The Netflix documentary uses historical evidence and modern scholarship to demonstrate racism’s continued role in US society.

At the start of the new documentary Stamped from the Beginning, filmmaker Roger Ross Williams asks his various interview subjects, “What is wrong with Black people?” Considering that all the interviewees in question are also Black, it is unsurprising that the question’s seeming hostility initially throws many. However, once they recognize the context of that query—Williams is asking for a historical context as to what Blacks have done to deserve centuries of institutionalized racism and violence—they are more than willing and able to discuss the subject at length throughout this strong and often provocative film.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name inspired the Williams’ film, a karmic debt the director pays back by including the doctor among a number of knowledgeable Black female scholars and activists. Together, they discuss how the twin stains of racism and white supremacy permeate American society in ways that continue to fester today. They explain how the concept of deeming people as greater or lesser by the color of their skin was born out of slavery. The aim was to simultaneously remove enslaved people’s distinguishing characteristics to make them seem like one undifferentiated mass and drive a wedge between them and white “indentured servants” to prevent the groups from joining forces against their common enemy, the wealthy landowner.

The film refutes any attempts to argue that these attitudes lay too far in the past to affect today, with examples illustrating how they persist today. We see how the stereotyping of Black people as being violent, oversexed troublemakers has continued to linger in popular culture, from movies showing the horrors of life in Black neighborhoods to the reaction to Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl appearance. The film also shows how the racist attitudes of the past have bled into other aspects of contemporary life, especially in the array of violent acts, often at the hands of police, that inspired the Black Lives Matter protests.

Perhaps the most startling example comes when the film explores the strange and anger-inspiring story of Phyllis Wheatley, the first Black woman to publish a book in America. A book of poetry chronicling her experience as a slave, the volume proved immediately controversial as others refused to believe her capable of writing it. She was hauled before a court to somehow prove the thoughts and words belonged to her and not some well-meaning white abolitionist hoping to sway public opinion. When the film asks female commentators if they’ve ever had to go to great lengths to prove their abilities to skeptics, their reactions show such moments are still depressingly common.

Stamped from the Beginning doesn’t exactly break the mold when it comes to its formal approach. While it does throw some animation into the mix, it predominantly tells its story with the usual array of talking head interviews and archival materials. The major exception is a segment on Ida B. Wells as portrayed by actor Paisley Rose Carswell. It so deviates from the established tone it almost feels brought in from another movie. However, this is not the kind of movie that needs flashy gimmicks to accomplish its mission, illuminating hundreds of years of baked-in racism. It pulls it off smartly and concisely, educating viewers without hectoring while suggesting ways to finally begin breaking from these troubling attitudes for good. 

Stamped from the Beginning can be seen now on Netflix.