At first glance, the recently released "Zootopia" is just another adorable Disney movie with lots of cute and cuddly animals. We sit down happily for a feel-good story until the amount of corruption, systematic and personal prejudice, and other things that are harmful to society start to hit home.

In many ways, "Zootopia"echoes the fight in the United States and around the world against different forms of inequality and it teaches us how to approach and be a part of that movement.

1. Prejudice isn't always blatant.

It's the same story, predators and prey hate each other based on historical precedence and things that happened in the past. They just can't seem to let go of things that are no longer true or in existence and they keep looking for someone to blame. These things can happen in legislation and through direct segregation, but, sometimes, it's more subtle than that. Sometimes, it's between people/animals and it comes out in little things like assumptions and stereotypes.

2. Discrimination often occurs against natural traits.

These animals are born as either a predator or as prey. They have no choice in what they are and they can't do anything to change it, much like skin color or gender. Even though it doesn't actually shape their personality, the way that they are perceived is automatically different in some form or another. In some cases, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nick Wilde, realizing that the other animals will always assume that he fits a certain stereotype and that he'll always be fighting to overcome those assumptions, chooses to become exactly what society said that he would be. Fighting the system can be tiring.

3. Your looks do affect what jobs you get.

Judy is assigned to be a meter maid despite her outstanding scores and valedictorian status from the police academy. Why is that? It's because of her small stature and status as a bunny. It's because she is the first bunny to be in the police force and that confuses the others. There are too many parallels to this in the human world. For example, the American Association of University Women found that, even with identical resumes, women are hired less often than men and offered lower wages. In a different study, it was discovered that based on employers looking at resumes, "white names were 50 percent more likely to get a call back... [and] black names were 33 percent less likely to do so."

4. Some governmental secrets shouldn't stay that way.

There are some things that the ordinary citizen just does not need to and should not know and then there are matters of public health that absolutely need to be released to the public in an urgent and informative manner. The Mayor keeps the secrets of the 14 mammals from the public in a vain effort to maintain his reputation, but this obliviousness, if allowed to continue, would have eventually destroyed the predator population, including himself. Citizens look for political leaders who they can trust because honesty and integrity protect the public.

5. Prejudice and assumption can and do blind our judgment.

Who else didn't foresee the adorable little Bellwether being the culprit behind the issues in "Zootopia?" Sometimes, the people who we want to believe are the most innocent and the most dependable may actually be working for the other side. Too often, we miss it because we don't want to believe it until it's too late. When we assume things about people, we start to see them through a certain lens that masks things that we would otherwise see clearly. Racial profiling is one example. With the stereotype that “all Asians excel at math,” for example, a learning disability may be harder to catch and might be mistaken for something else like laziness. Videos of black people being followed around in stores span the Internet, leading to the now commonly identified phrase "shopping while black." What if someone else had been shoplifting and an employee had missed that person instead?

6. Recording technology holds others (and us) accountable.

Aside from the adorable little carrot used to record the malfeasance of both mayors (and an equally adorable conversation between Nick and Judy), phone cameras and dashboard cameras are being used to hold people accountable for their actions, notably inappropriate behaviors and governmental corruption. Crimes that are caught on security cameras are great examples of this, along with videos of police brutality in many countries and of malpractice in schools and daycares. The ABC vs. Food Lion case several years ago also highlights how what a company does can be exposed through the use of cameras.

7. Good intentions may not lead to good actions.

Mayor Bellwether shows how good intentions (wanting to uplift the systemically oppressed) can be harmful when taken too far. Even people who want to do good may actually be carrying out actions that hurt society and may be leading others to do the same. Looking at how goals are accomplished is one way to avoid this. Bellwether didn't need to lie to protect prey. When we think about decisions, we often have to think about not just ourselves and our intentions, but how they'll actually affect people.

8. One person can make a difference.

In "Zootopia," Judy firmly believes that people can change the system if they desire to do so, even if they receive backlash and skepticism from critics. Judy is opposed by many people, even her parents at one point, but she persists in fighting for what she believes in because she knows that it will eventually change something. Many people in society have always been hesitant to join movements, to speak up, and to vote because they fear that they're just another person in the crowd who can only be unsuccessful in trying to change the status quo. Judy teaches us that we matter and so do our voices, even when it doesn't seem like it at the moment.

9. Ordinary citizens can be affected by systematic prejudice.

Even though some of the animals in the moviedon't personally discriminate against predator or prey, they suffer the results of it. This goes both ways. Smaller prey animals like bunnies are looked down on for their small body size and biological inability to fight off predators, but predator animals like foxes are treated with wariness because of how dangerous they've been stereotyped to be. There's no escaping the system. Today, whether we're black, Asian, white, Native-American, of another race, or are a combination of races, we're treated differently in some form or manner. It could be better or worse for us depending on who we are, but we're all affected.

10. Even someone who's trying can make mistakes.

Judy, an avid fighter for and believer in equality for all, gets so caught up in fighting against all of the stereotypes against prey that she fails to catch her own prejudice against predators and the hurt that it causes them. She thinks that she's just stating facts, but the facts have been presented in such a way as to imply that predators are "savage" among other things. What's important is how she handles it. She owns up to her mistake and apologizes for it, acknowledging that she can't take it back, but that she can learn.

11. We can always love each other and our differences.

We don't have to pretend that we're not different from each other. We don't have to pretend that history didn't happen. When Judy brought up the biological workings of the past, Nick was scared that reminding the public of it would cause predators to be hated and feared strongly again. It doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't take being "colorblind" for us to love each other, it's accepting what has happened, making accommodations as needed (like Tundra Town, Sahara Square, and Little Rodentia), and absolutely loving each other not despite, but because of our differences.