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The Movie 13th Essay

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Review of the movie 13th
The movie 13th is a documentary by director Ava DuVernay. The title of the film refers to the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery. According to the opening message, one fourth of the world prison population is stored at the territory of the United States. Most imprisoned people in the U.S are people of color. 13th tells the detailed story of how Thirteenth Amendment was used as a tool to use incarceration as a legal continuation of former slave system.
According to the Section 1 of Thirteenth Amendment “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 was ratified by required number of states on December 6, 1865, and therefore abolished slavery. However, the director of the movie not fully agrees with 13th amendment fully stopping slavery. As we see in the movie, amendment was used by confederates after the Civil War as a tool to cope with destroyed economy of the South. Since work of slaves was the main source of income for southern people abolishing slavery was synonymous with the …show more content…

Kalief Browder was stopped by police while he was walking back home from the party. He had to spend 3 years in the prison even though there was no trial and charges against him were dismissed. He did not get a release just because he was not able to afford three thousand cash bail. Being beaten multiple times by police and prison inmates, Kalief committed suicide. The history of Kalief Browder is an example of how badly the game is rigged. Schwalbe argued that some people are ahead of others due to unequal distribution of resources (Schwalbe p.76). In this case young man had could simply not afford the bail out. If he had the money, he would be

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Argument found in 13th: The abuse of the 13th amendment is an extension to slavery, which was supposedly abolished when the it was introduced, because of the exception clause found in the amendment. AGREE: The 13th amendment has an exception clause that states slavery and involuntary services are illegal except as a punishment for crime. After the Civil had ended and slaves were let free, many police officers were arresting African American people. The south was able to use the African American prisoners as slaves.

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Kalief Browder, a 16 year old who was arrested for a robbery he did not commit. He spent three years in jail with no conviction. James Brown an impoverished day laborer, charged with murder and waited eight and a half years for his case to go to trial. Meanwhile waiting for his trial, his alibi witness had died of kidney disease. Kalief nor James could afford bail, so they had to suffer in jail for a crime they did not convict.

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