13th Documentary Summary

The 13th Amendment, created out of the ashes of the American Civil War, declared that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." It was an end to the harsh cruelty that was brought upon African Americans for generations; however, a loophole exists within a simple phrase: “except as a punishment for crime…”. Even though all Americans are considered free under the 13th Amendment on paper, in reality this cannot be further from the truth as people were still considered a slave to the state if they committed a crime. Over time though, this “hands-off” doctrine approach gradually started to shift throughout the 1960s and 70s because the Civil Rights Movement stretched far beyond just African Americans. For prisoners, it was a justifiable call to action for basic human rights.

Ava DuVernay’s documentary, 13th, is a powerful analysis of the 13th Amendment included in the United States Constitution. Released October 7th, 2016, 13th depicts African Americans, even after the abolishment of slavery, as legally exploited through the 13th amendment. The goal of the documentary seems to strongly portray to its viewers the manipulation of politics at the expense of Blacks, yet again. 13th effectively demonstrates the struggles African Americans face in the arms of the criminal justice system in a powerful and emotion-provoking manner.

Primarily highlighted in the documentary is the idea of mass incarceration as “The New Jim Crow”, a phrase popularly used by author and civil rights advocate, Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. As many already know with it being a significant part of American history, the Jim Crow era was a time of intense racial segregation of African Americans from whites with the former having drastically inferior positions in society. Many of the discriminatory practices that were upheld in the Jim Crow era, including discrimination in housing, jobs, and voting are illegal now if applied to blacks, but are perfectly legal when applied to prisoners, many of whom are

To dig deeper into this overrepresentation of black criminality, we have to look at the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment, which allowed slavery as a form of punishment in the prison system. The policymakers recognized the opportunities to acquire forced labor through mass incarceration and made use of the perpetuating cycle of racial formation, where representations and the actions of the institution often reinforce each other. The structural institution, or the policymakers in this case, used overrepresentation of black criminality to racialize crime. The overrepresentation of racialized crime then validates the need of criminal laws and their unequal application across racial groups. In the end, the institution created the false representation that justifies its actions which further feed the representation. The vicious cycle introduced racial discrimination into the justice system and guided the process of mass incarceration.

The 13th characterize our criminal justice system and political institution as unfair and a racist system of oppression for certain color of race. This film gave me a better understanding of how the prisons were treating their prisoners. I was not aware that prisoners were forced into being treated and considered to be slaves. While watching this documentary I was able to understand that the country in which people called land of the free, it's not really the land of the freedom if this system treats prisoners as slaves. While watching the 13th I saw a particular case in which a group of African-American tennagers were arrested and accused of a crime that the system did not have concrete evidence of, but they were still arrested and spent

Barack Obama once stated during one of his speeches that the U.S contains 5 percent of the world population and 25 percent of the world's prisoners. There is a large numeric difference between those two numbers. One would ask why? But in the film, 13th the documentary explores the linking elements of race, mass incarceration, and justice in the United States. It is stated that after the Civil War African Americans were imprisoned in mass. This was due to the fact the 13th amendment states “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The amendment clearly stated that slavery was no

Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness examine the Jim Crow practices post slavery and the mass incarceration of African-American. The creation of Jim Crows laws were used as a tool to promote segregation among the minority and white American. Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass takes a look at Jim Crow laws and policies were put into place to block the social progression African-American from the post-slavery to the civil rights movement. Fast-forward to 2008 the election of Barack Obama certified that African-Americans were no longer viewed as second-class citizens instead African-Americans are equal to their white counterparts. However, Michelle Alexander

In the novel, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, author and criminal rights lawyer, Michelle Alexander emphasizes her overall thesis as our nation is currently in a state of racism, prejudice, and mass incarceration, and it is ultimately turning back time to the years of Jim Crow. Throughout her novel, she analyzes series of significant civil rights cases that support her thesis, and describe ramifications that these cases had on her thesis. In my critical analysis, I will discuss the importance of Alexanders thesis describe several turning point cases and the ramifications these cases had on her thesis, and give my own argument of why I overall agree with Alexanders novel.

After closely analyzing Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, my eyes were opened as to how black people feel vs. the way white people may feel about the criminal justice system and the unfair treatment of African Americans. I was honestly disappointed with both sides because of the way the race card is used to justify our actions towards one another.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is

The documentary “13th”, directed and written by Ava DuVernay and released as a Netflix Original in 2016 is about the history of racism and inequality across America, corresponding with the mass incarceration of African-Americans in modern prison. The title represents the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution stating the abolishment of slavery. The target audience of this movie is the federal system, black communities, and the modern society. This movie seems to coincide with the Black Lives Matter movement that stormed the country in 2015 after the death of black males at the hands of police officers. Mass incarceration across the United States makes up a Majority of the movie. DuVernay bases the movie of the narrative that

Thanks to the groundbreaking Thirteenth Amendment, no person may be forced to work except in retribution for a crime he or she committed. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is often viewed only as the amendment that abolished the insufferable slavery of African-Americans, - and this does appear to be the case on the surface - however many more interpretations promise many useful arguments for the labor movement and cause controversy over its ineffectiveness in combating racism and its hand in creating the hotly-debated American for-profit prison system.

Of the supplementary readings provided, I found “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration” by Loïc Wacquant the most intriguing. This particular article is based on “rethinking the ‘race question’ in the US” and the disproportionate institutions set apart for African Americans in the United States. The volatile beginnings of African Americans presented obvious hardships for future advancement, but Wacquant argues that they still suffer from a form of modern slavery.

As America abolish slavery after the civil war, and thousands of African Americans were free to live lives without the fear of slavery or undue punishment not all things turned out the way one could have hoped for. Followed revisions of the 13-15th Amendments to the Constitution, provided the use of exclusion through the criminalization of a person through the court system. However such rights as described in the 13th amendment provides a claw allowing for racial divisions to persist in the country. Such loop holes in the Constitution reduced freedoms by convictions through the legal system. As described in the George Ritzers piece describing McDonaldization of mass plea bargains contributing to the increase removal of a person’s rights and exclusion from aid otherwise qualify for. Such loss of freedoms through court sanctioned violations in America caused a national reflection of American policies targeting black and brown people up to 70% more than whites. Reflecting on the destruction of this clause in the 13th Amendment we’ll evaluate why it was put in and what this loop hole allowed the country to maintain.

The movie starts by stating that one in four black men will serve in prison at least once in their lives (Duvernay).This immediately clues the viewer into what this documentary will be talking about, at least on a surface level. Most of the movie is filled with interviews from experts on the prison system in America from liberal activists to republican conservatives, all have something to say about imprisonment in America and very little of it is good. The movie recaps the struggle colored people have endured throughout their lives in America from the early days of slavery, to the days of Jim Crowe and finally to modern day prison life and how it is just another form of slavery. One of the main focuses of the film is that the great and might Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves and made them American citizens also contains a loophole that strips them of these very rights. The amendment contains a small snippet about how no man may be stripped of his rights except when charged as a criminal (Duvernay). This simple exceptional clause acts as the only way to currently enslave another human being in America, convict them and put them away so you can own their body and soul for life. This clause is where the movie gets it’s name Thirteenth. There isn’t much else to say about the movie without giving away too much, despite being a documentary this movie contains heavy emotional