13th (2016)

I try every year to watch as many, if not all, films nominated during Awards Season, especially the Oscar nominated movies, this documentary was one I had heard about, so I watched it when it was available on Netflix, directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma). The title is in reference to the 13th Amendment in the United States Constitution, this was responsible for the abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Basically the film focuses the criminal justice system in America, specifically the "intersection of race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States". It also explores the fact that a majority of prisoners held in the various prisons around the States are African American, many of them have convicted for one crime that is perhaps not as serious as others, e.g. possession of drugs, vagrancy, and that the number of prisoners increases every decade. It also delves into how racism has played significant roles in history, in films (like The Birth of a Nation and 12 Years a Slave), and in the political climate, including the creation of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan), Martin Luther King and Malcolm X fighting for Civil Rights, and Barack Obama becoming the first black man to become President of the United States. Over the years, many have tried to combat race related issues in various ways, even Presidents have made statements about combatting the "war on drugs", a subtext for racial issues. It is a fact that the United States is 5% of the world's population, but it has 25% of the world's prisoners. Using archive clips, and interviews from politicians, activists, academics and former presidents, it really makes you realise that the treatment of black people is perhaps still being tackles, with protesting, militarisation of law enforcement, and police shootings becoming key issues. It does have disturbing images from the past, including about slavery, the original perceptions of black people, segregation (with "coloured" bathrooms) and other injustices, and the rules of imprisonment are harsh. Recently featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I can see why this is an important film, it really delivers its message that there are still changes to be made in America, especially when it comes to laws and racial equality, it is a shocking, fascinating and insightful documentary. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Very good!

13th is a great documentary about the history of race relations in the U.S. and the development of the atrocity that is the prison industrial complex. The only problem I have with it, is that it should have been a docuseries instead of a film. It's too short to properly delve into the subject matter. Race relations, the war on drugs, the war on crime, privatization of prisons, mass incarceration-these topics are too great and the history is too rich to adequately and thoroughly describe in just two hours.

The aim of the documentary is to show how the over-represented black prison population is all the state/corporations/white people's fault essentially, providing very little of the documentary's time to counter-opinion.Arguably, the most reasoned argument in the entire documentary was a 10 second clip of Bill Clinton, completely destroying the argument that crack cocaine was banned and severely punished as an anti-black measure when, given the vast magnitude of harm the drug did to urban and black communities, the prohibition of it guarded those same communities unlike the weaker protections offered to the mainly suburban white communities from the harms of normal cocaine, where punishment of possession/distribution was, the documentary claims (without statistics), less harsh. By that reasoning, the war on drugs was anti-white. I don't agree with either reasoning because I don't agree that the war on drugs was motivated by race nor do I agree with the central argument of the documentary that the incarceration rates of African-Americans are so high because of a white conspiracy. Poor documentary. 4/10.

This is an Oscar nominated documentary . Its title is taken from the 13th amendment to the United States constitution which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude and apparently the disparity in rich and poor is so great in America that slavery still exists. I came to this documentary thinking that the documentary had a point. After all in America you have "workfare" where to receive state benefit you have to clean up litter etc . America still incorporates chain gangs and thankfully in Britain European Union legislation protects us from this exploitation which is nothing more than modern day slavery so yeah I came in to it ready to cheer for a classless society for my American brothers and sisters , fellow members of the international proletariat. Long before 13th finished I was actually booing The documentary comes in thee distinct parts and the first third is the worst. It gives a potted history of slavery in America and towards the end of this segment takes in the war against crime. What's the connection between the two ? Apparently it's all down to keeping the black population in their place and is a big conspiracy to criminalise blacks in order to jail them so they'd be slaves again. To be fair 13th that Richard Nixon introduced "the war on drugs" and Republican President Ronald Reagen took an even harder line. Common sense should tell someone the problem is if you outlaw a product then anyone who uses it becomes by definition an outlaw. But not here where it's all an excuse for right wing racist politicians to wage war on black people. This is all taken as fact so it's no good bringing statistics in to anything apart from the burgeoning prison population so I won't bother mentioning things like if America legalised all drugs and the state manufactured everything from weed to crack cocaine for dimes that cure a terrible problem and prohibition is bad because 13th wants to play the race card instead of talking sense To be fair it doesn't suffer from party politics bias because the Democrats are every bit as bad as the Republicans. Yes indeed Bill Clinton was pro death penalty and anti-crime , so much so a little known British Labour MP called Tony Blair went over to America to see how the slick spin doctors of the Democrats operated and came back with the slogan "Tough on crime tough on the causes of crime". Such a pity Blair never thought about winning a major battle against crime by legalising drugs. Even if you think Clinton and Blair were being draconian being anti-crime is a vote winner because everyone in general and lower class people in particular are the ones who suffer so why not give the electorate what they want? That's because it's all a big conspiracy to jail black people just for being black. As it turns out Clinton in shown in a clip saying he thought that his anti-crime legislation was a mistake. Why is it a mistake now ? Probably because like this documentary Clinton tells people what they want to hear and truth doesn't come in to it The second segment revolves around the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which is responsible for amongst other things state level legislation and private prisons. Among other things it involves the "stand your ground law" where a person can use deadly force to protect themselves. It uses a high profile case that made worldwide headlines. Again the race card is used in this case but the fact is every state in America has a similar law, not just the states who have the stand your ground law, but again there's the insinuation that it's all a big conspiracy to put all the black people in jail. The third segment then tries to back up these statistics by pointing out the large number of black men jailed. Might it not be social rather than ethnic demographics have something to do with this ? ie if you're poor and white then you're more chance of going to jail than someone middle class and white ? And if you're black and committed a crime against a person might the person be black themselves ? Don't let an agenda get in the way of facts If nothing else 13th does go to show that Americans regardless of their background all seem to suffer from an irony deficiency we see a bunch of academics and politicians saying how much African Americans are suffering from institutional racism much of which is a conspiracy by a racist white elite. If this is the case then how on earth were the black academics and politicians interviewed able to get where they are ? If there was a conspiracy then I doubt if Ava Duvarney would have been able to make this documentary and Barack Obama would have never been allowed to run for President never mind winning two Presidential elections. It could be that people are conditioned in to being victims they will never get anywhere and despite being well made 13th is another contribution to keep the downtrodden proletariat in their place