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Essays on mass incarceration
Racial inequality in education essay
Racial inequality in education essay
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13th is a documentary directed and produced by Ava Duvernay. The documentary dives deep into America’s prison system and America’s history of racial inequalities. The documentary contained many forms of rhetoric, including, kairos, logos, ethos, pathos, and visual rhetoric. Using these methods of rhetoric helps director Ava Duvernay get her point across to the audience.
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.
"13th", a documentary directed by the filmmaker Ava DuVernay highlighted mass incarceration and its racial roots in society. One thing that every time period covered by the documentary had in common was the media and pop cultures shaping the portrayal of African Americans. Over time, the media and those in power have used television and more recently social media to paint African Americans as dangerous savages. Trayvon Martin murder, covered by the documentary, was a highly publicized event that highlighted some tactics the media uses to dehumanize African Americans. On many news outlets that covered the story, pictures were shown of Trayvon with his underwear out and holding up his middle fingers.
The documentary is based on the 13th amendment, and how a loophole in the Constitution has been used for the benefit of the white American population. The loophole allows involuntary servitude could be used as a punishment for crime, in other words - slavery was abolished, unless you are a
The film Shadow of Hate shows how Americans have struggled with intolerance towards other ethnic groups. This movie is important because it gives a bleak look back at the darker side of America. From the enslavement of African Americans to segregation we see a history of oppression. Furthermore, you can argue that even today African Americans still have to deal with negative attitudes and in proportional incarceration rates than whites. Almost all groups migrating into our country have faced problems with assimilation and acceptance.
When one talks about underlying racism, if they ever talk about it, there is a consistent denial of its existence throughout American society. This ever present flaw is not a systematic issue where a person can point out the exact laws that persecute, rather, the government is a vehicle that executes the will of the people in charge of the system. Hence, I see the “13th” film as an exposition of how systematic oppression is not a system oppressing an ethnicity, but rather people using the government as a vehicle to unjustly place African-Americans in prison. Altogether I believe that this tragedy reinforces the notion that the United States will always neglect its cultural outsiders because of how devastating it is to see that “African Americans make up 6.5% of the American population but 40.2% of
This summer I had the opportunity to watch the documentary 13th, on netflix, and read the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson. Both were enlightened and when finished with both you walk away sense of awareness for some of the hardships that black people have faced both past and present. The film 13th was a documentary about the racial inequality in this country. It touches on the crack epidemic, and how it led to the rise of unjust arrest and the rise of incarceration in America. Quoting from the film, the prison population rose from 474,368 in 1980 to 2,042,479 in 2001.
For example, sanitation workers had to carry bags of garbage that had holes in them and since they were paid low wages, they ended up poor on welfare. Not only was this film was a way of seeing another turning point during the civil rights movement but also, African Americans fighting for justice. Even though I was not born during that time, I can understand how they felt because it wasn’t that easy. In today’s society racism isn’t as bad as what it was during that time. Besides we still have times were we face racism in our lives so I would say in some areas racism is still a
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 Major components to the film the 13th are that it talks slavery and how black people use to live for example the movie talked about how black people used to be property of white rich famers or land owners. I feel like it was completely wrong to have black people being white people property. I also feel like it is wrong to segregate people based on skins or other ethics or beliefs. The movie also describes issue around black people and how white people wanted to make difference in the law-making stronger laws surrounding those issue for example crack then cocaine since more black communities used crack and more white communities used cocaine.
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.
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.
Towards the beginning of this movie, many blacks were looking at the white men with hatred for raping and nearly killing a ten year old black girl. The men transformed the innocent little girl’s life forever. The men were instantly
The justice system that relies on twelve individuals reaching a life-or-death decision has many complications and dangers. The play Twelve Angry Men, by Reiginald Rose, illustrates the dangers of a justice system that relies on twelve people reaching a life-or-death decision because people are biased, they think of a jury system as an inconvenience, and many people aren’t as intelligent as others. The first reason why Reiginald illustrates dangers is because people can be biased or they can stereotype the defendant. The Jurors in Twelve Angry Men relate to this because a few of them were biased and several of them stereotyped the defendant for being from the slums. The defendant in this play was a 19 year old kid from the slums.