The documentary begins with slavery in the US and the institution of the 13th Amendment. The main idea is that slavery, although abolished, was never completely gone and has only changed form - into the prison system of today.
The history behind the prison system is stems from when slaves were set free by the 13th Amendment and farmers in the South no longer had free labor. Although it states in the 13th Amendment that a person can not be owned and forced to do work, those in prison can be forced to do labor. Numerous cases deal with discrimination and civil rights of black and African Americans. In this film people are referred to as black, brown, or African American. The context for this film is so vast, but the primary resource which the
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But the story evolved, “it’s an investigation. You have to go where the story is going to take you,” (13TH: A Conversation). As she was doing interviews she came to the conclusion that it would be “unreasonable and incomplete to try to tell the story of now without telling the story of the past,” (13TH: A Conversation). Each person that was in the documentary was interviewed for about two hours. DuVernay set at least two hours aside, along with having an honestly curious attitude, to be able to get the interviewees to put their guards down and talk openly. She said that she knew what her opinion and bias was, but she was genuinely interested in what each person would say, on both sides of the issue. There was a variety of people interviewed on both sides of the issue. All of those interviewed were intelligent, professional people. Some major interviewees to note were Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates, Michelle Alexander, and Newt Gingrich. DuVernay set out to give anyone who had no idea about the prison system in America a general knowledge of the situation, a chance to have their eyes opened. “just let people be aware that this exists.” (interview with Oprah talking about ALEC and how …show more content…
It is also under the label “provocative.” The way that DuVernay sees it, racism and slavery have never stopped, it has just changed form. The current number of people in American prisons makes up 25% of all persons incarcerated in the world (13TH). The rapid increase of those in prisons started shortly after the 13th Amendment because Southern farmers needed workers. Since the amendment said that forced labor could only apply to those in prison, African Americans were put in prison for miniscule crimes and put to work. The next big influx of those in prison came during the “War on Drugs.” Nixon was the first start the phrase “war on drugs” in 1969. The most revealing statement about the true intent of this fight against ‘drugs’ comes from John Ehrlichman, who was Assistant to the President on Domestic Affairs. He said, “The Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. … We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” (A Brief History of the Drug War) The “war on drugs” continued not only through the Nixon administration but also the Reagan and Clinton administrations. It threatens to return under the Trump administration. Trump has promised a wall on the U.S., Mexico border for safety
Bridge to Freedom provides the historical documentary behind the events that served as the narrative for Selma. Instead of a drama, the viewers receive an actual documentary that shows the confrontations between the marchers and the government. Like Selma, it highlights the violence, the deaths, and the beatings, but also goes further back in time to show society’s treatment of African Americans.
This documentary not only talks about a significant period in African American and American history; it also gives us a mo...
The Author transitions the past and present signatures of Jim Crow and the New Jim Crow with the suggestion that the New Jim Crow, by mass incarceration and racism as a whole, marginalizes and relegates Blacks to residential, educational and constitutionally endowed service to the Country. The final chapter of The New Jim Crow reviews the manner in which the Black community might respond to the racism that exists today. Some research implies that we in America have reached a point of attrition as to incarceration, and the positive effects outweigh the negative effects of marginalization and collateral damage to the community. By some research, the "War on Drugs" procreates poverty, joblessness, family breakdown, and crime.
trap African Americans in a virtual (and literal) cage,” he is saying that “Blacks are now incarcerated seven times as often as whites.” He is addressing that mass incarceration is another way to control black people. This leaves his readers shock realizing that slavery is happening all over again but in invisible way that people wouldn 't realize so easily.
“Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. This is what it means to be black” (Alexander 197). Today our nation represents an interracial racial caste system - a caste system that includes white people within its control as a means to remain a colorblind system. Mass incarceration is no different than slavery or Jim Crow, it is simply a new racial caste system in the age of colorblindness (Alexander
The fact that War on Drugs and incarceration is a rebirth of caste of America, is correct. If you are African- American you will go to prison because of the caste system. People choice to be what they want to be. Yet Michelle point is correct, human beings need to realize everyone is different. Problems are created because one it creates them. Also we talked about the nullification system in class, and is one way in solving racism in the justice system and the government. Michelle Alexander uses statistic through the book. She explains the difference from 1990s to today’s world. This makes it easier for the reader to tell the contrast.
This quote shows what a study found in Seattle, that the population in Seattle is seventy percent but most of the people in jail are blacks. Seattle has a problem where cocaine and crack are the main drugs being abused and sold, but the people who sell it the most are whites, but the majority who end up in jail for cocaine or crack charges are African Americans. Well this happens because black people do drugs but also white people, but the ones who are the victims of incarceration are blacks, this mainly due to the way the law enforcements act towards the poor colored communities. The issue arose from people that are non white abusing certain drugs, the drugs got outlawed every time a certain race abused it.
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow did is represented the anti-Black racism. Further on, In 1970’s the term “War on Drugs” was coined by President Richard Nixon . Later President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war. In reality the war had little to do with drug crime and a lot to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a strategy of used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as national threat. Therefore, they called for a national anti-drug policy, the policy began pushing for the involvement of the police force and military in drug prohibition efforts. The government did believe that blacks or minorities were a cause of the drug problem. They concentrated on inner city poor neighborhoods, drug related violence, they wanted to publicize the drug war which lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. The war on drugs targeted and criminalized disproportionably urban minorities. There for, “War on Drugs” results in the incarceration of one million Americans ...
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001.
In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities.
The case of Green Cottenham was the central event of this book. In his case, author found out many problems that happen to African Americans after the Civil War, especially the force labor and leasing black prisoner system. These were operated by southern state governments, whites, and large corporations.
The drug war is the New Jim Crow because it empowers the state with the tools to target, and denies African Americans civil rights, citizenship, and justice in the pretext of elaborate criminal changes that serve as a mean to furthermore disenfranchise African Americans.
Alexander (2010) describes the New Jim Crow as a moment where society have already internalized the stereotypes of African American men as violent and more likely to commit crimes and where mass incarceration has been normalized – especially in poor areas– . That is, today is seen as normal that black parents are missing in their homes because they are in institutions of control (p.181). She also stresses American society denies racism when they assume the justice system works. Therefore, she claims that “mass incarceration is colorblind” (p.183). American society does not see the race biased within the institutions of control.
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
This is a critique of" Roger And Me", a documentary by Michael Moore. This is a film about a city that at one time had a great economy. The working class people lived the American dream. The majority of people in this town worked at the large GM factory. The factory is what gave these people security in their middle working class home life. Life in the city of Flint was good until Roger Smith the CEO of GM decided to close the factory. This destroyed the city. Violent crime became the highest in the nation, businesses went bankrupt, people were evicted from their rented homes. There were no jobs and no opportunity. Life was so bad that Money magazine named Flint the worst place to live in the entire nation. When news of the factory closing first broke, Michael Moore a native of flint decided to search for Roger Smith and bring him to Flint.