In February 2012 teenager Trayvon Martin was assaulted and killed on his way home from the convenience store because he looked suspicious. A black female author was asked to write an article, presumably to address what many considered simple racism, Martin was killed because he was black.
Instead she decided to look deeper, a lot deeper. Including traveling abroad. The research for her eventual book, upon which this movie is based, led her to examine the caste system which is present in many forms across many civilizations.
Definition: Caste - a social hierarchy that assigns a person or group a social class or standing based on their ancestry and ideas of "purity" and "pollution". It's a traditional practice that's rooted in the political, social, cultural, and economic structures of some religions or cultures. In Hinduism, castes are hereditary social classes that limit the occupations of their members and their interactions with other castes.
Clearly this does not separate people by race or skin color but by long-standing prejudices. In the USA the caste system assigned blacks, most of whom are direct descendants of slaves, to a lower standing. Even in my own lifetime I recall businesses having a separate entrance for blacks, separate water fountains, separate schools, and many hotels prohibited blacks from staying there. In this movie an incident is depicted where a little league baseball team with only one black kid goes to a community pool to celebrate their victory and the black kid is not allowed to swim. The pool manager says something to the effect that if he were to jump in, the pool would have to be closed and disinfected.
A good bit of time is also spent in India where the caste system is still very strict and those in the lowest of the social order have to clean cesspools by hand and have no hope of ever rising above that.
A very interesting and thought-provoking movie. My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library.
