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By the time her movie ends, Ms. DuVernay has delivered a stirring treatise on the prison industrial complex through a nexus of racism, capitalism, policies and politics. Was this review helpful to you? So those who were once slaves were now accused of petty crimes, convicted and jailed, and forced to labor in the convict-lease system in which private companies leased prisoners from the state.
Ms. DuVernay presents both sides of the story, as it were (racism versus civil rights). One author commenting on the documentary calls the exception clause “a poison pill, a trapdoor, an escape clause” that permitted the persistence of slavery.
“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. Compare the slavery prohibition of the language of the Northwest Ordinance with that of the Thirteenth Amendment: 1787: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”, 1865: “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.”. Parker's directing style, though, while thoroughly accomplished for a first-timer, can sometimes feel over-emphatic, and as in-your-face as his script. In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom. Given the novelty of emancipation at the phrase’s origin, that was not pointless: surely the abolition of slavery should not mean that no one (black or white) could ever be incarcerated for crimes they committed, right? That “13th” features prominent mass incarceration opponents such as “The New Jim Crow” author Michelle Alexander and the Center for Media Justice executive director Malkia … While in 1787 there may have been need to distinguish between slavery and penal servitude, Sumner argued, “that reason no longer exists.” The clause should be excised, he urged, because it had become pointless: “’imprisonment’ cannot be confounded with this ‘peculiar’ wrong,” he stated, referring to the “peculiar” (i.e., specifically southern) institution of slavery. To justify their oppression, white supremacists used much more powerful and overt legal devices than slippery language in the Thirteenth Amendment. As the film’s intertitles state, the African American went “from slave to criminal with one amendment.”, Many have adopted and extended this argument. We’re learning a lot these days about the historical roots of mass incarceration. The 13th amendment was the father of the discriminatory laws that followed it such as Jim Crow . Looking for some great streaming picks? "These books are for white folks," the plantation's mistress tells him. 13th The film breaks down the history, politics and socioeconomic conditions surrounding the sharp expansion of private and public incarceration, a system that has had a devastating impact on communities of color. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? [….] hide caption. To read a review that basically regurgitates all of the right leaning rhetoric that, if they watched the film, started at the very beginning of slavery. We know that can happen: the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, the LGBT movement.
In the words of Professor Jeremy Waldron, “our jurists became adept at finding ways of saying that ‘necessary’ cruelty wasn’t cruelty.” In short, the notion of human dignity became essentially meaningless for those incarcerated, but particularly so for those of color (as we say). But as the comparatively well-treated Nat sees brutality in his travels, he starts to doubt that the Bible could endorse it, and his sermonizing changes in tone ("execute vengeance on the demonic nations, to bind their kings in chains") as he decides God wants him to lead a slave revolt. Slavery is legal in prisons. The movie hinges on the 13th Amendment, as the title indicates, in ways that may be surprising, though less so for those familiar with Michelle Alexander… Following Sumner’s advice and leaving the exception clause out of the Thirteenth Amendment would have certainly obviated our present confusion over its meaning.
I watched this film and cried because I have spent my adult life keeping myself and my children out of the "system".
Ms. Alexander has been criticized for oversimplifying the origins of mass incarceration in “The New Jim Crow.” This may account for why Ms. DuVernay, in perhaps a bid to pre-empt similar criticism, does include a few divergent voices, including the conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist, who frankly comes off as an exemplar of blinkered power and racial myopia.
Deborah Peterson Small, an activist interviewed in “13TH,” a documentary by Ava DuVernay. Brad Pitt and Keira Knightley both scored early roles in scary movies. “And he’s a black male.” When this documentary reaches its culmination, which features graphic videos of one after another black man being shot by police, Ms. DuVernay’s rigorously controlled deconstruction of crime, punishment and race in the United States has become a piercing, keening cry. Why do you say “tsk tsk” to Black Lives Matter protests? (archive footage) (uncredited), key grip: San Francisco/Oakland (as Carlos Lopez), first assistant camera: San Francisco/Oakland. We need only think such a world into existence. [Laughs.] Filming & Production
It is not one law or politician, it is a collective consciousness changing.
13th (2016) Full Cast & Crew. Antislavery legislators wanted a more comprehensive measure, but only by compromising on its vision would more conservative legislators let it pass. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Liberal legal regimes had destroyed slavery by defining it as a barbaric rejection of the modern, only to then promote forms of mass incarceration as legitimate if unfortunate necessities of life in “freedom.”. For even more, visit our Guide to Horror ... if you dare. African American Intellectual History Society.
DuVernay’s title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery throughout the country when it was ratified in 1865. But since different means were used to implement Jim Crow and mass incarceration, they would’ve happened anyway.
An in-depth look at Hollywood's depiction of transgender people and the impact of those stories on transgender lives and American culture. States such as Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey passed gradual emancipation laws that phased it out over time.