13th: Context Of African-Americans In The United States

In the documentary “13th” directed by Ava Duvernay, focuses mainly on a recurring issue in society since the mid-1800’s. The documentary takes both sides and depicts the concerns and problems that many inmates face day to day. “13th” asks the question if African-Americans were actually ever truly “free” in this country. African Americans are considered free under their born rights but what “free” meant to myself through this film is, will they ever be treated equally compared to the rest of society. The opening minutes of the film started with a statistic that read, “One out of four African-American males will serve prison time at one point or another in their lives”.

Argument found in 13th: The abuse of the 13th amendment is an extension to slavery, which was supposedly abolished when the it was introduced, because of the exception clause found in the amendment. AGREE: The 13th amendment has an exception clause that states slavery and involuntary services are illegal except as a punishment for crime. After the Civil had ended and slaves were let free, many police officers were arresting African American people. The south was able to use the African American prisoners as slaves.

The film 13th was documentary that explains mass incarceration, Jim Crow, and slavery as being the same forms. Through use of statistic, testimonies, and stories, the documentary portrays a message of what is and has been going on and has a call to action. The film starts off with explaining how there is a loophole a clause of the 13th amendment that makes it unconstitutional for anyone to be a slave except criminals, and ever since that loophole was discovered there was a mass of African Americans arrested. Although the film was able to show evidence for the parallels between slavery, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration, it did not provide solutions for this problem.

In the documentary 13th by director Ava DuVernay, a racial stigma is investigated regarding the skin colors of those being incarcerated in the U.S. prison systems. Some questions being introduced in 13th leave us intrigued and those relate to the presidents at the time handling every situation differently. Those questions and many more will be answered along with a critique of the handling by those in power regarding incarceration. Many symbols with meaning are introduced in 13th, such as the whites power over the media, their exaggeration of the release of Birth of a Nation and the presidency itself. The documentary goes in-depth into the incarceration of many blacks, and it does that with the questions it asks.

By analyzing the 13th Amendment, the film argues that although slavery was legally abolished, it persisted differently through the criminal justice system. The documentary exposes mass incarceration's root causes and dire consequences, particularly for Black Americans, and calls for change in the current system.

Attention was never brought to the fact that the amendment also states that this abolishment of slavery is an exception if you are a criminal. The 13th amendment is worded this way as an attempt to keep people of color oppressed, treated with injustice, and ultimately as slaves. When reflecting on this, it makes me realize the systematic racism built within our education system as these things are not taught in our classrooms. In our country, if you have been incarcerated (typically unfairly) as punishment you are treated as a slave, which is allowed through our constitution. Before watching this

Watching “13th” was a confirmation of what I already knew. The institutionalization of black men is another form of slavery; it’s just the legal way to do it. Black men were perceived as dangerous and criminals from the moment they were “freed” slaves. They were targeted, feared and lied on as the years went on. A major example of this was the story of Emmet Till.

Both Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Frederick Douglass’s narrative draw many similar parallels between the systematic oppression of black people in modern times and in the 19th century. The scenes of police brutality in 13th especially reflects Douglass’s influence on DuVernay’s perspective. In these scenes, we see black people violently, and sometimes fatally, attacked by the police, who are meant to protect people. This random violence against the black community leads to an overwhelming sense of fear and distrust of authority. This fear mimics the fear Douglass felt when he witnessed the Captain’s cruelty during the scene of Aunt Hester’s torture in Douglass’s narrative.

Martin Luther King Jr. said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” (King, n.d.). If there ever was a man or women who stood in the midst of such challenge and controversy it would be Bryan Stevenson, Heather Ann Thomson, and Michele Goodwin. These people are of the many who have stood at the gavel of extreme arrogance and bigotry advocating against racial inequality, the wrongfully convicted, the poor and marginalized American citizens including men, women, and children denied effective representation and prosecutorial misconduct. Bryan Stevenson’s interview on the Bill Moyers Journal and Just Mercy, Heather Ann Thomson on “How

Review the article, Blacks in TV in the Age of the Civil Rights Movement, 1957-1970. It was written by J. Fred MacDonald. J. Fred MacDonald wanted people to know about the history and the way things were for blacks in this era. “Blacks and White TV, African Americans in Television Since 1948 is part of MacDonald 's project to publish his books on the web, leveraging its features: fully realized pictures, audio files, and video clips. Contents of this site are freely available to students and teachers of history.”

Mass Incarceration Through the Era of Colorblindness In the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander portrayed a strong and provocative evaluation of the mass incarceration in the United States. When writing this book Alexander wanted to achieve to bring up a much needed conversation of the role that the criminal justice system had in the creation of this new racial caste system as well as show how the consequences of being labeled a felon have simply redesigned the old Jim Crow. She aimed towards the audience of other civil rights activists who hope to work towards racial justice, those of which she believes will be skeptical of what she has to say.

13th is a documentary by Ava DuVernay and Spencer Averick on the intersection of race, the American justice system, and the incarceration rate in the United States. It was officially released in 2016, and is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment in the U.S., which led to the freedom of slaves and prohibited slavery. 13th touched on many aspects of the suppression of African Americans, the war on drugs, Jim Crow laws, and the race inequality in the American prison system. The documentary started off by stating that the United States has 5% of the world's population but 25% of the people in the world who are currently incarcerated. To many people today, the 13th amendment was a great deal because it freed slaves but what we fail to realize

Oppression In the documentary “13th” by director Ava DuVernay demonstrates how the African American community been repressed through the many years. It being named 13th after the 13th amendment which is that all Americans shall be granted freedom and this abolished slavery. The only loophole around this amendment is through imprisonment and that’s what unfortunately happens to the African American community. The documentary opens up by claiming that the United States are made up of 5% of the world population, but claiming 25% of the world prisonment.

The “13th” is a documentary about the American system of incarceration and the economic forces behind racism in America especially in people of color. One of the claims that the author mentioned is that today incarceration is an extension of slavery. It is also mentioned that most of the time in society we are defined by race. In the documentary, we can see how African Americans are sentenced for many years since they are too poor to pay their fines or sometimes most of these people plead guilty to get out of jail fast. However, African Americans are separated from their families and also treated inhumanly in prisons just because they are of a particular race.

The revolutionary Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr, once described discrimination as “a hellbound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” His point being that African Americans face racial discrimination on a daily basis. Brent Staples, being an African American living in America, expresses his view on the subject in his essay “Just Walk on By”, where he conveys the message of how fear is influenced by society's stereotypical and discriminating views of certain groups of people; his point is made clear through his sympathetic persona, descriptive diction, depressing tone, and many analogies. Staples sympathetic persona helps the reader feel and understand the racial problems that he experiences daily.