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13th Documentary Summary

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Racial inequality extends beyond socioeconomic measures: it shapes social interactions. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. The film begins with the fact: “the U.S. is known to hold five percent of the world’s population,” then sharpens into the idea of although this is true, the U.S. also hold “twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners” (00:00:23-00:00:30). 13th is based on the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which abolished slavery but also included a provision, which the documentary brings to light (00:01:53-00:05:45). The documentary touches on chattel slavery, D.W. Griffith’s …show more content…

The documentary, 13th, on the history of race and incarceration in the United States has become a big part of the debate. The main opposition is against the film’s factuality and how it glosses over the painful course of black America’s history. 13th takes its title from the premise of a “loophole” in the Thirteenth Amendment. The film takes the stand that with the “loophole” came allowance of incarceration to simply re-enslave African Americans under another name. Some viewers are likely to praise the “power of Duvernay’s film” and awe at the meticulous marshaling of facts, however, for others the falsehood and the loss of the main subject make the film simply …show more content…

Although the movie does not center around the effects the Thirteenth Amendment had at the time, the film hinges on the Thirteenth Amendment in ways which may be more surprising. DuVernay specifically focuses on how the Thirteenth Amendment played a part in mass incarceration in the United States. With African Americans being arrested in mass after the civil war came a fear of the black man across America (00:22:00-00:29:24). Bryan Stevenson, an interviewee in the film, said: “we make them their crime...through that lens, it becomes so much easier to believe they’re guilty and should go to prison” (00:33:17). In the film, mass incarceration always comes back to the subject it has at the beginning of the film. DuVernay starts off the film explaining the racial hostility and discrimination against blacks (00:10:02-00:12:20). Jelani Cobb, another interviewee in the film, states “the connecting themes of the struggles among blacks in this country is the want to be understood as full, complicated human beings” (00:12:20-00:12:37). DuVernay fights to express the contention that little progress has been made, and even years after the collapse of the old Jim Crow laws a new system has been born again in America. Manohla Dargis says “she argues mass incarceration exists on a continuum with slavery and Jim Crow” (par 3), referring to DuVernay, in her movie review.

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