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The negative effects of mass incarceration
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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.
Government paper The Texas prison system is a very cruel cutthroat system that has many problems And racial issues. The system is deeply embedded in the state’s budget, but also in its political, cultural, and social fabric and impacts the lives of millions of people. From the wrong the accused, actual criminal and racial profiled African Americans and hispanics to the wardens, prison guards, judges and politicians who work on or for the prisons. Through his Book “Texas Tough” Robert Perkinson shows an effective argument against how Texas is using the prison system as a way to control and unethically treat African Americans and other minorities just like they did from 1870-1965 with the jim crows laws through the criminal system by using statistical evidence, Historical evidence, and Historical pictures of african american prisoners being treated like slaves by the Texas prison system.
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.
The documentary “13th” highlighted a major issue facing America currently, mass incarcerations. Racism was the underlining them of both Tatum's book and the documentary. The painful past of America was hard to watch. The current state of America is extremely frightening. I would like to believe that the truth would have come out earlier.
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 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.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.
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.
From Color-Coded to Color-Blind In a world in where everything created is an equal masterpiece of G-d, discrimination ought not to exist. Therefore, the cruelty inflicted upon the black nation throughout the slavery era left a tarnished reputation in the history of the United States. Although the 13th amendment abolished slavery in 1865, it did little in terminating the agony that African Americans suffered in this so called glorious country. As a result, in the early 1900s, many blacks put pen to paper to record the heinous torture endured and to leave memoirs for the future generations.
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.
Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
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.
Not every person story is kept alive, and lives to tell the tale. The Twelve Years a Slave movie has an exceptional story that cannot be disregarded as part of the Post Civil War Era in America. It is a detail memoir, that tells the horrifying experiences of a free African American, Solomon Northup, whom gets kidnapped, then transported downward south, only to be sold into slavery. The only thing that gets him through his enslavement period were past fond memories of freedom in his previous life, being with his wife and two children. This film accurately reflected what African American had endured in these past times of slavery in America.
The movie “Twelve Years a Slave” is about a free African American named Solomon Northups living in Saratoga, New York being tricked and kidnapped in another state waking up as a slave the next morning. Two men lied to Solomon saying that they knew he could play the violin and said they needed him to play the violin for some event in another state. They got Solomon drunk at dinner and then Solomon woke up in a box chained up. This movie relates to what I have learned in class because Solomon was a free man in one state and in another state Solomon became a slave. The way Solomon and other slaves were treated was absolutely brutal.
