Movies about the civil rights era tend to make me angry. I feel shame. I cringe when I see how our nation, in particular my beloved south, behaved with such vicious intolerance. The Butler evoked many of those raw feelings.

It’s no wonder. The opening scene rubs the brutality of our smug superiority right in our faces. Cecil Gaines, the main character, watches as his father is murdered by a monstrous plantation owner. Cecil escapes the plantation and, seemingly, the barbarity of the white man. He settles in Washington D.C., with a family and a comfortable job at the White House.

The movie then becomes about Cecil’s relationship with his oldest son. Cecil obediently serves one President after another, a fly on the wall as our country’s leaders discuss the very future of his race. Meanwhile, his oldest lashes out at the status quo, donning black leather and a chip on his shoulder. Earl Gaines is sickened by what he perceives as his father’s Uncle Tom passiveness. Cecil is mortified by his son’s confrontational rebellion.

The movie thrusts us back and forth from white gloved dinner affairs to blood-thirsty police dogs and fire hoses. Cecil lives out the civil rights era in an atmosphere of politeness while his son crawls through the grime. It is not until the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King that Cecil gets his hands soiled. It is at that point that he realizes achieving racial equality is a dirty business.

The Butler is a sort of Forrest Gump anthology without the fortuitous stumblings of the main character. It is a look at that era through the eyes of Bubba’s parents. It comes with disturbing images, such as the couple who spend the movie cheek-to-cheek with ignorance and prejudice wrapped around their bloody necks.

I was but a child during my homeland’s unfortunate resistance to accept those different from us. Although I never forced anyone of a different color to the back of a bus, nor did I ever call him names, I feel a lingering guilt. I harbor it for the behavior of my ancestors. I’m ashamed of our wicked treatment of those we deemed inferior, and I think we need to be reminded constantly of just how sinfully wrong we were.

The Butler stands as a solid reminder of a history we should never repeat.