The documentary “13th” was very eye opening to me. This documentary is over how prison affects African Americans, and how the 13th Amendment was used. It talks about how blacks were treated when the 13th Amendment was ratified. This film also talks about the government, like health benefits, helping African Americans. It also talks about the strategies of war. I feel like this film shows how some people are so biased that they are scared that African Americans are more criminal than Whites, when really, we are equal. It shows us how African Americans are shown as predators, more than other types of ethnic groups. This film is named after the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment says that slavery shouldn’t be allowed unless there is a crime, and the party of that crime …show more content…
This film’s talks about how Jim Crow Laws, Three Strikes Rule, and War on drugs all impact the lives of the criminals. “13th” keeps up with the number of prisoners in the system as time goes on. Starting in the 1940’s the count of people in prison started to rise. During the Civil Rights Movement, it went up rapidly. With this happening, more African Americans were killed. The film shows that the prison population was at a million in 1990, but in 2000, it had already doubled. In one of the lectures, we talked about how usually African Americans would go to prison, and Whites were more likely to get probation, rather than go to prison. I think that this is unfair, because some of the Whites may be getting off easier on the same type of crime that the African American is going to prison for (Gerlinger, J. (2017). Race and Criminal Justice: Corrections and Concomitant Punishments. Retrieved from CANVAS). In the film, it talks about how a man shot and killed another, because of the Stand Your Ground Rule in Florida. This to me, was kind of like the Fleeing Felon Rule that we talked about in lecture with the Edward Garner