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The effect of the 13th amendment essay
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A “Powerful” film where the director, Ava DuVernay, shines a light on the unknown story about Thirteenth Amendment. The film provides insight on racial inequality primary the prison system. DuVernay decided this film should spark a conversation. I agree that this film starts the conversation about the racial inequality that the world needed to begin. The film is about the inequality that is happening in the United States, focusing on prisons that are filled mostly with African Americans. Starting with the Thirteenth Amendment, stating that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”, in other words everybody is free except for criminals. The film states that “After …show more content…
Then continues to explain about the increasing growth of American’s prison population through the years, which were mostly inhabited by African Americans. Ava DuVernay, the director, approaches the film in a chronological way where it shows how through the years, the amount of people in prison increases rapidly and shows why during specific years it increased. As stated before DuVernay uses the definition of the Thirteenth Amendment, stating that everyone is free except criminals. Thus, creating the label of “criminal” towards African Americans. DuVernay create credibility by using people. For example, DuVernay has Jelani Cobb, the director of the Institute for African American studies at the University of Connecticut, to explain labels given towards African Americans. Labels such as “the negro was out of control” or “there’s a threat of violence to white women”. At the same time DuVernay uses pictures and videos of lynching and of beatings as a result from said types of labels or false accusations really appeals to the emotional side of the
It shows that Negros were able to purchase their freedom and purchase the freedom of their family members. It shows a sense of equality in the way that free blacks could go to court and potentially win cases against white farmers. Free blacks owning slaves and indentured servants, some of which were white, could also be seen as equality. It also shows how free blacks had a thought of a future in the way that they drew up wills in which their family members were granted land and livestock. Knowing that white farming landowners and free blacks lived together in a sense of harmony goes back to the main theme of Myne Owne Ground. It shows that slavery is indeed an embarrassment to our nation. Knowing that blacks and whites were able to live together, trade, and be civil towards each other shows that slavery was unfounded and not
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.
In this story it clearly shows us what the courts really mean by freedom, equality, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws. The story traces the legal challenges that affected African Americans freedom. To justify slavery as the “the way things were” still begs to define what lied beneath slave owner’s abilities to look past the wounded eyes and beating hearts of the African Americans that were so brutally possessed.
As Abraham Lincoln was president “On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures.” President Lincoln was a big and a decisive part of ratifying the 13th Amendment.” (Our Documents). The passing of the 13th Amendment was one of the most influential Amendments passed in the U.S. ended slavery, but African Americans still did not have the same rights that white Americans did. With the help of the 16th president Abraham Lincoln the ratification of the 13th Amendment would not exist. After the passing of this document the African Americans did not have the same freedom the white Americans did but they had a lot of freedom. Without this document where would the United States be?
The movie the 13th centralizes that African-Americans are often criminals or dangerous in the eyes of the law. Since the end of slavery black people has always been at a disadvantage here in America. The novel All American Boys tells a story about how a good black kid, Rashad, gets beat up by a cop and a white kid, Quinn, who goes to the same school and is the same age and grade as Rashad and is seen as this “All American Boy,” seen it and goes through about if it was right or not. Both the novel and the movie has something to do between the two races, white and black. There’s always something that happens to a black person that leads to controversy and news.
The 13th, a documentary by Ava DuVernay, was released this year on Netflix. The hour and forty minute film makes visible a link between slavery in the United States and the modern day prison system. Specifically, DuVernay looks at how race and the subjugation of black and brown bodies have been at the forefront of these modern day prisons. DuVernay nicely ties in the social and economic factors behind the mass incarceration related to the progression of the US on the backs of black bodies. Through the use of statistical data, it proves how pure racist reasoning in the United States has programmed both whites and blacks in America to fear the black body.
The seriousness is enough to make you lose faith in humanity for a second, but catch your attention and evoke deep and reflection thought into the truth that goes on in the part of society that is unknowingly ignored by the population because it gets constantly overshadowed by media and the government. More importantly, the film reminds us that progress will move forward only when those at the top of authority realize they need to relate with and answer to the people who want change, answer to the voices of people those broken, traumatized, who truly need
Michelle Alexander also brings to attention the hardship that these arrests bring onto people of colour after finishing their sentences. After the release from jail these people are faced with a total isolation from society, they can’t get jobs and therefore are forced into poverty. They are legally discriminated from housing, jobs, education, food stamps etc. Their lives are forever changed. Ex-offenders are constantly facing a legal discrimination upon their release, and Alexander compares this to the legal discrimination during Jim Crow. One of the main problems with the law enforcement according to Alexander is that they have locked this racial group into and inferior position in
The portrayal of African American women in recent films, has served to highlight the negative stereotyping against them and increase awareness to their plight. The negative stereotyping occurred before the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, where African Americans were predominantly bought and sold as slaves. It is only after the passing of the amendment and the Civil Rights Act, were African Americans considered citizens of the United States, granted the opportunity to vote and had the right for equal treatment. As such, this allowed for the empowerment of African American women, allowing them the opportunity of more work options and given the freedom of decision-making. However, the negativity that skin colour represented in the past still pervades, hence, film has become a platform for the exposure of the oppression and restrictions faced by women of colour, and allow for the exploration of the disadvantages that plague them. This has brought about revisionism (Barbu, 2011), which has granted African American women with more compassionate views, as compared to their white counterparts. Although the oppression of African American women are brought to light, their ultimate empowerment is not shown, leaving the audience to question their future.
The 13th documentary discusses two fundamental issues going on in our country. The power of money in profitable incarceration and the everlasting slavery. In 1865, when the 13th amendment was ratified, but little did the drafters know of the loophole they had left in the definition of one of the clauses. A clause that converts slavery from a legal business model to an equally legal method of punishment for criminals. This documentary did a very good job of not being biased and focusing on the facts.
The movie starts with the story of Rubin Carter and his fight for the middleweight championship. He lost the match in a rigged bout to a weaker opponent. Although, Rubin dominated the ring, he lost the title. The fight foreshadows the racial discrimination that will be played throughout the movie. Later in the movie in the Lafayette Grill two African-American males of middle build murdered three people at the all white establishment. Rubin Carter and John Artis were accused of being those two men. Carter and Artis went to prison for three life sentences. The future looks slim for Carter, however, a pivotal change comes when Lezra Martin discovers Carter's book.
Disillusioned, shocked, and at times, hopeful, the audience is left with the impression of not a moving documentary, but one that pushes them to move. Ava DuVernay starts her documentary, 13th, by highlighting the startling statistic that 25% of the world’s imprisoned population resides in the United States, despite having only 5% of the world’s total population. The reason behind this mass incarceration originates from the film’s name, the 13th Amendment, which provided a loophole for slavery in the clause “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (U.S. Const. amend. XIII.). This revealing statement, reiterated multiple times throughout the film, introduces the viewer to the argument that modern
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 movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
Throughout time the influence between incarceration rate in the African American community has been changed through a course, of the words slavery to criminal. The real first step that the word slavery was change was by the 13th Amendment instead of labeling a free man a Slave you label them as a criminal they will work for you for free as long as they were criminals in the eye of the system. The Next Step was for people to believe that criminals Are created Born Into the world by giving these people a characteristic View to Society many people believe that these people should be labeled as criminal off the bat a movie call The Birth of a Nation did that. All of this happened in the past now in the future the word slavery is just labeled