THE MOVIE 13TH - REVIEW

                                                       

I could not bring myself to watch this documentary at once. I had to watch it in bits. It is an emotionally draining one.

In this documentary, young black men and women were beaten, handcuffed violently, old men were beaten, pushed and shoved by white policemen without any form of empathy.
This documentary is mainly, Ava DuVernay's way of linking the past and current mass incarceration of black men in relation to slavery before it was abolished. Extensive research went into the making of this movie and there were evidence to back them all up to prove that slavery has been replaced by mass incarceration of black people. Contributors in this documentary ranged from formerly incarcerated men and women, former and present congressmen, activists, journalists.
Ava DuVernay brings to our consciousness the loop hole in the 13th amendment - a law that was passed to abolish slavery.

The 13th amendment law states that "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 part of the law in bold italics is the loophole Ava sheds more light on in this documentary. It's being greatly exploited by those who benefit from it.

At the beginning of the documentary, we hear President Obama saying "5% of world population are in America, 25% of world prisoners are in America, think about this". 2.3 million Americans are presently in prison and of this number 40.2% are African-American men. I was shocked when it was pointed out that African- American men make up only about 6.5% of the America population. More Shocking was when Cory Booker (New Jersey Senator) explicitly said "Right now, we now have more African-Americans under criminal supervision than all the slaves back in 1850s" - Let that sink in.

The documentary traced the inception of mass incarceration of African- Americans to the 1915 movie by D.W Griffith titled 'The Birth of a nation'. This film portrayed black people as criminals and it got great reviews by critics and white communities leaders. President Woodrow Wilson requested for a private viewing and described it as 'History written with lightening'. In that movie, black men were lynched and were associated with menace. It also encouraged the resurgence of the KKK(Kuh Klux Klan) - who lynched and murdered black men. This movie also made black men to be treated as permanent second class citizens. This prompted a peaceful protest by black men wearing a placard that read "I am a Man"

Black men and women activists were thrown into jail for even peaceful protest and speaking up against police brutality and segregation. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,  Angela Davies and other activists were declared the most dangerous men and women in the world by FBI Chief at that time J. Edgar.

As Van Jones, CNN political analyst Puts it - "You can tell the story of white leadership in America and never mention the FBI one time, you can't tell the story of black leadership not one without having to deal with the full weight of the criminal justice system weaponising this black descent"
Fred Hampton the leader of the Black Panther was killed at age 21. The policemen who carried his dead body were even pictured laughing. It seemed like a sort of relief to them that a young man whose only weapon of fighting oppression were through his speeches and protest was dead. The system was so afraid of Black men.

The Justice System was so afraid of black leaderships and groups no matter how small they were. So these groups and it's leadership were criminalised, thrown in jail or killed. This coincided with the government plans to rebuild the post-abolition southern economy. Prisoners built and reconstructed the prisons at cheap labour of course.

In the documentary was a video clip of Black Panther Assata Shakur who predicted that "In the next five years, something like three hundred prisons are in the planning stages. This government has the intention throwing more and more people in prison"


This documentary also highlighted how Presidents Nixon and then Regan heightened the problem of racial profiling of black people by starting a war on drugs lending credence to Shakur's prediction. This war on drugs was a subtle way of starting a war on black and brown people. They even used the slogan in their campaigns using it to appeal to more southern white people.

A Regan adviser  - Lee Atwater was quoted as saying "Y'all aint gonna quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying nigger. By 68, you can't say nigger - it huts you, it backfires. So you say stuff like forced bussing states rights and all that stuff and you're getting so abstract. Now you're talking about cutting taxes and all of these things are totally economic things and a by products of them is - blacks gets hurt worse than whites"

So it has always being in the plan for white leadership to destroy black men in any way possible, criminalising black men was the way to go for them.
The years of the civil rights movement saw an increase in incarceration of black people and black people began to see being arrested as a noble thing.

The 70's recorded mass incarceration based on the war on crimes spearheaded by past presidents. Black men and women got jail sentences for the possession of cocaine no matter how small, while white people got a judgement that can be described as a slap on the wrist.

It is not as if Black people didn't commit crimes, they did but so did white people. But more attention and publicity was put into the arrests and trials of Black people so even Black people were of the notion that there Brothers ans Sisters were criminals. They were scared and wary of one another.

Then came President Bill Clinton in the 90's, surprisingly his policies birth the current prison system. A crime bill that birthed the expansion of the prisons. He was also responsible for the three strikes law which allowed for repeat offenders to be sentenced to life and to be made to serve 85% of their jail terms.

The three strikes law includes even being arrested for theft or possession of drugs. Clinton's policy in addition to Regan's  mandatory jail sentences for drug crimes saw a large number of black people arrested and jailed. Hilary Clinton supported her husband's three strikes law. I could not help but think that maybe, that act of showing support for her husband's policy contributed to her loss.
Hilary and her husband have both publicly said they regretted that law.

Some black teenagers were wrongfully arrested for raping and leaving a lady jogger for dead in 1989. Donald Trump was  shown in this documentary saying the death penalty should be brought back. He campaigned hard for these teenagers to be killed. He even bought a full paper advert asking that the Death penalty should be brought back. These teenagers were eventually acquitted after serving part of their jail terms thanks to DNA testing.

The thing about been formerly incarcerated is that, it is hard to get a job. Formerly incarcerated men and women are mostly on benefits. The systems was tweaked in a way that once they are out it became hard for them to be employed.

I also wondered why Donald's Trump role in this didn't come back to bite him. He was forgiven for what he did, if not he would not have being voted in - White male privilege maybe.


The concluding part of this documentary also showed Donald Trump while he was campaigning clamouring for the good old days where protesters were carried out in stretcher and criminals beaten. One could not help but think that criminals was his subtle way of referring to Black people.
Police brutality to black people was shown in videos and pictures.Very horrid I must say.


On the whole, if you are interested in the America's prison system, slavery and the injustice meted out to African- Americans, then this is for you. Ava Duvernay covers all aspects of these topics extensively.