The chilling trailer that began with “There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren” paired with some stellar commentary claiming the show “embodies everything that feminism means” gave me high hopes for Hulu's The Handmaid’s Tale. It quickly became clear to me why most people have been praising its creativity and provocative narrative—the introduction to the show’s disturbing dystopian world is definitely triggering. I experienced a similar range of emotions while watching the show, but one trumped them all: déjà vu.

Though I didn’t immediately realize it, my experience watching The Handmaid’s Tale was eerily similar to my experience watching Roots for the first time. And that’s because the society in The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just a forewarning of an implausible future, but a dark reminder of the reality for many black women through American history. It's basically a modern-day portrayal of white women experiencing a watered-down form of slavery.

The Handmaid’s Tale challenges you to reimagine your life as a woman stripped of an autonomous identity and viewed only as a vehicle for labor and procreation, which is jarring. It’s troubling to visualize a future where the government can freeze all women’s bank accounts and revoke their right to own property. It’s unsettling to witness the betrayal of sisterhood that the protagonist, Offred, experiences when she is raped by her commander while resting her head on the lap of his complicit wife. And it’s horrifying to picture yourself being kidnapped by a group of people who intend to brainwash you into submission, condition you to believe your genetic makeup is an indication of your inherent inferiority, train you to accept that your sole purpose on earth is to do the work they provide you, and suppress your right to read, stay informed, or even speak of your former existence.

Recently I bought Ancestry DNA for all of my family members. As we waited in anticipation of the results, we joked about what we expected—we assumed we would all be mainly African and part Native American (oral history and photos led us to believe our great-grandmother was 100 percent Cherokee). And we were half right: Most of our ancestry was in Africa, specifically the West African coastal countries. We also had lineage in the deep South, which gave me this weird confirmation that I didn’t even know I needed: I am certainly a descendant of slaves. The second disappointment hit a little harder than the first: I learned that none of my family has any traceable Native American ancestry. Both results forced me to reckon with the hard fact that somewhere down the line, my black ancestors were likely raped repeatedly by their slave masters—enough times to make me 20 percent European. That means part of who I am, part of my actual DNA, is a product of rape.