A Summary of "13th" by Ava DuVernay

"13th" is a documentary created by American filmmaker and director Ava DuVernay. The film released on October 7th, 2016. This film explores the timeline of racial inequality through the model of imprisonment, and the anti-black agenda in America since the 13th amendment.

This film is a must watch for everyone still struggling to understand how racism against Black Americans works, and how it is systemic.

This is a summary of the documentary film. As of June 8th, 2020 Netflix has made this film free to stream online. You can stream it here: https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741. I wanted to create this summary for anyone who may not have access to Netflix or is trying to learn about this subject matter well into the future.

Statistics

• 1 out of 4 people are in prison in America

• After the Federal Crime Bill of 1994 100,000 police officers were put on the street. This led to the increased militarization

• 99% of elected prosecutors were white

• Prison population in the 2000s exceeded 2 million

• 30% of black males in Alabama cannot vote because of criminal conviction

• 1 in 17 white men and 1 in 3 black men go to jail

• Black men make up 40% of the prison population

• On average there were 3 warrants per household in Ferguson during the Ferguson movement

Slavery was an economic system

How do you rebuild the economy?

After the civil was African Americans were arrested on the mass. They would come to provide labor to rebuild the economy of the state. This is when the 13th amendment came to be exploited.

"Birth of a Nation"

"Birth of a Nation" was a 1915 film directed by D.W.Grifith, and it well represents the anti-black imagination.

White women became the primary "victim" of black men who were portrayed as savages, animals, beasts who raped white women. They were seen as a threat. This film fed into what the economy needed, which was working bodies. They needed black bodies working.

This film made the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to be heroic figures. The director created and incorporated the burning crosses in the film. This became a symbol of the KKK and thus "life imitated art." The KKK's burning crosses on American lands stemmed from a film that vilianized the black body and gave the KKK power. Following this, a new wave of terror was born: lynching. This horrific act ran from Reconstruction to 1982.

Jim Crow

After lynching became a "crime" and was labeled as illegal, the new wave of racism adapted accordingly by taking a legal form called the Jim Crow. These new laws made African American citizens into second class citizens. More so, the law ensured this would be their permanent status.

The struggle became to be understood as human beings and to become disassociated from criminality. Being arrested became a noble thing.

"Justice too long deployed is justice denied."

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Crime at this point was rising exponentially. Politicians optimized on this and blamed the civil rights movement as responsible.

In the 1970s, the prison population changed in the 1970s. The era of mass incarceration began.

War on Crime

Richard Nixon was the 37th president of he United States of America. Nixon defined his era of presidency with the "war on drugs" otherwise known as "dog whistle crime." In truth, this was the war against blacks, Latinos, gays an other criminalized populations.

All of a sudden, the law became upheld, a top priority. This war on drugs became a crime issue than a health issue. Many colored folks were sent to jail for low-level crimes. Hence, the mass incarceration kept being fed.

Besides the war on drugs, the "Southern Strategy" also came out of the Nixon era. This was the strategy by which low-class/income whites in the south were recruited into republic parties. So, the party grew strong and the anti-black imagination grew stronger.

The hippies became associated with marijuana and blacks became associated with heroine. This association gave the system the power to search people, their homes and then place them in jail. Well aware of lies, officials continued to terrorize black folks in the south.

Reagan Comes Into Power

Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of The United States of America comes into power. He came in and turned Nixon's rhetorical war on drugs into a real war. This became the modern war on drugs in 1982.

The new war on drugs prompted the "Just Say No" campaign. Reagan made his wife Nancy Reagan, the face of the campaign. This campaign came just in time of the economic crisis which continued incarceration would help.

He initiated greater tax cuts which only hurt the poorer black families more and benefited the richer whites in the south.

Lee Atwater, a political consultant and strategist for Reagan's republic party was caught on tape admitting to the Southern Strategy.

Crack/Cocaine

A new drug entered the scene called crack and cocaine. This was sold in small doses and was inexpensive. Cocaine was more sophisticated as well. It was simply powder. This simple powder made it easier to put huge chunks of black men into prison.

News and TV Shows

Black people are over represented on media. They are over represented as criminals and underrepresented as black people, just human beings.

A term came into being, the "super predator" to describe the generation, more specifically black people. "Super predator" had no empathy, no morals. Thy were animals and beasts. This term became defining of an entire population and soon enough everyone was using it, even black people. Many black people started to support the very things that harmed black people.

This system made the case of the Central Park Five possible. This was the case of a group of teen boys who were accused of raping a white woman. Despite being under aged, they were placed into adult prison before DNA evidence proved their innocence.

Bush Campaign

Micheal Duhakais was an American politician, lawyer and the democratic party's presidency nominee in 1988. His policy was to let prisoners out on weekends.

Opposite to democratic Duhakais was republic George W. Bush. Bush leaned into justifying the rise of crime as racially charged. On one hand, you had the squishy liberals and on the other you had the republicans who seemed to be getting things done by putting chunks of criminals behind bars. Democrats had to take more centralist approaches because they were loosing. Liberals became synonymous to squishy.

3 Strikes and You're Out

Bush won the presidency and became the 43rd president of The United States of America. With him, came the "3 Strikes and You're Out" law which deemed that all offenders on their third strike be imprisoned for life.

This created an environment where the already established laws that led to arrests of blacks over minor things would ensure blacks stay in prison for life.

Mandatory Mandate

Supporting the 3 Strikes and You're Out law was another law by the name "Mandatory Mandate" which made it mandatory of police to arrest and for judges to sentence jail time without taking surrounding circumstances into consideration. The fact that 99% of elected prosecutors were white did not help the case.

This led to cases like Sharanda Jones's where she was put in prison for life for transporting cocaine.

Bill Clinton

The Federal Crime Bill of 1994 was signed by the 42nd president of The United States, Bill Clinton. Thus, 100,000 police officers were mobilized on streets. Militarization became a part of everyday life. It became normalized.

The prison population grew accordingly. By the 2000s, there was 2 million people in prison. Being black became even more criminalized.

Black Leaders Have To Go

Black leaders in history were highly villianized. We may now see Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the greatest leaders but at his time of activity, he was considered as one of the most dangerous people on FBI's watch.

Blacks were seen as a threat to democracy.

The rise of the Black Panthers (BPP) whose purpose was to defend the streets of police brutality against black folks. This revolutionary party founded in 1966 continued to grow. This meant that BPP became criminalized and BPP member Fred Hampton had to be assassinated.

Assata Shakur, another member of BPP was convicted of murder.

Another prominent member of BPP Angela Davis, was highly criminalized for her fight against racism. She stood trial and walked away free.

Trayvon Martin

This was a cold blooded murder by the hands of a racist. It was the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. This unarmed boy was shot and killed by George Zimmerman who called 911 on a suspicious looking black boy. Despite dispatch telling him to stay down, he took it upon himself to shoot and kill Martin.

Zimmerman walked away from his trial a free man because he claimed that he felt threatened so he shot Martin, an unarmed boy, in self defense.And, becuase of the "Stand your ground" law which stated that one could kill someone if they felt threatened, Zimmerman walked away with no charges.

ALEC

Behind the scenes, there was a force working in the shadows called the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC) who passed all these laws that created an anti-black system. Since 1990, ALEC has been operating as a private group of corporations and politicians.

ALEC did not want everyone to be voting. The higher the percentage of black folks who could not vote, the better it was for ALEC who were trying to gain favor on their laws, rules and regulations which favored the whites. The state needed their prisons filled. This led to more and more black men loosing their rights to vote due criminal convictions.

This law made gun sales boom. Suddenly, all cops were highly weaponized. Corporations like Walmart carried a grand stock and selection of guns. Walmart, along with other well known corporations continue to fund and invest in ALEC.

Corrections Corporation America (CCA) and ALEC were profiting off the laws because those laws made sure there was an influx of bodies imprisoned.

Besides many of these laws already talked about here, ALEC puts into motion another law called SB 1070 which gave officials the authority to stop anyone that looked like an immigrant. They would be charged federal immigration charges.

ALEC set out to privatize parole and probation. This led the system to imprison black bodies outside of the prison, in their very homes. This killed three birds with one stone. The prison overcrowding issue was solved all the while retaining the criminal rate. The cherry on top being that ALEC was further profiting off of the GPS monitors tied to their ankles, surveiling them, further criminalizing them.

Prison Industrial Complex

What ALEC did was play a part in the prison industrial complex. This profits from mass incarceration. It is an economic model and it has allowed groups like ALEC to say that they are strictly taking care of economy and nothing else.

UNICORE was heavily monetized. Companies like Aamark, Microsoft, Victoria Secret and JCPenny were profiting off prison labor which is essentially legalized illegal, sweatshop labor.

Kalief Browder

In 2010, Kalief Browder, a 16-year-old teen was arrested for a crime he did not commit. Regardless, he was charged with the petty crime. His bail was set to $10,000, money he could not afford.

The judicial system frees the guilty rich and keeps the poor and innocent imprisoned. The system would break if everyone demanded a trial which is why plea bargains exist and the measures for the bargains are so drastic. Poor blacks do not go to trial. 90% take the plea deal. Browder however, was not about to admit guilt to a crime he did not commit. According to Browder, if he had taken the deal, no one would hear his story, he would become a criminal in peoples' eyes.

Browder was kept 3 years in confinement without a trial, awaiting his trial. He was beaten by both inmates and guards. He was finally set free. Tragically, he committed suicide by hanging himself in Bronx, 2 years after getting out of prison.

Voting

Many aspects of Jim Crow is re-branded under criminal conviction. 30% of black men in Alabama cannot vote because of criminal convictions.

Elle Jo Baher and Frannie Lou Hamer gets the bill passed to vote.

Imprisonment

1 in 17 white men and 1 in 3 black men go to prison.

Black men made up 40% of prison. This is the inheritance of slavery. The slave trade may have ended but mass incarceration of black men is the new slavery. They became slaves of the state. Mass incarceration legitimizes police violence.

First there was slavery, then there was convict leasing, then came Jim Crow, followed by mass incarceration. All slavery wearing different faces.

The Ferguson Movement

The Ferguson movement which began with the murder and death of 18-year-old Micheal Brown or Mike Brown.

This death pushed Ferguson from the edge of the cliff where they were constantly criminalized. On average 3 warrants were issued per household in Ferguson. They became the enemies of the state.

The biggest riots happen as part of police brutality.

The Need for Shock

The death that started it all. 14-year-old Emmett Till was abducted, beaten and murdered in 1995.

In was in the strength of Till's mother which allowed people to see what the system did to the 14-year-old boy. She held an open casket funeral. People walked by and saw the effects of the heinous crime committed against Till. She allowed pictures to be taken and published in two black publications by the names Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender,which fueled the need for change and the Civil Rights movement.

People needed to see the pictures of Emmett Till and they needed to see the videos by Dr.King to understand that it was either change or death.

---

My Ending Thoughts

We need the riots. We not only need the actions which gave us greater power in the past but we also need to see what this revolution that we are living through means.

We need riots, we need protests, we need to fight. One way or another this is everyone's fight because ultimately, this fight is for humanity. There is no humanity that exclude's one's humanity. There is no humanity until black people are humanized and black humanity is achieved.

I hope this summary was helpful. Please watch the documentary if you can and please support black owned businesses. Continue to sign petitions!