Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13TH reveals shocking pattern of criminalization that surrounds black communities. The horrors of slavery are common knowledge, but what Americans need to understand is that the systems put in place in that era still effect black Americans, and racial issues were not solved with ending slavery. Police brutality, the prison industrial complex, and the portrayal of people of color in the media are issues that continue to plague our country. The title, 13TH, refers to the 13th amendment of the constitution, which abolished slavery and guaranteed freedom for all Americans. However, a loophole in the law strips convicted criminals of their freedom. Slavery was an economic institution, and once it ended the southern economy …show more content…
The film effectively communicates the struggles of that period, using images and footage. Grisly photos of victims like Emmet Till show the true violence of that time. There are also inspiring videos of MLK, Malcolm X, and multiple protests. Perhaps the most surprising is the footage of our country’s leaders and the opinions they had. Basically, there was a jump in crime in America around the same time as the civil rights movement, so obviously activists were blamed. Nixon’s answer was a pattern of mass incarceration, under the guise of “law and order”. His war on crime was largely targeted at black panthers, women’s rights groups and other progressive crowds. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” said John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s advisor. Their plan was to associate black people with heroin and other drugs, and then publically declare war on drug addicts, naming them the largest threat to the nation. Ronald Regan amplified the trend. Government programs designed to assist the poor were …show more content…
The prison population continued to skyrocket throughout Bill Clinton’s presidency. He acknowledges that his 1994 crime bill made the situation worse, but at that point it was too late. What was shocking about this documentary was the blatancy of the discrimination, even by political figures. The media is a huge factor when it came to public opinion on minorities; Cops and other shows, including local news, are far more likely to broadcast arrests of black males than any other group, delicately influencing public opinion. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are exposed in this documentary; footage revels that sadly, even today’s powerful figures buy into the lie that black people are murderous, criminal beasts. This documentary also showed many of the things discussed in section 3 of our textbook, like institutions in place designed to keep the poor from success. It focused mainly on the discriminatory side, like the topics in section 4 revealing how the black community is especially targeted. Our judicial system is an example of something put in place intentionally, and legally, to keep the disadvantaged down. George Zimmerman was asked by a dispatcher to stop pursuing Treyvon Martin. The “Stand Your Ground”
We saw the Thirteenth Amendment occur to abolish slavery. We also saw the Civil Rights Acts which gave full citizenship, as well as the prohibiting the denial of due process, etc. Having the civil rights laws enabled African Americans to new freedoms which they did not used to have. There was positive change occurring in the lives of African Americans. However, there was still a fight to suppress African Americans and maintain the racial hierarchy by poll taxes and lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Sadly, this is when Jim Crow laws appeared. During this time African Americans were losing their stride, there was an increase in prison populations and convict labor, and the convicts were
...system that has existed in the United States or anywhere else in the world” (Alexander 234). W.E.B. Dubois argued that “The burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs” (Alexander 217). Our nation must address this burden and correct that racial injustices created by our so-called criminal justice system. The criminal justice system cannot continue to hide behind the front of being a colorblind system - racial inequality and injustice must be challenged.
According to the video “The Criminal Justice System Myth v. Reality: Crime has been steadily increasing” during the late 1980's early 1990's the crime rates overall had gone up because of the increased number of juvenile crimes and homicide rates for youth. It’s these kinds of trends that caused population growth in prisons. Additionally juveniles being sent from juvenile courts to adult courts and changes in policies such as mandatory minimum laws that required time in prison for drugs and crimes related to homicide.
The book "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys" is written by Victor M. Rios, who was a former gang member in his hometown and later turned his life around. He went to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in sociology. This book explores how youth of color are punished and criminalized by authorities even under the situation where there is no crimes committed and how it can cause a harmful consequence for the young man and their community in Oakland, California. The goal is to show the consequences of social control on the lives of young people of color and try to remind the authorities. This is important Since society plays a crucial part in shaping the lives of people. And the authorities have biases towards them and mistreat
The 1960’s was an era of constant turmoil as a result of the fight for equal rights for all races, a fight led by the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. Even before they were both murdered, the mostly peaceful Civil Rights movement was gaining traction, but still actually gaining equal rights at a painfully slow pace. Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party emerged as a revolutionary group who aimed to change not only the unfair government but the slow pace at which the Civil Rights Movement was progressing. In the late 1960’s and the 1970’s, The Black Panther’s consistently stood up for their beliefs on Civil Rights and were successful in changing it into
The bell curve of African American rights has risen and fallen throughout America’s history. The period between the Pre-Civil War Era and the Post Civil War Era, were momentous in displaying the status and rights of African-Americans in the time. As the Civil War approached, the status of African-Americans was an increasingly troubling issue among the American Public. During the War, the bell’s curve had reached its height. And during the Post-Civil War, the curve fell slowly and would not rise again for another 100 years. The cause of this racial bell curve is a series of political and social events that directly affected the lives of African Americans.
The final theme portrayed within race, crime, and The Wire is the media’s influence on public views. The media plays a large role in influencing the views of the public. What the media decides to air is broadcast to the whole world as what is “right” so discretion should be used in reporting information. Blacks already carry a large stigma for many reasons, however the media should not reinforce this. Anderson (1990) states that many learn to fear minorities based on crimes seen on television as well as in the newspaper.
rise in crime for both eras show a strong relationship. There is also a tendency for an
The violence was recorded in incidents such as clashes between the police and the party, in which the party believed that the police were a threat to themselves and everything they stood for. The tension between the BPP and the police can be seen in the aggressive language of “The Ten Point Plan,” such as, “We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against black people…” “The Ten Point Plan,” can be seen as relevant in 2016 as mentioned in the article, “50 years later, Who are the Heirs of the Black Panthers?”, where groups such as Black Lives Matter, feel that police brutality still exits against black and other minorities, and similar to 1966, riots have occurred. The article hints on the idea that the demands made in “The Ten Point Plan” are still in progress today and groups similar to the Black Panthers have formed and been involved in political campaigns in order to get their message of equality across
Nearly all of the problems the Black Panther Party attacked are the direct descendants of the system which enslaved Blacks for hundreds of years. Although they were given freedom roughly one hundred years before the arrival of the Party, Blacks remain victims of White racism in much the same way. They are still the target of White violence, regulated to indecent housing, remain highly uneducated and hold the lowest position of the economic ladder. The continuance of these problems has had a nearly catastrophic effect on Blacks and Black families. Brown remembers that she “had heard of Black men-men who were loving fathers and caring husbands and strong protectors.. but had not known any” until she was grown (105). The problems which disproportionatly affect Blacks were combatted by the Party in ways the White system had not. The Party “organized rallies around police brutality against Blacks, made speeches and circulated leaflets about every social and political issue affecting Black and poor people, locally, nationally, and internationally, organized support among Whites, opened a free clinic, started a busing-to prisons program which provided transport and expenses to Black families” (181). The Party’s goals were to strengthen Black communities through organization and education.
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
The “Stand Your Ground” law was first adopted in the state of florida in 2005. This law did not gain national attention until the shooting death of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, florida, where the shooter, George Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law as his basis for defending himself against Trayvon Martin to the Sanford Police Department. However, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team did not utilize the law to argue his innocence during his trial. But the damage had been done because soon after other cases in florida began to sprout up with “Stand Your Ground” as the driving force.
Hollywood’s diversity problem is well-known; however, the extent might be surprising to most Americans. According to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television, Film & New Media, found that females comprised only 30% of all speaking characters among the top grossing films of 2013. (Lauzen, 2014) However, minority women faired far worse than their Caucasian counterparts. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the numbers even female characters from other world’s were as better represented in film than some minority women; the numbers are as follow for women: Caucasian (73%), African American (14%), Latina (5%), Asian and other world tied (3%). (Lauzen, 2014) If the lack of representation were not enough consider a 2009 study which found that when minority groups are portrayed on television the portrayal tends to be negative. (Alexandrin, 2009) A study by Busselle and Crandall (2009) found that the manner in which African-Americans are portrayed, often as unemployed criminals, tends to have an influence on the way the public perceives African-American’s lack of economic success. Furthermore, the news media does an equally poor job in the ways that African-American’s are presented; according to the same study while 27% of Americans were considered “poor” in 1996 the images of America’s “poor” being presented by news media was heavily Black (63%). (Busselle & Crandall, 2002) Today, this can be seen in the way that African-American victims of police brutality are depicted in the media. Even when African-Americans are murdered at the hands of police for minor and non-violent offenses (e.g. Mike Brown, Eric Gardner, and Tamir Rice) they are often portrayed as thugs, criminals, and vandals. What’s more, seve...
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
During this time there were countless white individuals that were leaving the Democratic Party to go towards the Republican Party. The reasoning behind this shift is that African Americans were fighting for their civil rights. In turn, politically, there was a correlation formed between race and crime. This was a turning point in the relationship that the federal and state level shared. The state level thought that it was the civil rights protestor who were to blame for the higher crime. However, on a federal level, these individuals thought that integration would be dangerous, as well as increasing the crime. The Presidential candidates during this time frame were extremely focused on a tough on crime stance, and began to fully support and blame African Americans for this issue. There was most certainly tension between the Republicans running on this platform and the African American citizens (Campbell and Schoenfeld,