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”
The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. Personal beliefs and anecdotes prove nothing, the criminal justice system isn’t racist. Although it may seem African Americans are highly discriminated upon in the justice system, there is ample amounts of data to prove otherwise. The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. The system is not to blame for the racial differences found in the United States criminal justice system. The racial issues found in the system are due to inner city isolation and common crime patterns involving drugs even if it may seem as if the system is racist.
...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.
African Americans had been struggling to obtain equal rights for scores of decades. During the 1960’s, the civil rights movement intensified and the civil rights leaders entreated President Kennedy to intervene. They knew it would take extreme legislature to get results of any merit. Kennedy was afraid to move forward in the civil rights battle, so a young preacher named Martin Luther King began a campaign of nonviolent marches and sit-ins and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama to try and force a crisis that the President would have to acknowledge. Eventually things became heated and Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor released his men to attack the protesters, which included many schoolchildren. All of this was captured and televised to the horror of the world. Finally this forced the President into action and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities. The bill became bogged down in Congress but civil righ...
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
In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.
Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in
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.
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...
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
During the Destabilization phase, which occurred between 1960 and 1975, consisted on political individuals, policy makers, and other important bureaucrats started to question what was known as the “penal status quo”. During this time frame there were numerous new opportunities being formed, due to the civil rights initiatives as well as anti-war protests. These opportunities were not necessarily positive; these opportunities were starting to modify the penal and political fields. These changes created the perfect environment for what was termed as emergent crime politics. This basically is when a political leader or runner is benefiting off of crime to gain ground politically. This then caused a response at a state level to actually define
consumed with the idea of degregating the poor so they can achieve success, even if it