The documentary considers Brown's 2014 police shooting, death, and the aftermath -- and the complex, underlying societal causes that define the film's important first word, what. The film explores America's true original sin: not slavery, but "the use of race as a means to power." Questions asked -- Was it really racism that caused the death of Michael Brown? Has the truth become the lie, and the lie truth? -- and answered come against a backdrop of the "real victimization of black America."