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Incarceration In The Film 13th, By Ava Duvernay

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13th, directed by Ava DuVernay, is a documentary that touches base with race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States. Getting its title from the Thirteenth Amendment, which freed slaves and prohibited slavery, however UNLESS as for punishment for a crime. Which has allowed incarceration to simply re-enslave African-Americans but just under another name. African Americans are still slaves through the “justice” system”; they’ve just taken the chains away, to replace them with bars. Thus, leading into a fact within just the first couple of minutes into the documentary, we learn that “The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. Think about that”. Immediately after, one’s attention …show more content…

As an example, as the story is being told, you can see the growth in the number of incarcerated Americans over the years. Leading into another quote/fact from the documentary, “Right now, we now have more African-Americans under criminal supervision than all the slaves back in 1850’s”. So, the documentary unfolds from way back in time, during slavery, to times today, which are still so very relevant. It was sure to be known that the problem isn’t with whites and blacks, but rather the faulty laws that we have, which are the foundation of this nation. This documentary brings about many questions. Such as making one think how did America end up with the highest rate of incarceration in the entire world? or how did our prison population now go up to almost two million? I’m sure people wouldn't just think of these questions randomly. So with this documentary, it encouraged me to do some further research. After watching a film, or documentary rather, one should leave either inspired or enlightened. Touching on African Americans being portrayed as criminals, slavery replaced with mass incarceration, to the simple dehumanization of African Americans, these are definitely major and relevant topics that need to be discussed and ultimately

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The documentary 13th was released on October 7, 2016 and it triggered a worldwide shock. As a documentary, it was adept enough to address several ongoing issues, especially regarding the maltreatment of African Americans, but the documentary was shaped around the theme that African Americans were never free, and continue to fight for that freedom. The content within the documentary varied from earlier times where slavery, segregation and, Jim Crow laws existed to the more implicit manner of racism that is presented through the massive imprisonment of African Americans, and unjustified use of the criminal justice system against them. The documentary revolves around three main themes: the overrepresentation of African Americans in the media,

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The film 13th is a documentary that explains how the prison systems are another form of slavery and is built to effect colored individuals and colored communities. The film identifies and explained a loop hole in the 13th amendment, which banned slavery. The loop in the amendment is that slavery and involuntary servitude is illegal unless a person is convicted of a crime. This clause in the amendment led to the first prison boom in America and mass incarceration. This film opened my eyes to underlying aspects of things that I have had previous knowledge about.

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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.

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The 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery; once put in place in 1865, blacks were free people in the United States, unless they were criminals. The documentary 13th does an amazing job putting forth the correlation between mass incarceration and race. It explores the loophole within the 13th amendment which states that slavery shall not exist within the United States, unless of punishment for a crime. This allows for criminals to be “slaves” within the prison system. The documentary follows slavery and oppression of African-Americans from the time of working in the fields, to current times, where one in every 3 black men are expected to be incarcerated at some point in their lifetime.

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Although the movie does seem to want to get a point across about racism being relevant even in mainly black neighborhoods, it mostly furthers society’s institutionalized racist thoughts towards the black

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The film 13th directed by Ava DuVernay targets an intended audience of the Media and the three branches of the United States government with an emphasis that mass incarceration is an extension of slavery. It is intended to inform viewers about the criminalization of African Americans and the United States prison boom. 13th uses rhetorical devices in its claim to persuade the viewers by using exemplum in the opening seconds of the film. President Barack Obama presents statistics, saying “the United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners.” Also the film uses a hyperbole in talking about the movie Birth of a Nation produced in 1915 which portrays a black man as a violent savage who will kill white women.

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13th Documentary Analysis Ava DuVernay’s documentary mentions that the United States makes up five percent of the world’s population yet is home to twenty five percent of the world’s prisoners. One out of four prisoners in the world are locked up in the U.S. The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The thirteenth amendment of the constitution makes it unconstitutional for someone to be held as a slave.

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The Reconstruction period lasted from 1865 to 1877. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendment were created during the twelve years of rebuilding the country. All of the amendments were made to protect former slaves and their rights but on paper they did not have any rights. The reconstruction period had its successes and failures.

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Another issue that came up was ex-slaves or blacks were still not accepted into main society due to lack of

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The 13th Amendment allowed the African Americans to be released from the institutionalized oppression of slavery, at the same time allowing them to achieve political and civil rights. It did not protect them from the violence that they will experience on a physical and physiological level, the newly freed African Americans that were victimized by different factors such as political regulations. Many African Americans attempted to exercise their newly acquired rights, but as a result, white southerners saw this as problematic and resorted to taking violent actions. Violence became one of the primary acts which caused the African American community’s rights to become void and it puts their black lives and black livelihood at stake.

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Over the decades, mass incarceration has become an important topic that people want to discuss due to the increasing number of mass incarceration. However, most of the people who are incarceration are people of color. This eventually leads to scholars concluding that there is a relationship between mass incarceration and the legacy of slavery. The reason is that people of color are the individuals who are overrepresented in prison compared to whites. If you think about it, slavery is over and African Americans are no longer mistreated; however, that is not the case as African Americans continue to face oppression from the government and police force.

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