Preview

Mass Incarceration In The Documentary 13th

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
202 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mass Incarceration In The Documentary 13th
In the documentary 13th it explains how post-slavery and mass incarceration are connected. According to the documentary 13th, after slavery ended, African Americans were arrested for minor crimes and forced to do hard labor. Mostly because they needed someone to do free labor without going against the 13th amendment. For example, they were forced to pick cotton and help build the south after the Civil war. Also, through the media African American men were perceived as rapists and were pictured unsophisticated.
Similar to the documentary 13th, the American Anthropological Association statement on race also said that during the 19th century most people believed that Africans were scientifically nearer to apes. Today, African American are one

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    America land of the free and home of the great, But in all reality is America as great is…

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many believe that with the thirteenth amendment brought the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. However, there was a loophole in the amendment, thus allowing slavery to continue. This very loophole was called the Convict Lease System. The Convict Lease System came to be in 1846 and was officially terminated on July 1, 1928. Due to the Convict Lease System, the African Americans were arrested for any type of crime, no matter how major or minor. Because they did not have much money, the African Americans would be sentenced to prison. Once the African Americans were sent to jail, they would be further sold to whoever was the highest bidder for the time of their sentence.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ava Duvernay 13th Essay

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Race and mass incarceration. It is a harsh topic for many, but Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th provides all of the background information needed for that conversation. On the other hand, the Selma director’s film manages to capture the depth and insidiousness of more than a century of cultural, societal and economic oppression along racial lines and then condenses it into a brisk 100-minute movie. Furthermore, unlike many films that surface the same conclusion, DuVernay pinpoints the injustice of America’s institutional racism back to the amendment that abolished slavery and “freed” all men and women. Lodged into the body of the law by a means of two commas, is more than a third of the 13th amendment's words: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” From DuVernay’s viewpoint, this was a “loophole,” one incited historically to prolong the economic system of the institution that the amendment was made to destroy, and currently used to bolster up a prison industrial complex that only…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her film 13th, Ava DuVernay details the injustice of mass incarcerations and violence perpetuated by the Criminal Justice system of the United States. In her documentary, she sets the tone with a staggering statistic: a country with five percent of the world’s population hold twenty-five percent of all of the world’s prisoners. DuVernay creates a timeline to show the linear progression of African American’s movement into mass incarceration. DuVernay does this by starting at the end of slavery when black men and women were supposed to be made free. According to Khalil Muhammad, this left 4 million who were formerly slaves and an integral part of the southern economy free. In order to maintain the southern economy, the United…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As many of black men were being sent to prison, most of them are innocent. In the documentary “13th” they talk about how slavery was an economic system, after the civil war the south’s economy was shattered. As the economy went down they wanted to somehow get the economy up. As having slaves in the United States was prohibited it is hard for those who relied on the slaves to get the economy up again. Corporation were now invested in free labor as black men were being punished their punishment was that they had to work for other corporations for free.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In schools around the US, students are taught that past the civil war, slavery became nonexistent. However, as I read through Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name, I realized that slavery did not stop in 1865, but that it had continued for decades after, with arguably worse conditions and restrictions. In his book, Blackmon describes the struggles of African Americans after the 13th Amendment’s enactment. He describes the south’s transition from pre civil war legalized slavery to the post civil war modern industrial slavery.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Watching the film 13th brought a lot of thinking as to how different African Americans were treated in the community because of the new laws throughout each presidency, the presidents created. Many African Americans were incarcerated throughout the years and it was a ridiculous amount of people in jail throughout each President's term. These People were incarcerated for little things and most of them for nothing. The only topic that presidents talked about was crime and how it should be handle. The president's brainwashed the public mainly whites, that they were not safe because African Americans were on the streets. It all started with Richard Nixon and by 1970 an amount of people were put in prison and not for little time but for about 15…

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    executed by lethal injection. Prior to being executed, Carlos had spent some time in prison,…

    • 1480 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    This documentary helps us obtain better insight on how slavery has evolved through the years as well as the effect that is has had on those people of color through rhetoric which have been the most affected through these different laws. Through this new mean of slavery which we call mass incarceration people of color have been victims to dehumanization, terrorism and over representation in the media. “13th” emphasises the correlation of slavery being an economic system with the massive racism that has undoubtedly been embedded in the heart of the United States. This entire process that is still running today can be best explained in the recording found by Reagan's campaign strategist, Lee Atwater in 1981, “ You start out in 1954 by saying nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968 you can't say nigger. It hurts…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    African Americans were slaves for an extended period of time. They were beaten, tortured, and were forced to do strenuous work instead of gaining the freedom that they deserved. They weren’t paid to do the tasks that they did for the community and their owners that “bought” them. Contradictory to the freedom that they had earned through the civil war, they had to do…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    13th Reflection

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Although we have the 13th Amendment banning slavery, some believe that our government leaders still haven’t accepted it, and they have found other ways to continue the mistreatment of people of color. The movie 13th explores the controversial topic of racism and discrimination from African Americans’ perspectives. I agree with most of the information presented in this movie; I also support their overall conclusion that the 13th Amendment is a tool to get rid of African Americans in our society. I believe that your government has taken part in numerous ways to target and infuriate African Americans in society, even after the 13th Amendment and the Civil Rights movement. The quotes and information presented in this video strengthen my thoughts and ideas of the mistreatment and unjust behaviors towards African Americans.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery by Another Name

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages

    With the Thirteenth Amendment a legal veracity, white southern slave owners were worried with both controlling the newly freed four million slaves and keeping them in the labor force at the lowest rank. For centuries, most blacks had been relegated to a sub-human status in the United States, so no one law would just change that. The system of convict leasing began during Reconstruction and was fully implemented in the 1880s. The Thirteenth Amendment had left the door open for this to happen which said that slavery was still legal under the context of punishment for a crime. This classification permitted private contractors to acquire the services of convicts from the government for a specific time period. During this time Black Americans, due to selective enforcement of new laws and prejudiced judgment made up the vast majority of the convicts leased. At this time in the south, White Americans only made up ten percent of the population who were committed for crimes.…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History has had an immersive influence on our lives today. Slavery is a sensitive subject to discuss, but it’s vital to get to the root of influences in African Americans lives. Africans experienced murky times in the 1600’s, they had their freedom revoked from them and was coerced to do free labor, known as Slavery. African slaves was not treated with rights like the colonist; they were treated and viewed equivalent to modern day machines; managed what needed to be managed, fixed what needed to be fix, and replaced what needed to be replaced. Slaves were originally promised land and freedom in exchange for seven years of labor, but as the colonies prospered the colonist were reluctant to lose their labor. In 1641 slavery became legalized; African…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    While it has been observed and recorded that crime rates have gone down in the last thirty years, the correlation between increasing the number of prisoners and less crime is not significant (Kelly, 2015). This is due to the fact that more and more non-violent offenders have been imprisoned for minor drug related offenses that have only been interpreted as major offenses by poor policy regulation (Kelly, 2015). This only means that tax payers are progressively increasing the amount of money they pay for nothing other than a false sense of…

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 13th Amendment

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The 13th Amendment, passed by Congress January 31, 1865, and ratified December 6, 1865, 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 passing of this amendment freed slaves and made it illegal to have slaves, but the 13th Amendment did not give African-Americans the equal rights that they longed for. Consequently, slavery was a major setback for African-Americans leaving them deprived of education, which in the long run made it difficult for African-Americans to obtain any type of power in the United States. This shortfall of education hindered African-Americans from…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays