13th

The Netflix documentary, 13^th, tells a story of injustice and discrimination that African Americans must deal with throughout their daily lives, however it specifically targets those in prison. In the documentary, one is shown a variety of statistics that bring the current discrepancies in our system to light. For example, despite the United States having only 5% of the population, 25% of worldwide prisoners are locked up in the United States. To my surprise the documentary mentioned a technicality in the 13^th amendment that is unknown to many.to most the 13^th amendment is the amendment that “ended slavery”, however few would have the knowledge of knowing that it allows a special case of slavery with those who are criminals “as a punishment for a crime”. the freeing of 4 million slaves proved to cause major damages to the southern economy after the Civil War, leaving many of the southern plantations with no labor. In order to exploit this loophole in the 13^th amendment, many southern plantation owners would utilize prisoners who committed a very minor crime. One of the numerous cultural events that 13^th utilized was the release of The Birth of a Nation to analyze. For example, Birth of a Nation displayed freed African Americans in an extremely unfair and barbaric manner, it also shined a positive light on the Ku Klux Klan, and led to their revival in the south. A couple of years later a man named Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black man, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch patroller because he looked suspicious. Although the shooter was prosecuted and arrested, he was let off on the “Stand your ground” law, which states if one feels threatened than they have authority to fight back. The law was introduced by a private lobbyist group of corporations and politicians which draft bills to be introduced into legislature called ALEC. ALEC allowed the elite corporations to influence and affect laws that the people elected the politicians to do, which violates the legislature process. 13^th is an eye-opening documentary which informs the audience on countless statistics. on the social injustices that African Americans have to endure.