A Picture of Slavery and Racism in the Documentary the 13th

After watching the documentary The 13th numerous of times, I can truly say I that understand and feel the horrific pain that every African American woman and man endured and went through while getting wrongfully accused by the criminal justice system. Not only did this documentary bring me closer than I’ve ever been in life, but it also made me understand how my life could have been compared to those who were adapted to the life of racism, slavery, and the Jim Crow Laws.

The 13th documentary not only shows how it bring such an impact to how life could have been, but it also ties to the modern-day life which makes the whole documentary even more relevant. This film made me emotional as well as shocked because of the treatment that the African Americans had to go through during the times of slavery. Seeing how the prison population growth grew from 357,292 in 1970 to 513,900 10years later will make you think about whether the past criminality will ever start again. I couldn’t imagine if me or my family had to go through anything like that.

Based off the documentary, the overall theme “Black Lives Matter” applies to minority groups such as Muslims, LGBTQ, and Immigrants. Being that the BLM is usually a call of action, African Americans and the other minority groups were rooted as having human beliefs that were already connected through the mission of social justice. With all that was happening with the movement and the incarceration, the LGBTQ individuals, Muslim women and men, and Immigrants all portrayed a negative life. Minority groups as well as African Americans showed links with slavery and how it applied civil and human rights that appealed and had the access of the Civil right movement. For example, DuVernay uses the amendment as apart of showing how the minority groups as well as the African Americans were arrested and used as a replacement of the free labor of the slavery system.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies played a major role when it came down to the events stated in the documentary. Black people were expected to be criminals which were classified as Black Criminality. Being that the way that the white’s treated the blacks and how they spoke in a cold tone of voice and so forth, African Americans generally showed initial behavior and interactions with the whites responding in the same way as they were treated which was horrible. The way their behaviors and self- fulfilling prophecies were set up the behaviors toward the others lead them to behave in a way that met their expectations and to behave in a consistent manner.

The Birth of Nation was used to facilitate stereotype knowledge about Black Men and the KKK in many ways. First the Birth of Nation and its horrific racist images and thoughts of behavior lead to the KKK which increased the lynching’s as was shown in the Film. Soon after that the African -Americans fled to different cities just to get away from such a terrible sight. Despite of it all, Birth of Nation portrayed blacks especially in the South as being brutal and Whites from the south as being endured or resentful. However, with all that was going on messing with the KKK’s became African Americans personal savior in the South which led to leaving them strained. However, The Klan helped fulfill needs such as self- enhancement which helped achieved their goal with the Birth of Nation and the African Americans.

Social ideologies may have had a role in the documentary. For instance, in the film it shows where black men were easy to be locked up and charged as criminals just because of prejudice. Authoritarian personality is shown in that matter. Black men went along with what the whites requested just to satisfy their motives. Their attitudes and beliefs were viewed as if the African Americans were setting a goal to strive for. As mentioned in the film, deaths of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, and Eric Gardner and others all were African Americans that were portrayed as remaining Americans that were unarmed black civilians that were killed by the police department because of nothing.

After watching the documentary, the documentary did affect my perception of the events described in the documentary. I didn’t think that African Americans were really treated the way they were until I started watching the film. Watching the whites push around the black young man in the video basically beating him made me change my whole perspective of the film. It made think that all blacks were here for is to get beat up on and to be treated like nothing. Throughout the film, I did see myself making personal changes in my life after watching the documentary. At first, I saw myself having mixed emotions then later after finishing the entire film, I saw myself feeling angry. I felt as if nothing has really changed today after watching it.

Still today, there are some type of racism still going on somewhere in this world today as we speak. Seeing that the cycle was repeated over and over made me change my life. It taught me to “NEVER let anyone treat you the way that you shouldn’t be treated and to ALWAYS let your voice be heard “The quote “We are tolerating it” made me think why sit there and take all of this and tolerate this when you can make a complete change. Therefore, after watching the film I completely changed the way I thought and saw things.

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