the course
of the last week,
the issue of the Trayvon Martin
ruling.
I gave a preliminary
statement...
That poor child's mother.
Right after
the ruling on Sunday.
I wish he'd answered
the man right.
What was that, Mama?
I wish he had answered the man
when he asked him why he was
there in the neighbourhood.
Maybe he'd still be with us.
Are you saying
it's the boy's fault?
No, of course not,
don't be silly.
I'm saying you got to act
in a way to keep you safe.
He was...
He was too young to know it.
He shouldn't have had
to answer to anyone.
"Should have" and real life
are two different things,
darling, you know that.
You can't be walking around
at night on a white street
and not expect trouble.
That's intimidating
to most whites.
True or not?
Yeah.
Yeah. Unfortunately,
I think it is true.
But I also think
that you can't live your life
based on what's intimidating
to people.
Sure you can, sweetie.
So you're going on hiatus, huh,
- is what you're doing?
- Huh?
You told Amari you were
going on hiatus,
you told me that you were gonna
be travelling less for work.
So I'm just trying to figure out
what exactly it is
that you're gonna do.
'Cause...
I said I wanted to focus on her.
Okay.
People are asking you to write
because of your voice,
because they...
the way you think.
- I just... I don't know what you're doing.
- She...
She doesn't belong
in that place.
Oh, right.
She should be at home.
She moved
because she was lonely.
I should've spent
more time with her.
Daddy would want me to fix this.
Hmm.
I think your father
was pretty clear
that what he wanted
was for you to be happy,
people to be happy.
Sacrificing your work, well,
that's gonna accomplish exactly
the opposite, so...
Your mother was very clear
about what she wanted.
It's not that, so...
- I don't see it, Betty.
- Maybe it's checked out.
In 1933,
two African-American anthropologists
were studying in Berlin.
There are no books here
at all by him.
At the premier library
in the city.
The country.
Beautiful library, though.
I could get lost
in all these books forever.
All these ideas.
Your library card.
Good afternoon. Of course.
And your passports.
Can you tell us when Erich Maria Remarque's
'All Quiet on the Western Front' is due back?
They witnessed events
that would change the world.
Baby.
Brett.
By trade, Brett
Hamilton was a mathematician,
a financial analyst.
By heart,
he was a passionate champion
for those he loved deeply.
He played classical guitar,
was an enthusiastic cook,
and volunteered his time
and efforts
to those less fortunate.
In college,
he joined Phi Kappa Tau,
Delta Chapter,
and with his friends,
enjoyed caving trips,
watching thunderstorms,
and debating the big stuff.
Recently, he travelled
extensively in Europe,
accompanying his beloved
in her professional activities
in the cause of social justice.
I'm Mrs. Copeland
from across the street.
How is Isabel?
She's...
she's resting right now.
I can't believe it.
Thank you so much for coming by.
Give her my love, please.
Isabel Wilkerson's office.
Hello, hi.
This is Kate.
I'm Isabel's editor.
Yeah, I know who you are.
Hi, Kate.
This is her cousin Marion.
Marion. Marion, hi.
My condolences
for your family's losses.
I don't have the words.
It's unfathomable,
it's unthinkable.
I just, I can't...
Two of the closest people
to you in a year,
who can withstand it?
How is she?
Hold me.
Don't leave me.
I am right here.
I am right here.
I am right here.
Stay. Stay.
- Stay. Stay.
- I am right here
Stay. Stay. Stay.
Stay.
Hey.
- You made it in okay?
- Yeah, I'm here.
How are you?
Tell me how you're feeling.
How does it feel to be back there
with all of her things?
I'm here, Marion.
That's all I am.
- You know what? I gotta go.
- Right.
I've gotta get
this house packed.
I could come down this weekend
and help you.
We could take it slow.
I've gotta get
these things packed up
so I can start back work.
Wait, you're starting back
to work?
Of course.
What am I supposed to do?
How am I supposed to live?
Okay.
What is the work you have to do
and when do you need to start?
Marion, I have to go.
I'm already behind.
I...
I'll talk to you later, okay?
Bye.
Okay.
The HVAC guy
got the sump pump working
and got most of the water out.
This has never happened before.
I'm never down here.
My husband was always
the one down here,
changing the filter
in the furnace
or checking the fuse box.
But he died last year, so...
Uh-huh.
There's where
the water's coming in.
Where?
The sink.
The sink doesn't overflow.
I mean, is it a pipe
that's clogged, or...
Probably the pump
needs clearing out.
I'll write an estimate.
My mother died a few months ago.
What about you?
Is your mother still alive?
No. No, she's not.
Died in 1991, 52 years old.
Goodness.
That's not old... at all.
It sure ain't.
Your father?
He's 78.
Hmm.
You're lucky to have him.
He's mean as they come.
Well...
I guess, in the end,
we miss them no matter...
no matter what they were like.
No, not him.
You know what? Uh...
- You see something?
- Well, maybe.
- I have an idea. Yes.
- You do?
Thought that might be
why you came.
- Tell us, tell. Is it...
- Well, I...
didn't explore
the Trayvon Martin case.
I know it's been a while,
but I think there's
a lot to unpack.
I've been thinking
about my mother
and how she insisted
we be polite and buttoned up
around white people.
And there's all this...
Nazi symbolism
all over the place. You heard
about what happened
in Charlottesville.
- Yes. Neo-Nazis.
- Yeah.
Drove his car through a crowd
at a protest for Black Lives.
Killed a white woman.
Heather Heyer.
All these idiots walking
around with tiki torches,
invoking imagery from the KKK
and Nazi Germany to stoke fear.
There's this terrific
Indian scholar.
I've been wanting to read
his work, but I haven't.
Um...
He's a Dalit professor,
and he won a...
- Sorry, a "Dalit" professor?
- He's a Dalit
and a professor.
The Dalits are untouchables
in India,
beneath the lowest caste.
- Have you ever heard of them?
- No.
- Have you ever heard of them?
- No.
No! Me either. Why?
There's connective tissue here.
There's connective tissue there.
There is connective tissue here.
I... I could...
I could... I could...
I could build a thesis
that shows how all of this,
all of it,
is linked.
Well...
Well, that's the writer's
journey, right?
Sorting all of that out.
There's a lot going on
in that big brain of yours.
I love that. I love it.
But I gotta be honest with you,
I don't understand
how the woman that they killed,
by the neo-Nazis...
Heather Heyer.
How that connects
to the Dalit professor...
- Mm-hmm.
- Connects to Trayvon Martin,
connects to your mom.
I don't see it.
Yet. I don't see that yet.
But if you can make
people see it,
then that is an incredible book.
Come here. Mm...
I love you.
Please be safe, okay?
- Hello, excuse me.
- Hi.
Um, this is the book
you ordered.
- Oh, yes, yes. Please sit down.
- And the list we talked about.
This is a list from 1935,
October,
- a little bit later than the first list.
- Yes.
And here, Remarque, Erich Maria...
That means everything he wrote
is "to destroyed." Blown.
- "To be destroyed."
- Yes.
Excuse me.
I heard you inquire
about Remarque.
But I couldn't hear
the librarian's answer.
I'm Kstner.
I'm from here.
How long have you been
in Berlin?
About five weeks.
You've no idea what's happening.
- Pardon me?
- I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
You have no idea what's
happening here.
Everything is being torn apart.
The period of exaggerated
Jewish intellectualism
is now at an end!
The German soul...
can express itself again!
No to decadence...
and moral corruption!
Yes to decency and morality
in family and state!
In Germany, there's
memorials to nearly everyone
victimized by the Nazis.
And there's no entry sign,
no gate.
- It's just opened both day and night.
- Yes, yes.
Just standing to bear witness.
20,000 books
that were lost that night.
Books filled with imagination and ideas,
and history.
Leave here, my friends.
Leave Germany.
Go to your home
as soon as you can,
you'll be safer there.
I deliver to the flames
the works of...
Sigmund Freud,
Heinrich Mann,
Ernst Glser,
Erich Maria Remarque...
Erich Kstner.
"Where you burn books,
you end up burning men."
It's a quote by Heinrich Heine.
He was a poet.
German and Jewish.
No. You are not changing
the subject anymore.
- Oh, yeah.
- Okay.
- Guns, Christmas.
- Yes.
- And then?
- Ah!
- Jawohl. Sweetheart?
- No, I still have
a couple sips left.
You're basically in danger
when you're visiting
your family.
- Yeah. Always.
- It's the American way.
I mean, we know. We know.
It's ridiculous.
That is what I'm looking at
with the article.
You have 900 shootings a week,
it seems, in America,
and you keep giving people guns.
I don't understand at all.
We don't even understand it
ourselves.
We don't understand.
You know, I um... I heard, here,
that displaying the swastika
is a crime.
- Mm-hmm.
- Three years in prison?
Yes, yes, that's true.
I mean, it's not tolerated.
Well, in America, um...
the Confederate flag,
which is like your swastika,
the flag of murderers
and traitors,
it is a part
of the official flag
of one of our states,
- No.
- Mississippi.
Men who wanted to wage war
for the right
to own other human beings.
Statues of them sprinkled all
over the country right now.
- Madness.
- Hmm.
You know, it's not perfect,
but Germany has no monuments
that celebrate Nazis.
I mean, everything Hitler's
gone,
paved right over it all,
and built new things.
I mean, you can literally walk
right over Nazi places
and never know
they were even there.
- And the bunker.
- Yes, the bunker.
- It's long gone.
- It's like nothing.
- Yeah.
- I mean, it was 30 feet underground,
and was protected
with reinforced concrete.
And now it has, like,
a Volkswagen
or something parked on top of it
at any given time of the day.
It is very different
than the States.
A very different approach.
Well, there are so many
differences
between here and there.
We are talking
about the systematic murder
of 6,000,000 Jews,
that's the official number.
So it's just very different
than monuments to soldiers
and whatnot.
And what? What are you
saying is different?
All of it. We're talking
about deliberate extermination
over many years.
Yeah, but wasn't slavery for,
like, hundreds of years?
- Right, Isabel?
- Slavery lasted 246 years.
That's 13 generations of people.
Plus another 100 years
of Jim Crow,
segregation,
violence and murder.
It is, of course, horrific.
I am not downplaying any of it.
There were so many millions
of African Americans
who were murdered.
From the Middle Passage
until the end
of legal segregation,
that it goes beyond the realm
of an official number.
- There is no number.
- I didn't know that.
- No. It's stunning.
- It is.
And I understand you're
trying to make sense
of American racism.
It is noble.
But your thesis linking caste
in Germany
with the United States
is flawed.
Maybe it's not exactly the same,
but the thesis of
structural similarity
certainly gives context
for a framework.
Right, but a framework
is not a book, my friends.
She is trying to connect
the United States to Germany,
but it doesn't fit.
It's as if you're trying
to "fit a square inside
the circle," as they say.
I would just like you
to note for yourself
that American slavery
is rooted in subjugation,
dominating Blacks
for the purposes of capitalism,
using bodies and labour
for profit.
But for the Jews
during the Holocaust,
the end call
was not subjugation,
it was extermination.
"Kill them all.
Wipe them off the face
of the Earth.
There's no need for them here."
It's different.
I say, leave Jewish folks alone.
They're fine.
They don't need you.
Write about us, Isabel.
I am writing about us.
I just...
I couldn't fully explain
- what was in my head.
- You better than me.
Because I would have had words.
She was rude.
I had words.
I had a ton of words.
Wow. And none of them were,
"I'm the right one
on the wrong day, baby"?
Yeah, well, I'm still
my mother's child,
- and that wouldn't have happened.
- I know.
You never could bag back,
even when we were kids.
Always thinking
about your comeback
the next day.
"I know what I should
have said was..."
What if Brett had been there
last night?
Poor lady.
Probably would still be there,
confronting.
Afternoon.
Hi, afternoon.
Some unwanted visitors, huh?
Looks like they even built a guesthouse.
I'm putting these out
in the backyard to empty out.
Just have your gardener
pick 'em up in a day or two.
Sir. Sir.
Sir, I don't want that.
I'd rather not have
those nests in my yard.
I have dogs,
and that spray can't
be good for them.
It's fine, won't hurt 'em.
Hey.
Can I help?
- Can I just...
- Yes, go ahead.
Excuse me.
She doesn't want it back there.
Did you...?
Did you not hear what she said?
Yeah, but I can't take it
with me today.
- My bins are full.
- Okay. Well,
I guess we're just gonna have to figure
something out then, right?
I mean, you didn't...
you didn't remove that
for free, did you?
No. Right?
- No, I didn't.
- So, look, if this is your tree,
you go ahead and you leave that
wherever you'd like.
But if you do want to get paid
for your work,
you're gonna have
to finish the job.
Appreciate the cooperation.
Did I just mansplain?
- Well, you asked for permission, so...
- Right.
And if you hadn't...
I'd be in a white saviour mode, right?
What do you know about that?
Oh, hey. Well, break bad habits,
you never gonna get broke, right?
Well, you asked for permission,
so we'll just call it
being neighbourly.
Okay. Let's... let's do that.
I haven't seen your mom and dad
on their walks for a while.
- How are they doing?
- You know,
they're slowing down. Thank you.
But they're having
the conversation about moving
to Florida.
But they're hanging in,
you know.
- My mom, too.
- Mmm.
I get it.
My mom made me promise
I'd come by today. It's...
It's my birthday, so...
Wait...
- Today is your birthday?
- Yeah.
- Today is your birthday?
- It is.
- Yes, she...
- Oh.
She made me a cake.
Like I was a little kid.
'Cause she still thinks
you're her baby.
I think it's sweet.
Hmm.
Um...
Happy birthday...
It's Brett.
- I'm Isabel.
- Yeah, I know.
And I think birthdays
are a big deal.
- Do you? Wow.
- Yes, I do.
- Not me, honestly, but...
- They should be.
- Really?
- Yes.
Okay.
Will you come over?
Come have a slice of cake
with us,
you know,
that would make my mom so happy.
And... And, you know,
it would make the birthday
a big deal, because I don't
have any idea how to do that.
Well, I haven't seen your mom
and dad for a while.
- There you go.
- Yeah.
I'll come in and say hi.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Wow.
- Okay.
- Oh, God.
- What?
- Nothing, what?
Come on, let's go eat some cake.
- She makes a mean cake, too.
- Really?
Oh, yeah, she's got
the layers going.
- What kind are we talking about?
- We're talking about, I mean...
Hopefully, there's not gonna be,
like, a fire engine on it
like when I was seven,
you never know with my mom.
These are the minutes
from the meeting in 1934.
15 months after the meeting,
they become law.
- Jim Crow laws.
- Yes.
- American race laws.
- Yes.
It's mind-blowing.
"Our problem is different.
Their problem is...
negroes with nothing
to build upon.
A problem that plays no part
for us here in Germany.
Our problem is the Jews,
who must be kept
enduringly apart."
- What is this?
- That is a transcript
of a meeting
that I saw a picture of,
where Nazi lawyers were studying
American law and customs
to figure out how
to pull off the Holocaust.
Our problem is the Jews who must
be kept enduringly apart,
since there's no doubt
that they represent
a foreign body in the Volk.
And segregation
will never achieve the goal
as long as the Jews
have economic power
in the German fatherland
as they do have now.
As long as they have
the most beautiful automobiles,
- the most beautiful motorboats...
- Mm-hmm.
As long as they play
a prominent role
in the pleasure spots
and resorts
and everywhere that costs money.
This can only be achieved
through measures
that forbids sexual mixing
of a Jew and a German,
and imposes criminal punishment.
We must answer
the question today
as to whether laws
that the Reich will institute
should declare only
the separation of races,
or if it should declare
the superiority of one
and the inferiority of others.
In the fall of 1933,
Allison Davis and his wife,
Elizabeth,
cut short their advanced studies
at the University of Berlin,
and fled Germany
when Hitler took power.
Well, we finally got proof
that one landowner named Bailey
has been whipping sharecroppers.
Bailey's wife told me
that's the way to manage them
when they get too "uppity"?
We heard about a tenant farmer,
one county over,
who was beaten so badly by
a store merchant, he can't bring in a crop.
We're headin' over there
tomorrow.
Do you know what sparked that?
The Negro man asked
for a receipt.
Beat him right there
in the store.
It inspired him to
study the process of injustice.
This gave Dr. Davis new insight
into the nature of hate.
The other half of their team
was a white couple
named Burleigh and Mary Gardner,
also Harvard anthropologists.
The mission was
quietly revolutionary.
Together, all four
would embed themselves
in an isolated Southern town
from both sides
of the caste divide.
One breach of a social order
could cost them
all their lives.
And this was exactly
what they were doing
in Natchez, Mississippi,
breaching the social order
to study the social hierarchy
of the South.
A mission that would render them
undercover investigators
in order to fit
into the community.
This would be one
of the first studies
of its kind.
Neither couple fully knew
what they were
getting themselves into.
Out in public,
they had to remain
in character at all times.
With the Davises required
to show deference
to the Gardners and never
give the appearance
that they were, in fact,
colleagues in the trenches,
they had to keep
to their own caste performance.
Everyone had to play the part
expected of them.
They don't need
to be out on these streets.
You seen 'em around before?
Oh, yeah.
The monkey's getting too big
for his britches.
Hmm.
Might've to train him.
Come on.
I don't see
how we stay much longer.
Our neighbour practically
invited us
to a lynching yesterday.
And Allison,
there've been some...
some unkind things
said about you.
I can't be sure these folks
don't get in mind
and do something.
We're seeing similar suspicion,
- we should consider.
- Not yet.
- Allison.
- You're getting into the wide inner circle
- of this town...
- It's not worth our safety.
And that is what
we need to observe.
We're close.
The two couples
kept on the move,
constantly changing clandestine
locations for safety.
They couldn't go
to each other's homes.
Mixing of races was
not allowed publicly
in any form except subservience.
"A most striking tenet
of their embrace of supremacy
is deference."
That should be the core of
the chapter, don't you think?
Maybe you're right.
Deference goes beyond
mere observance
of certain formalities.
We call them "sir"
and they call us
"boy" and "gal."
Exactly.
Never contradicting whites.
Always agreeing with them.
Evenin'.
- Hey!
- Y'all eat?
Been out here readin'
and writin' for hours.
Greens with fatback
gonna get cold.
Hey, now,
ain't gotta tell me twice.
No. Yes, ma'am.
Can't wait to try them greens.
We'll be there.
All right.
Hey!
Hi!
The American material gives us
a path to an answer.
Yeah.
America has succeeded here.
Their legislation
does not base itself
on the mere idea
of racial difference.
But to the extent this legislation
is aimed at Negroes,
it bases itself absolutely
on the idea of inferiority.
Well, Germans are already
convinced that the Jews
are an inferior race.
German laws should reflect that.
Precisely.
I am of the opinion
that we can proceed
with the same primitivity
as the American states.
Such a procedure would be...
crude legally,
but it would suffice.
The Nazi blueprint,
for the extermination
of millions of people,
was directly patterned
after America's enslavement
and segregation of Black people.
- America taught the Nazis?
- Caste in America.
In Germany,
it functions the same.
The outcomes might be different,
like Sabine said.
But it is the same.
I think that the caste system
in India,
I think that there is
a connection there too,
but... the interconnectedness.
That is my point.
That is what I'm saying.
Come here.
We proudly bestow
this Ambedkar Award
to Dr. Suraj Yengde,
postdoctoral fellow
at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Come on, win it!
Come on, win it!
Nathaniel, I know it's gonna be
worth the wait.
Give it to me.
Carol, can you finish
uncovering this one?
I got it, baby.
This chicken looks good.
What?
- Respectfully...
- Yeah.
We and everybody are just
wondering about an ETA.
The ETA is when
I say it's ready,
respectfully.
Yes, ma'am.
- Hi, Isabel.
- Hello.
- How you been?
- I've been all right.
Yeah, how are you holding up?
All is well.
How are you two?
We're good.
- Everything's good.
- Starvin'.
I wanted to ask if you knew
one of my professors,
Dr. Montgomery?
I think he studies
the same things you do.
Oh, no. But I'm not keeping up
like I used to, so...
Of course.
Well, he is a smart man,
a nice older gentleman.
I thought you might like
to meet him.
He is handsome for his age,
Black.
Why don't the two of you
take this over to the Uno table?
And tell them we startin'.
- Okay.
- Okay.
Boy.
They mean well.
You know, Brett always
looked forward to these.
You and Mama were the only ones
that let him in.
Folks weren't mean.
I know, but there was
always... that.
"When is she gonna leave him
and find herself
a good brother?"
Now, these containers,
these containers we're in.
We, we... Maybe the...
Maybe the label says,
"Black woman."
Maybe the label says,
"White man, or Asian."
Hey! Fix your face.
You're too young for all that.
You read the label
and we think we know
what's on the inside.
Y'all can eat now.
Mm-hmm.
We trust the label.
We put the container
on the shelf.
And that's it.
That's it.
Who need a kiss for good luck?
- Me.
- 'Cause that hand is trash.
Come on, Mama,
give me some sugar.
There you go. Thank you, baby.
Okay, so now go ahead,
I'm listenin'.
I think that's what
my book is about.
Oh. Okay.
I forgot, which one is yours,
which one is mine?
This one is mine.
Okay. Oh, here you go.
So, your book is about
interracial relationships.
Mm, no, no. It's about...
it's about caste.
It's a phenomenon of placing
one group above another group.
In a hierarchy.
And the consequences
to its victims
and presumed beneficiaries.
Um...
One more time in English?
A little Pulitzer Prize-less,
if you can.
I can!
Okay, well, then do it.
Make it plain.
Because the stuff you were
saying about the Nazis
got me all twisted around.
How is that in the same book
about Brett?
I don't get it.
Do you think slavery
was a system
of terrorism and torture
that the Europeans used
to profit off the labour
of Black people who
they considered inferior?
Yeah. Hell yes, it was.
- No.
- Don't shake your head, it was!
No, they made it all up.
Your girl Toni Morrison said,
"Why would you give your child
to be nursed and raised
by people who
you think aren't human,
who are animals?"
- Yes, Toni.
- Yes, Toni.
It was all lies.
They knew we weren't inferior,
but they magnified,
they magnified the myths.
They codify them,
set them in stone,
in systems, in our laws,
in our healthcare, in where
we live, how we learned,
the kind of work that we do,
even our food.
- Racism at its finest.
- Mm-hmm.
No, it's caste.
Everything you just said
was racist.
Okay. Well, if it's racist,
then why is the same thing
happening in India?
They're all brown.
They're all Indian.
Marion, right now to this day,
there is a system in India
where generations of people
are forced to clean sewers
with their hands,
their shit, with their hands.
They are beneath the lowest
of the hierarchy.
They're called Dalits.
At one point, they were
forced to tie brooms
around their waists because
their shadows were
supposedly polluted.
- Hmm.
- Their shadows.
They had to sweep
behind themselves
when they walked.
How is it racist
if they're all the same race?
Okay, do you think
that Jews are white?
Definitely.
The majority are.
But the same thing happened
to Jews in Germany
during the Holocaust.
The Nazis wanted to create
an all-white republic,
but they hated,
they hated the Jews.
So, they said, "How do we
make the Jews not white?"
So, they put them
at the bottom of the hierarchy.
They said that they were greedy.
They said that
they were dishonest.
They blamed them for Germany
losing the First World War.
They blamed them
for everything bad
that happened in Germany.
They were dogs.
"Kill them. Gas them,
wipe them out."
The Jews and the Nazis
were the same colour.
We have to consider
oppression in a way
that does not centralize race.
We do it here in America, yes,
because racism is all we know.
But these containers,
the Dalits in India,
Jewish people in Germany,
Black folks in America,
all these containers
have something in common.
Race is not one of them.
It's caste.
Only took you 10 minutes
for that comeback.
Figure out how to say more
of what you just said,
make it plain.
Talk to real people
like you just did to me.
Real people.
Real things.
You know, we met in college.
So, one time, she comes up
and saying,
"Can I borrow a pen?"
You are... nigga!
That is not true!
And he didn't know
the day of the final.
So he's like,
"I've seen you in my class..."
And I'm just going...
"Do you know exactly
what the day of the..."
And... see. I think you were
trying to get to me.
- Let me let you in on a secret.
- Mmm.
- Okay.
- I knew when the final was.
- That's my baby.
- Night, night.
Night, night.
Sweet dreams.
Isabel.
Come by more often, will ya?
We seem to only get the lasagna
when you around here.
I'm hearing that she's stingy
with the lasagna.
I don't know what it is.
Stop, you are lying too close
to Sunday, come on.
- Love you.
- It was good seeing you.
- Good night.
- Good night. Good to see you, too.
Make sure they bathe.
With water, real water.
Yes, ma'am.
- And a washcloth.
- I'll do my best, baby.
Shit, do I... What...
Do I just...
Do I talk slow? What do I...
Okay, so I was in 10th grade,
and we had just moved to Texas,
and my friend and I had this...
these walkie-talkies.
Which, you know, we'd be
using between classes,
to talk or whatever.
- And this was pre-cell phone, of course.
- Right.
- Right.
- Late 80s.
And... the principal
called me to his office,
he was all suspicious.
Because he wanted to know
why all these people
were gathered around my locker.
So I showed him
the walkie-talkie.
And he asked my name.
And I said, "Miss Hale."
And he said,
"What is your first name?"
"It's Miss."
I said,
"What is your first name?"
"My name's Miss."
He's, "I don't have time
for all this foolishness, gal.
What is your real name?"
I've... I've repeated
my damn name four times.
That's a direct defiance
of caste.
The most personal
I've heard yet.
Can you imagine that?
A young Black man plotting
to force the respect
of white people.
Your father tore a loophole
through the hierarchy.
It's brilliant.
Brilliant. Go on, go on.
So the principal was furious.
So he tells his secretary
to check my records,
and, of course, they confirm
that my legal name
is Miss Hale.
So he says to me,
"Hale. I don't know any Hales.
You not from around here.
Where's your father from?"
And I said,
"He's from Alabama."
And he said,
"I knew you weren't
from around here.
You know how I knew?
And I said, "No."
And he said, real cold...
"'Cause you looking me
in the eye.
Coloured folk around here
know better."
I was...
I was scared.
- You know, I was a kid.
- Yeah.
I had never felt...
that...
that cold glare.
You know, he was lookin' me
right in the eyes,
demanding that I not look him
in the eyes.
You know, my...
You know, Daddy would...
It's okay. It's okay.
Daddy tell me again and again,
"Always live up to your name."
He said, "Miss...
They don't have the corner
on humanity.
They don't have the corner
on femininity.
They don't have the corner
on what it means
to be a whole, noble,
honourable person."
Far from it.
Thank you.
You okay?
Most relationships end.
Friendships, romances.
Divorces. I mean, separations,
people grow apart.
They break.
But we didn't break.
We fought that night.
It was about something
so silly, Miss.
I should have spent
more time with her.
Daddy would want me to fix this.
For Christ's sake,
would you stop, Isabel?
Just stop.
It's her idea,
she made a choice,
she's a grown woman,
let her make it.
It's like you hide behind
this thing with your mother.
- Hiding?
- I just don't get it.
- Hide? I'm not hiding.
- Hiding. You're hiding.
I'm not hiding.
So silly.
And then...
he offered me some pasta...
to apologize.
You want some of that pasta?
- Save me some.
- Okay.
And then that was it.
But we didn't break.
We did not break.
We were together.
Til' the end.
He should be here, Miss.
He should be here.
And the one person...
that I could talk to about...
she's gone, too.
What the hell am I
supposed to do now?
Come, come, come.
You're okay.
I just wanna scream,
I just wanna scream,
I just wanna scream.
Then scream. Then scream.
Scream.
Roomy.
Fantastic light.
Will you update or
sell as original?
I was thinking
a fresh coat of paint.
Vintage it is.
Yeah.
There might be
water damage there.
Yes, with everything going on,
I just...
I just basically
locked up the house,
I have to deal with it.
It's a process.
Isn't everything?
So what is the price difference
between fixing it up
and selling it as is?
- As is?
- Yeah.
You're basically giving
this little jewel away.
The area's hot right now
with hipsters.
And these older homes,
when they're fixed up,
can sometimes double in value.
If you can put a few thousand
towards getting it fixed,
you would have a competitive
situation on your hands
with multiple bidders.
You write books, right?
A book.
I'm writing another one, but...
books don't pay as much
as people think.
I get it.
Sell as a fixer and don't
even worry about it.
Let someone else do the work.
So let's discuss the contract.
Once the property is clear,
we'll go ahead
and do an open house,
that way, people can come in
and view the property and see
what they're willing to offer.
Like I said,
we'll get multiple bidders...
- Who is that?
- What?
They didn't wanna
get in trouble.
Stop.
She sucked her thumb
and peed in the bed
'til she was 20 years old.
I'm not... I'm just... Stop.
So cute. So cute.
Mm, mm, mm.
Look at Mama.
So cute.
- So fine.
- Yeah.
How much is it?
Eh...
All four estimates
are over $10,000.
- Damn.
- Yeah.
You can't sell
the roofless house.
Well, we'll have to wait
til' I get back.
- You leave when again?
- Next month.
I have so much research
to do here,
and I have
to start a new draft soon.
Do you even know anybody
in India?
Marion, here's Uncle.
That's the point of travellin'.
Meeting new people.
Travelling to places where
you are warmly welcomed
by familiar faces is underrated.
Well, I might have found
an Indian professor
who can help me navigate.
"Might"?
No, no "might."
Here you are.
No, no, no.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Madam.
Okay, good. Oh, good.
Isabel! Isabel!
Suraj!
- So good to see you.
- Hello, hello.
Allow me to introduce
my esteemed friend...
- Yes.
- Professor Ram Kamli.
- The pleasure is mine.
- Thank you, thank you.
You know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna go straight.
We're gonna walk right there.
- That's where we gotta go.
- We're doing that?
We're gonna do that.
- You're excited?
- Yes, I am.
Welcome to India, Isabel.
It's so good to have you.
I'm happy to be here.
There are signals
on all the corners.
And this is one of the...
This is not four-way.
- This is five-way.
- Five-way.
And if you add a person like me,
I make my own way.
- So, it's like six-way.
- Six-way?
Oh my...
A beautiful market.
- I like this one.
- You like this one?
She would like this.
- It's for my cousin.
- That look gorgeous.
Thank you.
Why is the statue caged?
Ah. Quite observant.
He's Babasaheb,
the leader of Dalits.
Isabel, he's Dr. Ambedkar!
This is the time
when he had just completed
the task of drafting
India's constitution.
There, he's holding it
and standing tall.
You will find these statues
all across the country.
From a busier street,
square, parks,
railway stations, bus stations.
Even in people's
private properties.
Him standing is an affirmation
of our existence.
To us, he is revered.
To others, they revile him.
Dr. Ambedkar statues are
one of the most vandalized
in the country.
The cage is to keep
the vandals away.
Dr. Ambedkar is more
than a champion
and a hero to the Dalit people.
He's the hope that lives
within us.
He went to the heart of
the problem of caste,
and he thought purity was lying
- beneath the artifice of caste...
- Mm-hmm.
And where the human
population was chopped
into what he called "fixed
and definite units."
In America,
you have what you call
the Blacks, the Browns,
the Asian, the Whites, and etc.
Similarly, we have in India,
where the Dalits are supposed
to be at the bottom
- and the Brahmins at the top.
- Mm-hmm.
And between, there are
various units of caste.
What maintains this unit into
continuing of caste system
is unending violence
in the form of rape,
mutilation and murder.
In India, a Dalit person
is attacked every 15 minutes.
Every day,
10 Dalit women are raped,
and these are only
the reported cases.
Rohith Vemula's friends, family
and the wider Dalit Movement
called it
an institutional murder.
And they called it this
because it was not
simply a case of suicide.
They said that
this was an institution
that was systematically
discriminating
against a young Dalit student.
And this was important
because for a lot of us,
as young folks who were looking
for a life of dignity
and respect,
and were looking to education
and the university
to give us that life,
it showed that the spectre of
caste was still haunting us.
In a world where Dalit
people are brutalized,
simply to keep us in our place,
Dr. Ambedkar remains
our shining light.
Our guardian, our hero,
our father.
The site of Dr. Ambedkar's
last home.
- It's a museum now.
- Ah.
Quite magnificent.
As you can see,
it's an open-book concept.
While he is a giant
among Dalits,
the world has failed
to acknowledge his genius.
Dr. Ambedkar was separated
from the kids of high caste
so as not to pollute them.
As a child,
young Bhimrao Ambedkar
was not allowed to touch
many of the things
his classmates would touch.
He was not even allowed
to touch water at the school.
This is because
he was considered
an "untouchable."
That was the term used
for Dalits at the time.
Young Ambedkar was not
allowed to touch or sit
at a desk during class.
But he persevered.
He continued to study
and break barriers.
Dr. Ambedkar earned two PhDs.
One at Columbia University,
and the other at the London
School of Economics.
After obtaining his PhDs
and passing the bar,
Dr. Ambedkar returned to India
as a heralded scholar.
We have been carrying on
with untouchability
for the last 2,000 years.
Nobody has bothered about it.
You see? Yes, there are some...
some disabilities.
We are very harmful.
Apparently,
people can't take water.
People can't have land, you see,
to cultivate
and earn their livelihood.
There is an insistence
on conflating caste with race.
- Oh, yeah.
- If I brought you
to the family reunion,
what would you say?
What would you say to them?
My cousin Marion.
My... my mother.
What would you say to them
that's important for them
to know...
about you, about India,
about caste and our connection?
Our heroes found the connection.
And it is up to us
to find it again,
and build upon it
in sibling solidarity.
When Bhimrao Ambedkar was
a young Indian graduate student,
he found himself
in New York City.
Harlem, to be exact.
He saw kindred spirits
among Black people in America.
Both in the oppression
they faced
and in their survival.
He immediately recognized
the similarities
between how African Americans
were treated
and the treatment of Dalits.
Asha, you've been doing
some work on this right?
Yes, my thesis centred on
Dr. King's visit to India.
He saw many of these things
first time,
while he and his wife
toured the country.
I found the way in which
he wrote about India
to be fascinating as someone
afflicted by caste
in their own country.
I used his essay in the magazine
of United States
as the core of my research.
Uh, do you know Ebony Magazine?
Yes.
Yes, I know Ebony Magazine.
Dr. King wrote about
India in Ebony?
Yes.
July 1959.
It is quite extraordinary.
And so, there is
a connection between us.
The African Americans,
the Dalits,
the indigenous people
around the world,
the Palestinian people,
the Roma people, Buraku people.
- Yes.
- The outcasts of Africa
are still fighting
for their rights.
Be it Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal.
You go to Latin America,
you find outcasts
within the Mexican society
or Brazilian society.
And if we think
about our histories
through the wonderful
ability of love,
the symbols of hate
and diets of violence
will be replaced by compassion,
care and solidarity.
This is the world that
we have to imagine
for ourselves and for others
who have not yet seen the beauty
that human beings have to offer.
One afternoon,
I went down to speak
in the southern part of India,
and I remember that afternoon
that the principal got up
to introduce me.
He said,
"I would like to present to you
a fellow untouchable
from the United States
of America."
And for the moment,
I was peeved. I was shocked
that I would be introduced
as an untouchable.
Pretty soon, my mind ran back
across to America.
And I had to say to myself,
I am an untouchable.
And segregation is
evil and sinful
because it stigmatizes
the segregated as an untouchable
in a caste system.
And this is why I'm convinced
that we have the moral edict,
a moral mandate,
to work to get rid of
this unjust and evil system.
I'll put the phone near her.
Okay.
Baby.
You're on speaker. Um...
She's...
She hasn't been responding
to folks.
I understand.
Marion.
It's Isabel.
Hi, Cousin.
I called to say goodbye.
I believe you can hear me.
You mean so much to me.
I remember everything
you have ever said to me.
From the time that we were kids
until the last time
I heard your voice.
I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget you.
You will walk with me.
You will live in me.
For as long as I'm here.
Watch over me.
Cover me, okay?
I won't see you,
but you'll see me.
There's more to life
than what you can see.
You're going
to experience it all.
I love you. I love you.
I love you.
I could stay around for a bit.
Don't you dare. You go.
So you can come home and
you can write your stories.
'Cause folks need to know
about this.
The pillars are working.
You know, it gives it shape.
Good, good.
Then how many of them
will there be?
Six or seven.
Maybe eight.
And you are going
to make this deadline?
I am going
to make this deadline.
This self-imposed deadline.
Well, I don't have anyone
to push me anymore,
so I have to push myself.
A caste system needs scaffolding
in order to maintain
its hierarchies.
Dr. Ambedkar wrote,
"Caste is an artificial
chopping up of
the population into fixed units.
Each unit is prevented
from fusing into another
through the custom
called endogamy."
Our rehearsing has paid off.
It's only taken six months
to get that twirl down.
But...
completely worthwhile.
Let's go again.
Let me powder my nose first.
In showing how endogamy
is maintained,
we can prove the genesis
and mechanism of caste.
Endogamy is defined
as restricting marriage
to people within the same caste.
Have you heard...
they're asking for names
and addresses.
They won't.
They're looking for artists
and people who like jazz.
I don't believe it.
It's all blown out of proportion.
No. This happened at the
Wonder Room last month.
This is an ironclad foundation
of any caste system.
From ancient India,
to the Nazi regime,
to the American colonizers.
Laugh, dear.
Laugh right now.
Endogamy enforces caste
boundaries
by forbidding marriage,
sexual relations
or even the appearance
of romantic interest
across caste lines.
It builds a firewall
between certain people.
By closing off
legal family connection,
endogamy purposely
blocks sense of empathy
and shared destiny
between people.
Mama!
Mama!
It was the caste system,
through the practice
of endogamy,
which essentially regulated
people's romantic choices
over the course of centuries,
that created and reinforced
the idea of races.
By permitting only those
with similar physical traits
to legally mate.
Endogamy laws written
and enforced by white men
designed the population
of the United States.
If you were not a white man
and you violated that...
An unknowable number of lives
were lost due to endogamy...
the defining pillar of caste.
It triggered the most
publicized cases
of lynchings in America.
A protocol strictly enforced
against Black men
and white women.
Front row seat, darlin'.
One of the foremost
scholars of caste
in America once wrote,
"Tied to what one looked like,
membership in either
the upper or the lowest caste
is immutable.
Fixed from birth to death.
Inescapable.
One may neither earn
nor wed their way out."
That scholar was
Dr. Allison Davis.
The Davis and Gardner
team emerged
with perhaps the most
comprehensive study,
to this day,
of the American caste system.
Their book, Deep South,
is a quietly revolutionary
landmark experiment
in interracial scholarship.
The Davises and the Gardners
remained lifelong friends.
Nazi Germany,
the United States and India
all reduced Jews,
African Americans and Dalits
to an undifferentiated mass
of nameless,
faceless scapegoats.
Millennia ago,
Dalits were called
the "untouchables" of India.
Enforced into the degrading
work of manual scavenging,
the practice
of cleaning excrement
from toilets
and open drains by hand
in exchange for leftover food.
The only thing that they have
to protect their bodies...
is oil, each other
and their prayers.
To refuse is to invite
severe punishment or death.
This persists to this day.
The trade and sale
of African people
demolished communities,
obliterated families
and tore flesh from spirit.
Human beings were
tortured to death,
and thrown overboard
on slave ships
during the Middle Passage.
Upon their arrival
at the concentration camps,
Jews were stripped
of the clothing
of their former lives.
Their heads were shaved.
Distinguishing features
like sideburns
or red hair were
deleted from them.
They were no longer
personalities to engage with.
They became a single mass,
purposely easier for SS officers
to distance themselves from.
Indian activists explained
that the manual scavenger
is not a form of employment,
but an injustice
akin to slavery.
It is one of the most prominent
forms of discrimination
against Dalits, and it is
central to the violation
of their human rights,
to their dehumanization.
Through violent storms at sea,
starvation,
mutilation and rape,
Black people were
stacked and squeezed
into the hulls of ships
to be sold into further
unfathomable terror.
Their bodies did not
belong to them...
but to the dominating caste
to do with however it wished.
No longer daughter
of a fisherman,
or a nephew of the midwife,
loving mothers,
headstrong nephews,
dedicated bakers
and watchmakers,
all merged into a single mass
of undifferentiated bodies.
No longer seen as humans
deserving empathy...
but as objects over whom
control could be exerted.
They were no longer people.
They were numbers.
s
Dehumanized.
Now a soulless animal.
Not human.
It is harder to dehumanize
a single person standing
in front of you,
harder to dehumanize
an individual
you've gotten the chance
to know.
Which is why people and groups
who seek power and division
don't bother with
dehumanizing an individual.
Better to attach a stigma,
a taint of pollution,
to an entire group.
Dehumanize the group
and you've successfully
dehumanized
every individual person
within it.
Racism is not the same as caste.
Because race does not matter
in order for the system to work.
"Little League team
wins championship."
Mama.
"Little League team...
splashes."
Oh...
It's true.
Go, go, go!
It was a hot day like today.
We were pretty excited
because we had just won
the city championship
when the coach told us
he was bringing us to this park.
And we're gonna get to eat
and go swimming.
And we were quite excited,
as you can imagine.
And then the park ranger
came over and pointed out Al.
Hey, boy!
- Yes, sir?
- You can't be in here right now.
And you know better.
Who you with?
Everything okay here?
- This boy with your team?
- He's one of my players.
You know how long it'd take
for our maintenance crew
- to clean this up?
- Disinfect it?
- Disinfect what?
- This is a whites-only pool.
We didn't know.
Being young kids,
we didn't understand
what was going on.
- Yeah.
- And um...
yet we wanted to go in the pool
because it was so hot
that day, too.
And then the park ranger,
he said,
"If he goes in, nobody goes in."
So, they took Al outside
to a blanket out there.
But, you know,
we kept looking back at Al,
and see him.
Why was he over there?
Mm-hmm.
So, a few of my friends and I
went over to talk to him
and to make sure he was okay.
So it felt strange
when that happened,
that he was over there
- and you guys were here.
- Yeah, it felt separate.
- He was on our team.
- Yeah. Right, right.
And he was a big part
of our team, and then,
they wouldn't let him in.
Some of the parents brought him
over some food to eat.
Mm-hmm.
- He sat there by himself? Ugh.
- By himself.
And then, the coach talked
to the park ranger again
and said, "Hey, you've gotta let
this kid in,
at least for a little swim."
- Yes, yes.
- So he talked to the coach
and he said,
"There's only one way
- I'm going to let this happen."
- Mm-hmm.
Everybody out. Come on, now.
Come on.
Come on out now.
Come on.
You cannot touch
that water, boy.
You hear me?
Keep your balance.
Do not touch that water.
Real still.
Real still.
Don't touch that water.
It really affected us and
we didn't know what to do.
Right.
And it still bothers me today.
As a kid, we just want
to play baseball and swim.
We didn't know what to do.
And I wish I could do it
over again.
'Cause I don't think
I did enough.
How old were you?
I was nine.
Nine years old.
Al Bright went on to become
an artist and educator.
He was the first
full-time Black faculty member
at his alma mater,
Youngstown State University.
I missed talking to him
for the book
by a matter of months.
He passed away at age 82.
But a part of him died
that afternoon in 1951.
You're going to be fine.
You're going to be just fine.
The tragedy of caste
is that we are judged
on the very things
that we cannot change.
Signposts on our bodies
of gender and ancestry,
superficial differences
that have nothing to do
with who we are on the inside.
The goal of this work
has not been to resolve issues
of a millennia-old phenomenon,
but to bear witness
to its presence
in our everyday lives,
to shine a light on its history
despite those
who would deny it, despite those
who would withhold it
from us even,
who try to convince us
that we don't need to know.
We need to know.
You don't escape trauma
by ignoring it.
You escape trauma
by confronting it.
When you live in an old house,
you may not want to go
in the basement after a storm
to see what the rains
have brought.
But choose not to look
at your own peril.
We're all like homeowners
who've inherited a house
on a piece of land
that's beautiful
on the outside.
But the soil is unstable.
People say I had nothing to do
with how this all started.
I never owned slaves.
I didn't mistreat untouchables.
I didn't gas Jews.
And, yes, not one of us
was around
when this house was built.
But here we are.
The current occupants
of a property
with stress cracks built
into the foundation,
and a roof
that must be replaced.
We are the heirs to whatever
is right or wrong with it.
We didn't erect
the uneven pillars,
but they are ours
to deal with now.
The cracks won't fix themselves.
Any more deterioration
is on our watch.
Caste is not simply hatred.
It is the worn grooves
of routine and expectation.
Patterns of a social order
that have been in place
so long, it looks natural...
when it isn't.
Caste is everywhere,
yet invisible.
No one avoids exposure
to its message,
and the message is simple.
One kind of person
is more deserving of freedom
than another kind.
Freedom to love whoever
you want to love.
Freedom to go
wherever you want to go.
Freedom to express yourself
however you want
to express yourself.
Freedom to resist and fight
for your human right to do so.
Ella, I know you wanna say it.
Go ahead.
I'm not gonna say it.
But you wanna?
Yeah, I do.
I know. Go ahead.
I told you so.
See? Always with
the "I told you so."
'Cause I told you so!
You's right this time.
Uh, what you mean, "this time"?
I'm always right.
Aight, aight, I got you.
Calm down, calm down.
Aight, so get your
little candy or whatever.
- And call me back.
- Aight.
Hey.
3.50.
Like, I don't know, some...
Oh, oh, oh... You know,
like, breakfast.
- Okay, breakfast.
- I like me some eggs...
You like grits, berries.
I got you.
You got me? I don't know if
I want... You like berries?
What, you be eating berries
with pancakes?
Yeah, I eat berries
with pancakes.
Like blueberry pancakes.
They're so bomb.
See, okay, okay.
We've gotta have fun.
We gotta do our own thing.
I feel like...
We gotta do our own thing.
It's gonna be amazing.
I'm really excited...
- Tray?
- Hey, I think...
I think this car's following me.
What? For real?
It keeps looping
around the block.
Dang. Try goin' another way.
Call me when you get home, okay?
All right.
Mama?
Mama?
Afternoon.
Afternoon.
Are you sleeping or kinda?
Kinda.
Hey, Sleeping Beauty.
- Hello.
- Hey. Hi. Hi.
Want to sit up? Sit up.
There you go. All right.
Come on, one more time.
- That's good. That's good.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- How's that?
Yeah. There we go.
Sweetie with you?
He's bringing the trash
around back.
Ah, yeah, garbage day.
Everything in its right place.
Of course you know how to do it,
but you don't have to do it,
not while I'm here.
Don't take my job from me, please.
There's only so much joy left
for me in this world,
you gotta let me have it now.
Okay.
You ready?
Come here.
Okay.
Go slow, okay? Come on.
I got you. Okay.
Could you tell me how
many apartments there are in...
We have 200 units.
- 200, okay.
- 200 units.
And everything...
Kitchen, full kitchen...
Full kitchen and...
Yeah, that's...
Well, everyone looks
really nice.
- Yes. It's a great group.
- You know, Mr. Mayhew,
my husband was
a Tuskegee Airman.
Fought for America
in World War II.
Oh.
Oh, this is a gym here, yeah?
Beautiful, open 24 hours.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
So, um, you've got
a really nice kitchen.
Hey.
- At least there's good light.
- Mmm. Yeah.
Look at that cloud.
I see a swimming pool
with boys jumping in.
- Where?
- There. Look.
There's the arms.
Oh, yeah, I see it.
I see it. I see it.
They're a Little League team,
just won the big game,
celebrating and having a ball.
See the splashes?
Mama.
Little League team. Splashes.
It's true.
You and your imagination.
You gonna be all right?
Yes.
I'm gonna be all right, honey.
I'm going to be all right.
Okay.
If anybody can maneuver,
it's your ma.
Okay?
What's she say all the time?
"My husband was
a Tuskegee Airman."
Listen, I know
keeping elders at home
is supposed to be a noble
thing and all,
but there's something to be said
for keeping her as independent
as she can be.
- Where'd you find them?
- Next to the lamp.
Under a scarf
with the ringer off.
Ugh...
You've got to use the hook.
That is what it is there for.
Is that Mr. Brett?
- Oh!
- Ready to go out?
Is this Marion? How's Teddy?
You know, working my nerves,
but what else is new?
- You need some paper towels?
- Yeah.
Let's not miss this flight, okay?
I love you. Please be safe, okay?
Okay.
You got your boarding pass?
- I knew you had that.
- Yeah, you knew it, huh?
- You got it.
- Bye.
Bye, baby.
The shipyard owners
of Blohm & Voss
gather for a ceremony
celebrating the company's
new 295-foot vessel.
Adopted by the Nazis,
a "heil" salute was mandatory
for German citizens.
But if you look closely,
you'll find someone
who defied this.
His name is believed
to be August Landmesser.
He had joined the Nazi Party
two years before this day,
but in that time,
August met and fell in love
with a woman
unlike any he'd ever met.
Unlike any he was supposed
to have met.
Irma Eckler.
A Jewish woman.
An unexpected treat.
You're early.
I'm a surprise.
That you are.
A handsome one.
Although a member
of the dominant class,
August saw in Irma what others
like him chose not to see.
Her humanity, her beauty,
her love.
On this day,
he folded his arms
rather than salute a regime
that deemed that love illegal.
On this day, he was brave.
He couldn't have been the only
one who felt something tragic
was happening.
So why was he the only one
among the men
to not go along that day?
Perhaps we can reflect
on what it would mean
to be him today.
I'll leave you with that.
Thank you.
- Good luck.
- Thank you.
Bye.
Let me get this.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Water?
- I'm fine. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Isabel, Isabel. Hey!
Amari!
I didn't know you were speaking.
No, no, no, one of my reporters is.
Hey, can you guys give me
a minute? Okay.
- You were solid.
- Uh...
- Nice work.
- I am a better writer
than I am a speaker.
Yeah, well,
you're a better writer
than most people do anything.
So, listen, I was gonna reach
out to you on something.
So I'm gonna take
seeing you as a sign.
This... This Trayvon Martin
case.
- I know.
- Have you heard the tapes?
No. Of what?
Not the murder?
911 calls.
This killer called 911
before he did it.
And tapes of people that heard
the boy screaming out
and called the police.
- Is this public?
- No.
But it's being released.
Slowly.
But we got him.
Are you interested in listening,
to consider writing
something for us?
Amari, you have a stable
of writers.
They don't have Pulitzer Prizes.
Some of them do, actually.
Yeah, well, then they're not
as brilliant as you
on things like this.
- You know what I do.
- Yeah, and I know what you used to do.
Some of the best reporting
I've ever edited.
I write books now.
So, that one book you wrote
took way too damn long.
It was a masterpiece
and whatnot, but...
it took too long, Isabel,
if you ask me. Writers write.
So write.
I don't do assignments anymore.
I...
I wanna be in the story.
Really inside the story.
And, yes, that takes time.
Okay.
Maybe after you hear the tapes.
I'm gonna send them to you.
- Okay.
- Okay. No pressure.
Sanford Police Department.
Is there a report of the shots?
Hey, we've had some
break-ins in my neighbourhood.
And there's a real
suspicious guy, uh...
This guy looks like
he is up to no good,
or he's on drugs or something.
Okay, he's just
walking around the area...
Looking at all the houses.
It's raining
and he's just walking around,
- looking about.
- Okay.
And he's a Black male.
Now he's just staring at me.
Did you see what he was wearing?
Yeah, a dark hoodie,
like, a gray hoodie,
and either jeans or sweatpants,
and white tennis shoes.
- Shit, he's running.
- He's running?
Which way is he running?
Down towards the other
entrance to the neighbourhood.
These assholes,
they always get away.
Are you following him?
- Yeah.
- Okay, we don't need you to do that.
Okay?
All right, sir,
what is your name?
George.
He ran.
All right, George,
what's your last name?
Zimmerman.
911. Do you
need police, fire or medical?
Maybe both, I'm not sure.
There's just someone screaming outside.
Okay, what's
the address that they're near?
1211 Twin Trees Lane.
And is it a male or female?
- It sounds like a male.
- And you don't know why?
I don't know why.
I think they're yelling "help,"
but I don't know.
So you think
he's yelling "help"?
Yes.
I can't see him.
I don't want to go out there,
I don't know what's going on,
so...
Just... gunshots.
- You just heard gunshots?
- Yes.
- How many?
- Just one.
Is he right outside
1211 Twin Trees Lane?
Yeah, pretty much.
Out the back, yes.
- Good to see you.
- Thank you. You too.
Hi.
- Hey.
- Hi!
Looking gorgeous.
- Oh, Brett. How are you?
- Hi. Yeah. How are you?
- You well? Great to see you.
- Okay, and you.
He's wearing that tux very well.
Very well.
- He can hear you.
- Well, he can.
But he's grateful, thank you.
- Hi.
- Hello.
Amari Selvan asked me twice
if you were coming.
He wants something
for the paper.
He's made that very clear.
You interested? We can time it
with the audiobook.
Did you listen?
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a lot.
- Yeah.
- It's a lot.
There's a lot there.
But longer-form stuff,
questions that I don't have
the answer to.
So ask them in a piece.
I don't write questions.
I write answers.
Questions like what?
Like why does a Latino man
deputize himself
to stalk a Black boy to protect
an all-white community?
- What is that?
- The racist bias I want you to explore,
excavate for the readers.
We call everything "racism."
What does it even mean anymore?
It's the default.
When did that happen?
- Hey, Brett.
- How are you doing?
So, what? So you're saying
that he isn't a racist?
No, I'm not saying
that he's not a racist.
I'm questioning,
why is everything racist?
- This feels like a setup.
- I've been there.
Okay.
- Home ownership.
- Okay.
Covenants were written
into land deeds
barring Black people
from having wills.
No generational wealth allowed.
We could not pass
on what we earned
to our kids
for almost 500 years.
Every time,
we'd have to start from zero.
So, if we are not allowed
to pass on the fruits
of our labour to our family,
is that the same racism
that took Trayvon's life?
Systemic racism. Yes, same.
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
What does it mean?
Murders of Black people
by the police,
we call that racism.
- Everything's the same.
- I get it.
Being followed
in a department store
and being lynched shouldn't
be called the same thing,
- I get that.
- Racism as the primary language
to understand everything
is insufficient.
- See, this is good.
- That's all.
This is good.
Look, I need a piece delving
into what the Martin case means.
Set the context
with these questions,
it's what you do best.
Make the hard stuff digestible.
And this is a hard one.
"What does it all mean?"
These questions are the piece.
Hey, I'll make it splashy,
prime placement, Sunday.
- Maybe even the cover.
- You're terrible.
You're terrible, Amari.
I'm just saying.
Your face on the cover?
There's a lot there.
There's a lot there.
But I am on hiatus.
- Isabel, come on. Come on.
- I am. I am.
I... I have family
responsibilities.
Well...
Well, good for you
for taking time.
- We'll talk again.
- All right.
Hey, you two take care,
all right?
Good to see you. All right.
- I don't like this.
- Okay.
Okay. Okay.
- I don't...
- She's wrong.
She just said
the only movie she knows.
Oh, she deserves
to lose that money.
Speak to an issue that
obviously has gotten a lot of attention
over the course
of the last week,
the issue of the Trayvon Martin
ruling.
I gave a preliminary
statement...
That poor child's mother.
Right after
the ruling on Sunday.
I wish he'd answered
the man right.
What was that, Mama?
I wish he had answered the man
when he asked him why he was
there in the neighbourhood.
Maybe he'd still be with us.
Are you saying
it's the boy's fault?
No, of course not,
don't be silly.
I'm saying you got to act
in a way to keep you safe.
He was...
He was too young to know it.
He shouldn't have had
to answer to anyone.
"Should have" and real life
are two different things,
darling, you know that.
You can't be walking around
at night on a white street
and not expect trouble.
That's intimidating
to most whites.
True or not?
Yeah.
Yeah. Unfortunately,
I think it is true.
But I also think
that you can't live your life
based on what's intimidating
to people.
Sure you can, sweetie.
So you're going on hiatus, huh,
- is what you're doing?
- Huh?
You told Amari you were
going on hiatus,
you told me that you were gonna
be travelling less for work.
So I'm just trying to figure out
what exactly it is
that you're gonna do.
'Cause...
I said I wanted to focus on her.
Okay.
People are asking you to write
because of your voice,
because they...
the way you think.
- I just... I don't know what you're doing.
- She...
She doesn't belong
in that place.
Oh, right.
She should be at home.
She moved
because she was lonely.
I should've spent
more time with her.
Daddy would want me to fix this.
Hmm.
I think your father
was pretty clear
that what he wanted
was for you to be happy,
people to be happy.
Sacrificing your work, well,
that's gonna accomplish exactly
the opposite, so...
Your mother was very clear
about what she wanted.
It's not that, so...
- I don't see it, Betty.
- Maybe it's checked out.
In 1933,
two African-American anthropologists
were studying in Berlin.
There are no books here
at all by him.
At the premier library
in the city.
The country.
Beautiful library, though.
I could get lost
in all these books forever.
All these ideas.
Your library card.
Good afternoon. Of course.
And your passports.
Can you tell us when Erich Maria Remarque's
'All Quiet on the Western Front' is due back?
They witnessed events
that would change the world.
Baby.
Brett.
By trade, Brett
Hamilton was a mathematician,
a financial analyst.
By heart,
he was a passionate champion
for those he loved deeply.
He played classical guitar,
was an enthusiastic cook,
and volunteered his time
and efforts
to those less fortunate.
In college,
he joined Phi Kappa Tau,
Delta Chapter,
and with his friends,
enjoyed caving trips,
watching thunderstorms,
and debating the big stuff.
Recently, he travelled
extensively in Europe,
accompanying his beloved
in her professional activities
in the cause of social justice.
I'm Mrs. Copeland
from across the street.
How is Isabel?
She's...
she's resting right now.
I can't believe it.
Thank you so much for coming by.
Give her my love, please.
Isabel Wilkerson's office.
Hello, hi.
This is Kate.
I'm Isabel's editor.
Yeah, I know who you are.
Hi, Kate.
This is her cousin Marion.
Marion. Marion, hi.
My condolences
for your family's losses.
I don't have the words.
It's unfathomable,
it's unthinkable.
I just, I can't...
Two of the closest people
to you in a year,
who can withstand it?
How is she?
Hold me.
Don't leave me.
I am right here.
I am right here.
I am right here.
Stay. Stay.
- Stay. Stay.
- I am right here
Stay. Stay. Stay.
Stay.
Hey.
- You made it in okay?
- Yeah, I'm here.
How are you?
Tell me how you're feeling.
How does it feel to be back there
with all of her things?
I'm here, Marion.
That's all I am.
- You know what? I gotta go.
- Right.
I've gotta get
this house packed.
I could come down this weekend
and help you.
We could take it slow.
I've gotta get
these things packed up
so I can start back work.
Wait, you're starting back
to work?
Of course.
What am I supposed to do?
How am I supposed to live?
Okay.
What is the work you have to do
and when do you need to start?
Marion, I have to go.
I'm already behind.
I...
I'll talk to you later, okay?
Bye.
Okay.
The HVAC guy
got the sump pump working
and got most of the water out.
This has never happened before.
I'm never down here.
My husband was always
the one down here,
changing the filter
in the furnace
or checking the fuse box.
But he died last year, so...
Uh-huh.
There's where
the water's coming in.
Where?
The sink.
The sink doesn't overflow.
I mean, is it a pipe
that's clogged, or...
Probably the pump
needs clearing out.
I'll write an estimate.
My mother died a few months ago.
What about you?
Is your mother still alive?
No. No, she's not.
Died in 1991, 52 years old.
Goodness.
That's not old... at all.
It sure ain't.
Your father?
He's 78.
Hmm.
You're lucky to have him.
He's mean as they come.
Well...
I guess, in the end,
we miss them no matter...
no matter what they were like.
No, not him.
You know what? Uh...
- You see something?
- Well, maybe.
- I have an idea. Yes.
- You do?
Thought that might be
why you came.
- Tell us, tell. Is it...
- Well, I...
didn't explore
the Trayvon Martin case.
I know it's been a while,
but I think there's
a lot to unpack.
I've been thinking
about my mother
and how she insisted
we be polite and buttoned up
around white people.
And there's all this...
Nazi symbolism
all over the place. You heard
about what happened
in Charlottesville.
- Yes. Neo-Nazis.
- Yeah.
Drove his car through a crowd
at a protest for Black Lives.
Killed a white woman.
Heather Heyer.
All these idiots walking
around with tiki torches,
invoking imagery from the KKK
and Nazi Germany to stoke fear.
There's this terrific
Indian scholar.
I've been wanting to read
his work, but I haven't.
Um...
He's a Dalit professor,
and he won a...
- Sorry, a "Dalit" professor?
- He's a Dalit
and a professor.
The Dalits are untouchables
in India,
beneath the lowest caste.
- Have you ever heard of them?
- No.
- Have you ever heard of them?
- No.
No! Me either. Why?
There's connective tissue here.
There's connective tissue there.
There is connective tissue here.
I... I could...
I could... I could...
I could build a thesis
that shows how all of this,
all of it,
is linked.
Well...
Well, that's the writer's
journey, right?
Sorting all of that out.
There's a lot going on
in that big brain of yours.
I love that. I love it.
But I gotta be honest with you,
I don't understand
how the woman that they killed,
by the neo-Nazis...
Heather Heyer.
How that connects
to the Dalit professor...
- Mm-hmm.
- Connects to Trayvon Martin,
connects to your mom.
I don't see it.
Yet. I don't see that yet.
But if you can make
people see it,
then that is an incredible book.
Come here. Mm...
I love you.
Please be safe, okay?
- Hello, excuse me.
- Hi.
Um, this is the book
you ordered.
- Oh, yes, yes. Please sit down.
- And the list we talked about.
This is a list from 1935,
October,
- a little bit later than the first list.
- Yes.
And here, Remarque, Erich Maria...
That means everything he wrote
is "to destroyed." Blown.
- "To be destroyed."
- Yes.
Excuse me.
I heard you inquire
about Remarque.
But I couldn't hear
the librarian's answer.
I'm Kstner.
I'm from here.
How long have you been
in Berlin?
About five weeks.
You've no idea what's happening.
- Pardon me?
- I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
You have no idea what's
happening here.
Everything is being torn apart.
The period of exaggerated
Jewish intellectualism
is now at an end!
The German soul...
can express itself again!
No to decadence...
and moral corruption!
Yes to decency and morality
in family and state!
In Germany, there's
memorials to nearly everyone
victimized by the Nazis.
And there's no entry sign,
no gate.
- It's just opened both day and night.
- Yes, yes.
Just standing to bear witness.
20,000 books
that were lost that night.
Books filled with imagination and ideas,
and history.
Leave here, my friends.
Leave Germany.
Go to your home
as soon as you can,
you'll be safer there.
I deliver to the flames
the works of...
Sigmund Freud,
Heinrich Mann,
Ernst Glser,
Erich Maria Remarque...
Erich Kstner.
"Where you burn books,
you end up burning men."
It's a quote by Heinrich Heine.
He was a poet.
German and Jewish.
No. You are not changing
the subject anymore.
- Oh, yeah.
- Okay.
- Guns, Christmas.
- Yes.
- And then?
- Ah!
- Jawohl. Sweetheart?
- No, I still have
a couple sips left.
You're basically in danger
when you're visiting
your family.
- Yeah. Always.
- It's the American way.
I mean, we know. We know.
It's ridiculous.
That is what I'm looking at
with the article.
You have 900 shootings a week,
it seems, in America,
and you keep giving people guns.
I don't understand at all.
We don't even understand it
ourselves.
We don't understand.
You know, I um... I heard, here,
that displaying the swastika
is a crime.
- Mm-hmm.
- Three years in prison?
Yes, yes, that's true.
I mean, it's not tolerated.
Well, in America, um...
the Confederate flag,
which is like your swastika,
the flag of murderers
and traitors,
it is a part
of the official flag
of one of our states,
- No.
- Mississippi.
Men who wanted to wage war
for the right
to own other human beings.
Statues of them sprinkled all
over the country right now.
- Madness.
- Hmm.
You know, it's not perfect,
but Germany has no monuments
that celebrate Nazis.
I mean, everything Hitler's
gone,
paved right over it all,
and built new things.
I mean, you can literally walk
right over Nazi places
and never know
they were even there.
- And the bunker.
- Yes, the bunker.
- It's long gone.
- It's like nothing.
- Yeah.
- I mean, it was 30 feet underground,
and was protected
with reinforced concrete.
And now it has, like,
a Volkswagen
or something parked on top of it
at any given time of the day.
It is very different
than the States.
A very different approach.
Well, there are so many
differences
between here and there.
We are talking
about the systematic murder
of 6,000,000 Jews,
that's the official number.
So it's just very different
than monuments to soldiers
and whatnot.
And what? What are you
saying is different?
All of it. We're talking
about deliberate extermination
over many years.
Yeah, but wasn't slavery for,
like, hundreds of years?
- Right, Isabel?
- Slavery lasted 246 years.
That's 13 generations of people.
Plus another 100 years
of Jim Crow,
segregation,
violence and murder.
It is, of course, horrific.
I am not downplaying any of it.
There were so many millions
of African Americans
who were murdered.
From the Middle Passage
until the end
of legal segregation,
that it goes beyond the realm
of an official number.
- There is no number.
- I didn't know that.
- No. It's stunning.
- It is.
And I understand you're
trying to make sense
of American racism.
It is noble.
But your thesis linking caste
in Germany
with the United States
is flawed.
Maybe it's not exactly the same,
but the thesis of
structural similarity
certainly gives context
for a framework.
Right, but a framework
is not a book, my friends.
She is trying to connect
the United States to Germany,
but it doesn't fit.
It's as if you're trying
to "fit a square inside
the circle," as they say.
I would just like you
to note for yourself
that American slavery
is rooted in subjugation,
dominating Blacks
for the purposes of capitalism,
using bodies and labour
for profit.
But for the Jews
during the Holocaust,
the end call
was not subjugation,
it was extermination.
"Kill them all.
Wipe them off the face
of the Earth.
There's no need for them here."
It's different.
I say, leave Jewish folks alone.
They're fine.
They don't need you.
Write about us, Isabel.
I am writing about us.
I just...
I couldn't fully explain
- what was in my head.
- You better than me.
Because I would have had words.
She was rude.
I had words.
I had a ton of words.
Wow. And none of them were,
"I'm the right one
on the wrong day, baby"?
Yeah, well, I'm still
my mother's child,
- and that wouldn't have happened.
- I know.
You never could bag back,
even when we were kids.
Always thinking
about your comeback
the next day.
"I know what I should
have said was..."
What if Brett had been there
last night?
Poor lady.
Probably would still be there,
confronting.
Afternoon.
Hi, afternoon.
Some unwanted visitors, huh?
Looks like they even built a guesthouse.
I'm putting these out
in the backyard to empty out.
Just have your gardener
pick 'em up in a day or two.
Sir. Sir.
Sir, I don't want that.
I'd rather not have
those nests in my yard.
I have dogs,
and that spray can't
be good for them.
It's fine, won't hurt 'em.
Hey.
Can I help?
- Can I just...
- Yes, go ahead.
Excuse me.
She doesn't want it back there.
Did you...?
Did you not hear what she said?
Yeah, but I can't take it
with me today.
- My bins are full.
- Okay. Well,
I guess we're just gonna have to figure
something out then, right?
I mean, you didn't...
you didn't remove that
for free, did you?
No. Right?
- No, I didn't.
- So, look, if this is your tree,
you go ahead and you leave that
wherever you'd like.
But if you do want to get paid
for your work,
you're gonna have
to finish the job.
Appreciate the cooperation.
Did I just mansplain?
- Well, you asked for permission, so...
- Right.
And if you hadn't...
I'd be in a white saviour mode, right?
What do you know about that?
Oh, hey. Well, break bad habits,
you never gonna get broke, right?
Well, you asked for permission,
so we'll just call it
being neighbourly.
Okay. Let's... let's do that.
I haven't seen your mom and dad
on their walks for a while.
- How are they doing?
- You know,
they're slowing down. Thank you.
But they're having
the conversation about moving
to Florida.
But they're hanging in,
you know.
- My mom, too.
- Mmm.
I get it.
My mom made me promise
I'd come by today. It's...
It's my birthday, so...
Wait...
- Today is your birthday?
- Yeah.
- Today is your birthday?
- It is.
- Yes, she...
- Oh.
She made me a cake.
Like I was a little kid.
'Cause she still thinks
you're her baby.
I think it's sweet.
Hmm.
Um...
Happy birthday...
It's Brett.
- I'm Isabel.
- Yeah, I know.
And I think birthdays
are a big deal.
- Do you? Wow.
- Yes, I do.
- Not me, honestly, but...
- They should be.
- Really?
- Yes.
Okay.
Will you come over?
Come have a slice of cake
with us,
you know,
that would make my mom so happy.
And... And, you know,
it would make the birthday
a big deal, because I don't
have any idea how to do that.
Well, I haven't seen your mom
and dad for a while.
- There you go.
- Yeah.
I'll come in and say hi.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Wow.
- Okay.
- Oh, God.
- What?
- Nothing, what?
Come on, let's go eat some cake.
- She makes a mean cake, too.
- Really?
Oh, yeah, she's got
the layers going.
- What kind are we talking about?
- We're talking about, I mean...
Hopefully, there's not gonna be,
like, a fire engine on it
like when I was seven,
you never know with my mom.
These are the minutes
from the meeting in 1934.
15 months after the meeting,
they become law.
- Jim Crow laws.
- Yes.
- American race laws.
- Yes.
It's mind-blowing.
"Our problem is different.
Their problem is...
negroes with nothing
to build upon.
A problem that plays no part
for us here in Germany.
Our problem is the Jews,
who must be kept
enduringly apart."
- What is this?
- That is a transcript
of a meeting
that I saw a picture of,
where Nazi lawyers were studying
American law and customs
to figure out how
to pull off the Holocaust.
Our problem is the Jews who must
be kept enduringly apart,
since there's no doubt
that they represent
a foreign body in the Volk.
And segregation
will never achieve the goal
as long as the Jews
have economic power
in the German fatherland
as they do have now.
As long as they have
the most beautiful automobiles,
- the most beautiful motorboats...
- Mm-hmm.
As long as they play
a prominent role
in the pleasure spots
and resorts
and everywhere that costs money.
This can only be achieved
through measures
that forbids sexual mixing
of a Jew and a German,
and imposes criminal punishment.
We must answer
the question today
as to whether laws
that the Reich will institute
should declare only
the separation of races,
or if it should declare
the superiority of one
and the inferiority of others.
In the fall of 1933,
Allison Davis and his wife,
Elizabeth,
cut short their advanced studies
at the University of Berlin,
and fled Germany
when Hitler took power.
Well, we finally got proof
that one landowner named Bailey
has been whipping sharecroppers.
Bailey's wife told me
that's the way to manage them
when they get too "uppity"?
We heard about a tenant farmer,
one county over,
who was beaten so badly by
a store merchant, he can't bring in a crop.
We're headin' over there
tomorrow.
Do you know what sparked that?
The Negro man asked
for a receipt.
Beat him right there
in the store.
It inspired him to
study the process of injustice.
This gave Dr. Davis new insight
into the nature of hate.
The other half of their team
was a white couple
named Burleigh and Mary Gardner,
also Harvard anthropologists.
The mission was
quietly revolutionary.
Together, all four
would embed themselves
in an isolated Southern town
from both sides
of the caste divide.
One breach of a social order
could cost them
all their lives.
And this was exactly
what they were doing
in Natchez, Mississippi,
breaching the social order
to study the social hierarchy
of the South.
A mission that would render them
undercover investigators
in order to fit
into the community.
This would be one
of the first studies
of its kind.
Neither couple fully knew
what they were
getting themselves into.
Out in public,
they had to remain
in character at all times.
With the Davises required
to show deference
to the Gardners and never
give the appearance
that they were, in fact,
colleagues in the trenches,
they had to keep
to their own caste performance.
Everyone had to play the part
expected of them.
They don't need
to be out on these streets.
You seen 'em around before?
Oh, yeah.
The monkey's getting too big
for his britches.
Hmm.
Might've to train him.
Come on.
I don't see
how we stay much longer.
Our neighbour practically
invited us
to a lynching yesterday.
And Allison,
there've been some...
some unkind things
said about you.
I can't be sure these folks
don't get in mind
and do something.
We're seeing similar suspicion,
- we should consider.
- Not yet.
- Allison.
- You're getting into the wide inner circle
- of this town...
- It's not worth our safety.
And that is what
we need to observe.
We're close.
The two couples
kept on the move,
constantly changing clandestine
locations for safety.
They couldn't go
to each other's homes.
Mixing of races was
not allowed publicly
in any form except subservience.
"A most striking tenet
of their embrace of supremacy
is deference."
That should be the core of
the chapter, don't you think?
Maybe you're right.
Deference goes beyond
mere observance
of certain formalities.
We call them "sir"
and they call us
"boy" and "gal."
Exactly.
Never contradicting whites.
Always agreeing with them.
Evenin'.
- Hey!
- Y'all eat?
Been out here readin'
and writin' for hours.
Greens with fatback
gonna get cold.
Hey, now,
ain't gotta tell me twice.
No. Yes, ma'am.
Can't wait to try them greens.
We'll be there.
All right.
Hey!
Hi!
The American material gives us
a path to an answer.
Yeah.
America has succeeded here.
Their legislation
does not base itself
on the mere idea
of racial difference.
But to the extent this legislation
is aimed at Negroes,
it bases itself absolutely
on the idea of inferiority.
Well, Germans are already
convinced that the Jews
are an inferior race.
German laws should reflect that.
Precisely.
I am of the opinion
that we can proceed
with the same primitivity
as the American states.
Such a procedure would be...
crude legally,
but it would suffice.
The Nazi blueprint,
for the extermination
of millions of people,
was directly patterned
after America's enslavement
and segregation of Black people.
- America taught the Nazis?
- Caste in America.
In Germany,
it functions the same.
The outcomes might be different,
like Sabine said.
But it is the same.
I think that the caste system
in India,
I think that there is
a connection there too,
but... the interconnectedness.
That is my point.
That is what I'm saying.
Come here.
We proudly bestow
this Ambedkar Award
to Dr. Suraj Yengde,
postdoctoral fellow
at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Come on, win it!
Come on, win it!
Nathaniel, I know it's gonna be
worth the wait.
Give it to me.
Carol, can you finish
uncovering this one?
I got it, baby.
This chicken looks good.
What?
- Respectfully...
- Yeah.
We and everybody are just
wondering about an ETA.
The ETA is when
I say it's ready,
respectfully.
Yes, ma'am.
- Hi, Isabel.
- Hello.
- How you been?
- I've been all right.
Yeah, how are you holding up?
All is well.
How are you two?
We're good.
- Everything's good.
- Starvin'.
I wanted to ask if you knew
one of my professors,
Dr. Montgomery?
I think he studies
the same things you do.
Oh, no. But I'm not keeping up
like I used to, so...
Of course.
Well, he is a smart man,
a nice older gentleman.
I thought you might like
to meet him.
He is handsome for his age,
Black.
Why don't the two of you
take this over to the Uno table?
And tell them we startin'.
- Okay.
- Okay.
Boy.
They mean well.
You know, Brett always
looked forward to these.
You and Mama were the only ones
that let him in.
Folks weren't mean.
I know, but there was
always... that.
"When is she gonna leave him
and find herself
a good brother?"
Now, these containers,
these containers we're in.
We, we... Maybe the...
Maybe the label says,
"Black woman."
Maybe the label says,
"White man, or Asian."
Hey! Fix your face.
You're too young for all that.
You read the label
and we think we know
what's on the inside.
Y'all can eat now.
Mm-hmm.
We trust the label.
We put the container
on the shelf.
And that's it.
That's it.
Who need a kiss for good luck?
- Me.
- 'Cause that hand is trash.
Come on, Mama,
give me some sugar.
There you go. Thank you, baby.
Okay, so now go ahead,
I'm listenin'.
I think that's what
my book is about.
Oh. Okay.
I forgot, which one is yours,
which one is mine?
This one is mine.
Okay. Oh, here you go.
So, your book is about
interracial relationships.
Mm, no, no. It's about...
it's about caste.
It's a phenomenon of placing
one group above another group.
In a hierarchy.
And the consequences
to its victims
and presumed beneficiaries.
Um...
One more time in English?
A little Pulitzer Prize-less,
if you can.
I can!
Okay, well, then do it.
Make it plain.
Because the stuff you were
saying about the Nazis
got me all twisted around.
How is that in the same book
about Brett?
I don't get it.
Do you think slavery
was a system
of terrorism and torture
that the Europeans used
to profit off the labour
of Black people who
they considered inferior?
Yeah. Hell yes, it was.
- No.
- Don't shake your head, it was!
No, they made it all up.
Your girl Toni Morrison said,
"Why would you give your child
to be nursed and raised
by people who
you think aren't human,
who are animals?"
- Yes, Toni.
- Yes, Toni.
It was all lies.
They knew we weren't inferior,
but they magnified,
they magnified the myths.
They codify them,
set them in stone,
in systems, in our laws,
in our healthcare, in where
we live, how we learned,
the kind of work that we do,
even our food.
- Racism at its finest.
- Mm-hmm.
No, it's caste.
Everything you just said
was racist.
Okay. Well, if it's racist,
then why is the same thing
happening in India?
They're all brown.
They're all Indian.
Marion, right now to this day,
there is a system in India
where generations of people
are forced to clean sewers
with their hands,
their shit, with their hands.
They are beneath the lowest
of the hierarchy.
They're called Dalits.
At one point, they were
forced to tie brooms
around their waists because
their shadows were
supposedly polluted.
- Hmm.
- Their shadows.
They had to sweep
behind themselves
when they walked.
How is it racist
if they're all the same race?
Okay, do you think
that Jews are white?
Definitely.
The majority are.
But the same thing happened
to Jews in Germany
during the Holocaust.
The Nazis wanted to create
an all-white republic,
but they hated,
they hated the Jews.
So, they said, "How do we
make the Jews not white?"
So, they put them
at the bottom of the hierarchy.
They said that they were greedy.
They said that
they were dishonest.
They blamed them for Germany
losing the First World War.
They blamed them
for everything bad
that happened in Germany.
They were dogs.
"Kill them. Gas them,
wipe them out."
The Jews and the Nazis
were the same colour.
We have to consider
oppression in a way
that does not centralize race.
We do it here in America, yes,
because racism is all we know.
But these containers,
the Dalits in India,
Jewish people in Germany,
Black folks in America,
all these containers
have something in common.
Race is not one of them.
It's caste.
Only took you 10 minutes
for that comeback.
Figure out how to say more
of what you just said,
make it plain.
Talk to real people
like you just did to me.
Real people.
Real things.
You know, we met in college.
So, one time, she comes up
and saying,
"Can I borrow a pen?"
You are... nigga!
That is not true!
And he didn't know
the day of the final.
So he's like,
"I've seen you in my class..."
And I'm just going...
"Do you know exactly
what the day of the..."
And... see. I think you were
trying to get to me.
- Let me let you in on a secret.
- Mmm.
- Okay.
- I knew when the final was.
- That's my baby.
- Night, night.
Night, night.
Sweet dreams.
Isabel.
Come by more often, will ya?
We seem to only get the lasagna
when you around here.
I'm hearing that she's stingy
with the lasagna.
I don't know what it is.
Stop, you are lying too close
to Sunday, come on.
- Love you.
- It was good seeing you.
- Good night.
- Good night. Good to see you, too.
Make sure they bathe.
With water, real water.
Yes, ma'am.
- And a washcloth.
- I'll do my best, baby.
Shit, do I... What...
Do I just...
Do I talk slow? What do I...
Okay, so I was in 10th grade,
and we had just moved to Texas,
and my friend and I had this...
these walkie-talkies.
Which, you know, we'd be
using between classes,
to talk or whatever.
- And this was pre-cell phone, of course.
- Right.
- Right.
- Late 80s.
And... the principal
called me to his office,
he was all suspicious.
Because he wanted to know
why all these people
were gathered around my locker.
So I showed him
the walkie-talkie.
And he asked my name.
And I said, "Miss Hale."
And he said,
"What is your first name?"
"It's Miss."
I said,
"What is your first name?"
"My name's Miss."
He's, "I don't have time
for all this foolishness, gal.
What is your real name?"
I've... I've repeated
my damn name four times.
That's a direct defiance
of caste.
The most personal
I've heard yet.
Can you imagine that?
A young Black man plotting
to force the respect
of white people.
Your father tore a loophole
through the hierarchy.
It's brilliant.
Brilliant. Go on, go on.
So the principal was furious.
So he tells his secretary
to check my records,
and, of course, they confirm
that my legal name
is Miss Hale.
So he says to me,
"Hale. I don't know any Hales.
You not from around here.
Where's your father from?"
And I said,
"He's from Alabama."
And he said,
"I knew you weren't
from around here.
You know how I knew?
And I said, "No."
And he said, real cold...
"'Cause you looking me
in the eye.
Coloured folk around here
know better."
I was...
I was scared.
- You know, I was a kid.
- Yeah.
I had never felt...
that...
that cold glare.
You know, he was lookin' me
right in the eyes,
demanding that I not look him
in the eyes.
You know, my...
You know, Daddy would...
It's okay. It's okay.
Daddy tell me again and again,
"Always live up to your name."
He said, "Miss...
They don't have the corner
on humanity.
They don't have the corner
on femininity.
They don't have the corner
on what it means
to be a whole, noble,
honourable person."
Far from it.
Thank you.
You okay?
Most relationships end.
Friendships, romances.
Divorces. I mean, separations,
people grow apart.
They break.
But we didn't break.
We fought that night.
It was about something
so silly, Miss.
I should have spent
more time with her.
Daddy would want me to fix this.
For Christ's sake,
would you stop, Isabel?
Just stop.
It's her idea,
she made a choice,
she's a grown woman,
let her make it.
It's like you hide behind
this thing with your mother.
- Hiding?
- I just don't get it.
- Hide? I'm not hiding.
- Hiding. You're hiding.
I'm not hiding.
So silly.
And then...
he offered me some pasta...
to apologize.
You want some of that pasta?
- Save me some.
- Okay.
And then that was it.
But we didn't break.
We did not break.
We were together.
Til' the end.
He should be here, Miss.
He should be here.
And the one person...
that I could talk to about...
she's gone, too.
What the hell am I
supposed to do now?
Come, come, come.
You're okay.
I just wanna scream,
I just wanna scream,
I just wanna scream.
Then scream. Then scream.
Scream.
Roomy.
Fantastic light.
Will you update or
sell as original?
I was thinking
a fresh coat of paint.
Vintage it is.
Yeah.
There might be
water damage there.
Yes, with everything going on,
I just...
I just basically
locked up the house,
I have to deal with it.
It's a process.
Isn't everything?
So what is the price difference
between fixing it up
and selling it as is?
- As is?
- Yeah.
You're basically giving
this little jewel away.
The area's hot right now
with hipsters.
And these older homes,
when they're fixed up,
can sometimes double in value.
If you can put a few thousand
towards getting it fixed,
you would have a competitive
situation on your hands
with multiple bidders.
You write books, right?
A book.
I'm writing another one, but...
books don't pay as much
as people think.
I get it.
Sell as a fixer and don't
even worry about it.
Let someone else do the work.
So let's discuss the contract.
Once the property is clear,
we'll go ahead
and do an open house,
that way, people can come in
and view the property and see
what they're willing to offer.
Like I said,
we'll get multiple bidders...
- Who is that?
- What?
They didn't wanna
get in trouble.
Stop.
She sucked her thumb
and peed in the bed
'til she was 20 years old.
I'm not... I'm just... Stop.
So cute. So cute.
Mm, mm, mm.
Look at Mama.
So cute.
- So fine.
- Yeah.
How much is it?
Eh...
All four estimates
are over $10,000.
- Damn.
- Yeah.
You can't sell
the roofless house.
Well, we'll have to wait
til' I get back.
- You leave when again?
- Next month.
I have so much research
to do here,
and I have
to start a new draft soon.
Do you even know anybody
in India?
Marion, here's Uncle.
That's the point of travellin'.
Meeting new people.
Travelling to places where
you are warmly welcomed
by familiar faces is underrated.
Well, I might have found
an Indian professor
who can help me navigate.
"Might"?
No, no "might."
Here you are.
No, no, no.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Madam.
Okay, good. Oh, good.
Isabel! Isabel!
Suraj!
- So good to see you.
- Hello, hello.
Allow me to introduce
my esteemed friend...
- Yes.
- Professor Ram Kamli.
- The pleasure is mine.
- Thank you, thank you.
You know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna go straight.
We're gonna walk right there.
- That's where we gotta go.
- We're doing that?
We're gonna do that.
- You're excited?
- Yes, I am.
Welcome to India, Isabel.
It's so good to have you.
I'm happy to be here.
There are signals
on all the corners.
And this is one of the...
This is not four-way.
- This is five-way.
- Five-way.
And if you add a person like me,
I make my own way.
- So, it's like six-way.
- Six-way?
Oh my...
A beautiful market.
- I like this one.
- You like this one?
She would like this.
- It's for my cousin.
- That look gorgeous.
Thank you.
Why is the statue caged?
Ah. Quite observant.
He's Babasaheb,
the leader of Dalits.
Isabel, he's Dr. Ambedkar!
This is the time
when he had just completed
the task of drafting
India's constitution.
There, he's holding it
and standing tall.
You will find these statues
all across the country.
From a busier street,
square, parks,
railway stations, bus stations.
Even in people's
private properties.
Him standing is an affirmation
of our existence.
To us, he is revered.
To others, they revile him.
Dr. Ambedkar statues are
one of the most vandalized
in the country.
The cage is to keep
the vandals away.
Dr. Ambedkar is more
than a champion
and a hero to the Dalit people.
He's the hope that lives
within us.
He went to the heart of
the problem of caste,
and he thought purity was lying
- beneath the artifice of caste...
- Mm-hmm.
And where the human
population was chopped
into what he called "fixed
and definite units."
In America,
you have what you call
the Blacks, the Browns,
the Asian, the Whites, and etc.
Similarly, we have in India,
where the Dalits are supposed
to be at the bottom
- and the Brahmins at the top.
- Mm-hmm.
And between, there are
various units of caste.
What maintains this unit into
continuing of caste system
is unending violence
in the form of rape,
mutilation and murder.
In India, a Dalit person
is attacked every 15 minutes.
Every day,
10 Dalit women are raped,
and these are only
the reported cases.
Rohith Vemula's friends, family
and the wider Dalit Movement
called it
an institutional murder.
And they called it this
because it was not
simply a case of suicide.
They said that
this was an institution
that was systematically
discriminating
against a young Dalit student.
And this was important
because for a lot of us,
as young folks who were looking
for a life of dignity
and respect,
and were looking to education
and the university
to give us that life,
it showed that the spectre of
caste was still haunting us.
In a world where Dalit
people are brutalized,
simply to keep us in our place,
Dr. Ambedkar remains
our shining light.
Our guardian, our hero,
our father.
The site of Dr. Ambedkar's
last home.
- It's a museum now.
- Ah.
Quite magnificent.
As you can see,
it's an open-book concept.
While he is a giant
among Dalits,
the world has failed
to acknowledge his genius.
Dr. Ambedkar was separated
from the kids of high caste
so as not to pollute them.
As a child,
young Bhimrao Ambedkar
was not allowed to touch
many of the things
his classmates would touch.
He was not even allowed
to touch water at the school.
This is because
he was considered
an "untouchable."
That was the term used
for Dalits at the time.
Young Ambedkar was not
allowed to touch or sit
at a desk during class.
But he persevered.
He continued to study
and break barriers.
Dr. Ambedkar earned two PhDs.
One at Columbia University,
and the other at the London
School of Economics.
After obtaining his PhDs
and passing the bar,
Dr. Ambedkar returned to India
as a heralded scholar.
We have been carrying on
with untouchability
for the last 2,000 years.
Nobody has bothered about it.
You see? Yes, there are some...
some disabilities.
We are very harmful.
Apparently,
people can't take water.
People can't have land, you see,
to cultivate
and earn their livelihood.
There is an insistence
on conflating caste with race.
- Oh, yeah.
- If I brought you
to the family reunion,
what would you say?
What would you say to them?
My cousin Marion.
My... my mother.
What would you say to them
that's important for them
to know...
about you, about India,
about caste and our connection?
Our heroes found the connection.
And it is up to us
to find it again,
and build upon it
in sibling solidarity.
When Bhimrao Ambedkar was
a young Indian graduate student,
he found himself
in New York City.
Harlem, to be exact.
He saw kindred spirits
among Black people in America.
Both in the oppression
they faced
and in their survival.
He immediately recognized
the similarities
between how African Americans
were treated
and the treatment of Dalits.
Asha, you've been doing
some work on this right?
Yes, my thesis centred on
Dr. King's visit to India.
He saw many of these things
first time,
while he and his wife
toured the country.
I found the way in which
he wrote about India
to be fascinating as someone
afflicted by caste
in their own country.
I used his essay in the magazine
of United States
as the core of my research.
Uh, do you know Ebony Magazine?
Yes.
Yes, I know Ebony Magazine.
Dr. King wrote about
India in Ebony?
Yes.
July 1959.
It is quite extraordinary.
And so, there is
a connection between us.
The African Americans,
the Dalits,
the indigenous people
around the world,
the Palestinian people,
the Roma people, Buraku people.
- Yes.
- The outcasts of Africa
are still fighting
for their rights.
Be it Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal.
You go to Latin America,
you find outcasts
within the Mexican society
or Brazilian society.
And if we think
about our histories
through the wonderful
ability of love,
the symbols of hate
and diets of violence
will be replaced by compassion,
care and solidarity.
This is the world that
we have to imagine
for ourselves and for others
who have not yet seen the beauty
that human beings have to offer.
One afternoon,
I went down to speak
in the southern part of India,
and I remember that afternoon
that the principal got up
to introduce me.
He said,
"I would like to present to you
a fellow untouchable
from the United States
of America."
And for the moment,
I was peeved. I was shocked
that I would be introduced
as an untouchable.
Pretty soon, my mind ran back
across to America.
And I had to say to myself,
I am an untouchable.
And segregation is
evil and sinful
because it stigmatizes
the segregated as an untouchable
in a caste system.
And this is why I'm convinced
that we have the moral edict,
a moral mandate,
to work to get rid of
this unjust and evil system.
I'll put the phone near her.
Okay.
Baby.
You're on speaker. Um...
She's...
She hasn't been responding
to folks.
I understand.
Marion.
It's Isabel.
Hi, Cousin.
I called to say goodbye.
I believe you can hear me.
You mean so much to me.
I remember everything
you have ever said to me.
From the time that we were kids
until the last time
I heard your voice.
I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget you.
You will walk with me.
You will live in me.
For as long as I'm here.
Watch over me.
Cover me, okay?
I won't see you,
but you'll see me.
There's more to life
than what you can see.
You're going
to experience it all.
I love you. I love you.
I love you.
I could stay around for a bit.
Don't you dare. You go.
So you can come home and
you can write your stories.
'Cause folks need to know
about this.
The pillars are working.
You know, it gives it shape.
Good, good.
Then how many of them
will there be?
Six or seven.
Maybe eight.
And you are going
to make this deadline?
I am going
to make this deadline.
This self-imposed deadline.
Well, I don't have anyone
to push me anymore,
so I have to push myself.
A caste system needs scaffolding
in order to maintain
its hierarchies.
Dr. Ambedkar wrote,
"Caste is an artificial
chopping up of
the population into fixed units.
Each unit is prevented
from fusing into another
through the custom
called endogamy."
Our rehearsing has paid off.
It's only taken six months
to get that twirl down.
But...
completely worthwhile.
Let's go again.
Let me powder my nose first.
In showing how endogamy
is maintained,
we can prove the genesis
and mechanism of caste.
Endogamy is defined
as restricting marriage
to people within the same caste.
Have you heard...
they're asking for names
and addresses.
They won't.
They're looking for artists
and people who like jazz.
I don't believe it.
It's all blown out of proportion.
No. This happened at the
Wonder Room last month.
This is an ironclad foundation
of any caste system.
From ancient India,
to the Nazi regime,
to the American colonizers.
Laugh, dear.
Laugh right now.
Endogamy enforces caste
boundaries
by forbidding marriage,
sexual relations
or even the appearance
of romantic interest
across caste lines.
It builds a firewall
between certain people.
By closing off
legal family connection,
endogamy purposely
blocks sense of empathy
and shared destiny
between people.
Mama!
Mama!
It was the caste system,
through the practice
of endogamy,
which essentially regulated
people's romantic choices
over the course of centuries,
that created and reinforced
the idea of races.
By permitting only those
with similar physical traits
to legally mate.
Endogamy laws written
and enforced by white men
designed the population
of the United States.
If you were not a white man
and you violated that...
An unknowable number of lives
were lost due to endogamy...
the defining pillar of caste.
It triggered the most
publicized cases
of lynchings in America.
A protocol strictly enforced
against Black men
and white women.
Front row seat, darlin'.
One of the foremost
scholars of caste
in America once wrote,
"Tied to what one looked like,
membership in either
the upper or the lowest caste
is immutable.
Fixed from birth to death.
Inescapable.
One may neither earn
nor wed their way out."
That scholar was
Dr. Allison Davis.
The Davis and Gardner
team emerged
with perhaps the most
comprehensive study,
to this day,
of the American caste system.
Their book, Deep South,
is a quietly revolutionary
landmark experiment
in interracial scholarship.
The Davises and the Gardners
remained lifelong friends.
Nazi Germany,
the United States and India
all reduced Jews,
African Americans and Dalits
to an undifferentiated mass
of nameless,
faceless scapegoats.
Millennia ago,
Dalits were called
the "untouchables" of India.
Enforced into the degrading
work of manual scavenging,
the practice
of cleaning excrement
from toilets
and open drains by hand
in exchange for leftover food.
The only thing that they have
to protect their bodies...
is oil, each other
and their prayers.
To refuse is to invite
severe punishment or death.
This persists to this day.
The trade and sale
of African people
demolished communities,
obliterated families
and tore flesh from spirit.
Human beings were
tortured to death,
and thrown overboard
on slave ships
during the Middle Passage.
Upon their arrival
at the concentration camps,
Jews were stripped
of the clothing
of their former lives.
Their heads were shaved.
Distinguishing features
like sideburns
or red hair were
deleted from them.
They were no longer
personalities to engage with.
They became a single mass,
purposely easier for SS officers
to distance themselves from.
Indian activists explained
that the manual scavenger
is not a form of employment,
but an injustice
akin to slavery.
It is one of the most prominent
forms of discrimination
against Dalits, and it is
central to the violation
of their human rights,
to their dehumanization.
Through violent storms at sea,
starvation,
mutilation and rape,
Black people were
stacked and squeezed
into the hulls of ships
to be sold into further
unfathomable terror.
Their bodies did not
belong to them...
but to the dominating caste
to do with however it wished.
No longer daughter
of a fisherman,
or a nephew of the midwife,
loving mothers,
headstrong nephews,
dedicated bakers
and watchmakers,
all merged into a single mass
of undifferentiated bodies.
No longer seen as humans
deserving empathy...
but as objects over whom
control could be exerted.
They were no longer people.
They were numbers.
s
Dehumanized.
Now a soulless animal.
Not human.
It is harder to dehumanize
a single person standing
in front of you,
harder to dehumanize
an individual
you've gotten the chance
to know.
Which is why people and groups
who seek power and division
don't bother with
dehumanizing an individual.
Better to attach a stigma,
a taint of pollution,
to an entire group.
Dehumanize the group
and you've successfully
dehumanized
every individual person
within it.
Racism is not the same as caste.
Because race does not matter
in order for the system to work.
"Little League team
wins championship."
Mama.
"Little League team...
splashes."
Oh...
It's true.
Go, go, go!
It was a hot day like today.
We were pretty excited
because we had just won
the city championship
when the coach told us
he was bringing us to this park.
And we're gonna get to eat
and go swimming.
And we were quite excited,
as you can imagine.
And then the park ranger
came over and pointed out Al.
Hey, boy!
- Yes, sir?
- You can't be in here right now.
And you know better.
Who you with?
Everything okay here?
- This boy with your team?
- He's one of my players.
You know how long it'd take
for our maintenance crew
- to clean this up?
- Disinfect it?
- Disinfect what?
- This is a whites-only pool.
We didn't know.
Being young kids,
we didn't understand
what was going on.
- Yeah.
- And um...
yet we wanted to go in the pool
because it was so hot
that day, too.
And then the park ranger,
he said,
"If he goes in, nobody goes in."
So, they took Al outside
to a blanket out there.
But, you know,
we kept looking back at Al,
and see him.
Why was he over there?
Mm-hmm.
So, a few of my friends and I
went over to talk to him
and to make sure he was okay.
So it felt strange
when that happened,
that he was over there
- and you guys were here.
- Yeah, it felt separate.
- He was on our team.
- Yeah. Right, right.
And he was a big part
of our team, and then,
they wouldn't let him in.
Some of the parents brought him
over some food to eat.
Mm-hmm.
- He sat there by himself? Ugh.
- By himself.
And then, the coach talked
to the park ranger again
and said, "Hey, you've gotta let
this kid in,
at least for a little swim."
- Yes, yes.
- So he talked to the coach
and he said,
"There's only one way
- I'm going to let this happen."
- Mm-hmm.
Everybody out. Come on, now.
Come on.
Come on out now.
Come on.
You cannot touch
that water, boy.
You hear me?
Keep your balance.
Do not touch that water.
Real still.
Real still.
Don't touch that water.
It really affected us and
we didn't know what to do.
Right.
And it still bothers me today.
As a kid, we just want
to play baseball and swim.
We didn't know what to do.
And I wish I could do it
over again.
'Cause I don't think
I did enough.
How old were you?
I was nine.
Nine years old.
Al Bright went on to become
an artist and educator.
He was the first
full-time Black faculty member
at his alma mater,
Youngstown State University.
I missed talking to him
for the book
by a matter of months.
He passed away at age 82.
But a part of him died
that afternoon in 1951.
You're going to be fine.
You're going to be just fine.
The tragedy of caste
is that we are judged
on the very things
that we cannot change.
Signposts on our bodies
of gender and ancestry,
superficial differences
that have nothing to do
with who we are on the inside.
The goal of this work
has not been to resolve issues
of a millennia-old phenomenon,
but to bear witness
to its presence
in our everyday lives,
to shine a light on its history
despite those
who would deny it, despite those
who would withhold it
from us even,
who try to convince us
that we don't need to know.
We need to know.
You don't escape trauma
by ignoring it.
You escape trauma
by confronting it.
When you live in an old house,
you may not want to go
in the basement after a storm
to see what the rains
have brought.
But choose not to look
at your own peril.
We're all like homeowners
who've inherited a house
on a piece of land
that's beautiful
on the outside.
But the soil is unstable.
People say I had nothing to do
with how this all started.
I never owned slaves.
I didn't mistreat untouchables.
I didn't gas Jews.
And, yes, not one of us
was around
when this house was built.
But here we are.
The current occupants
of a property
with stress cracks built
into the foundation,
and a roof
that must be replaced.
We are the heirs to whatever
is right or wrong with it.
We didn't erect
the uneven pillars,
but they are ours
to deal with now.
The cracks won't fix themselves.
Any more deterioration
is on our watch.
Caste is not simply hatred.
It is the worn grooves
of routine and expectation.
Patterns of a social order
that have been in place
so long, it looks natural...
when it isn't.
Caste is everywhere,
yet invisible.
No one avoids exposure
to its message,
and the message is simple.
One kind of person
is more deserving of freedom
than another kind.
Freedom to love whoever
you want to love.
Freedom to go
wherever you want to go.
Freedom to express yourself
however you want
to express yourself.
Freedom to resist and fight
for your human right to do so.