The 13th is a thought-provoking documentary where scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom. I started taking notes during the film and I quickly realized that there is enough interesting facts, quotes, and information to write an entire blog series or book. The 13th takes its viewers through a history lesson followed by recent and current systemic issues that criminalize people of color; more specifically black people. The following are highlights that struck me as impactful while watching the film last year.
Notes, Facts and Figures
- The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. 1 out of 4 human beings in the world are locked up in the land of the free.
- 2.23 million people are in jail up from 300,00 in 1972 – the U.S. has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. 357,292 in 1970 to be exact – 513,900 in 1980 after Nixon began the incarceration movement. 759,100 in 1985 under Reagan. 1,179,000 in 1990, 2,015,300 in 2000. Read these numbers again and let it sink in for a minute.
- After the civil war, African Americans were arrested in mass through a 13th amendment loophole.
- Slavery ended in December 1865 but people’s rights were taken away until the Civil Rights movement. Note that slavery ended but systemic racism and oppression continued in different forms.
- Richard Nixon’s call for law and order rhetoric started the mass incarceration movement; a new form of systemic racism and oppression.
- Nixon coined the term of world on war and president Reagan turned it into a literal one. The modern world on drugs was declared by Ronald Reagan.
- Reagan ultimately takes the problem of economic inequalities of hyper segregation of American cities and criminalizes all of that in the form of the world on drugs.
- The history of interracial rape is far more marked by white men against black women that black men against white women.
“The federal crime bill of 1994 by Bill Clinton was responsible for a massive expansion of the law system. It increased funding to build prisons and put 100,000 police officers on the street. This was far more harmful than Raegan or Nixon because it built the infrastructure that we see today – the militarization, swat teams, etc.”
- Fred Hampton pulled together blacks, whites, native Americans, and Latinos – at the age of 21 and he was killed by police. They literally shot him in his bed and his pregnant wife.
- ALEC is a way for corporations to influence which laws get proposed. Stand your ground laws are examples of ways corporations made money because it boosted gun sales (i.e. Walmart).
- CCA – Corporate Corrections of America is a 1.7 billion business that gets rich off of punishment.
- SB 1070 allowed police officers to arrest immigrants based on looks. Detention facilities are prisons with a different name. Note that Donald Trump is quickly trying to bring this back.
- For corporations, business is booming. Examples of prison labor products: sports uniforms, Idaho potatoes, hats, JC Penny jeans, and Victoria Secret clothing. Let’s clarify a bit: corporations are profiting from punishment.
“97% of people that are locked up had plea bargain and that is one of the worst violations of human rights that we have in the United States. If you exercise the right to a trial, and are convicted, you will be punished more.”
- 30% of the Alabama population cannot vote due to felony convictions.
“The likelihood of white men going to prison is 1 in 17 and 1 in 3 black males during their lifetime. Black men account for 6.5% of U.S. population and make up 40.2% of the prison population. We now have more black men under criminal supervision than all the slaves back in the 1850s.”
The 13th depicts U.S. history racism and oppression through different systems that include; Slavery, Jim Crow terror and lynching, and now mass incarceration where black people are prevented from voting and are unable to find a job after prison.
Police Brutality Riots (largest in recent history)
- Rodney king, Detroit riot in 1967, Newark riot in 1967, Harlem 64, Watts 65 – every single riot was as a result of police brutality.
- There has never been a period in our history where the law and order has not acted against the African American black community. To ignore that context means you cannot have an informed debate about what is going on today.
- The murder of Emmett Till shocked the community into creating a movement. The whole black world could see what could happen. Dr. King used video and photos hoping that your basic humanity could be recognized. We are still using video and photos to attempt to shock the community and this is still a big tool to exploit police brutality and discrimination.
- Police violence is not the problem in and of itself – rather a much larger brutal system of social and racial control known as mass incarceration that authorizes this kind of police violence.
“We are the product of the history that our ancestors chose.”
The Atlantic’s Mass Incarceration visual does a great job of summing up how mass incarceration has a deep effect in the lives of our youth – particularly Black children. 1.2 million African American children with a parent who is incarcerated is about 1 in 9. Research shows that these children are then affected in many ways including; diminished school achievement, parental problems, behavioral problems, depressive symptoms, and acting out. There’s also evidence that these kind of negative effects are concentrated more with young boys than young girls.
The 13th is a powerful, well organized piece of work that forces viewers to become educated on the fact that systemic racism and discrimination continues to exist in different forms despite social and technological advances. The question isn’t whether systemic racism will end during my lifetime but rather; what new form of systemic racism will come next? The 13th asks, what’s the next phase? Perhaps the Donald Trump administration will answer this question.
Modos 