Analysis Of The Documentary 13th, By Ava Duvernay

The documentary â€Å"13th†, directed and written by Ava DuVernay and released as a Netflix Original in 2016 is about the history of racism and inequality across America, corresponding with the mass incarceration of African-Americans in modern prison. The title represents the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution stating the abolishment of slavery. The target audience of this movie is the federal system, black communities, and the modern society. This movie seems to coincide with the Black Lives Matter movement that stormed the country in 2015 after the death of black males at the hands of police officers. Mass incarceration across the United States makes up a Majority of the movie. DuVernay bases the movie of the narrative that†¦show more content†¦In 1994 there was 15,000,000 incarcerations, in 2002 there were 13,500,000, and by 2012 there were only 12,000,000 incarcerations. The notion of a historic boom in incarceration after the 1994 crime bill was pas sed is completely false. This fact takes away the movies narrative of social injustice and the massive incarceration that is taking over our modern society today. This section of the movie then goes on to claim that black people are targeted for the consumption and dealing of drugs in the 90’s. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics states that 50% of drug incarcerations were white people and 49% was black and the 1% was other races. If black people were targeted in this time era so heavily, why were there more white people in jail for drugs compared to African-Americans? At this same time SAMHSA did a survey in prison asking inmates whether they are in prison for selling drugs or consumption. 82% of the people were white and 16% was black. The percent of African-American drug users was 13% and the incarceration rate was 13%, at this time 60% of blacks lived in intercity metropolitan areas were the majority of arrests were made. This shows that it isn’t the polices fault for making these arrest, but the people in the intercity who involved themselves in using drugs knowing well that there was a higher chance of being arrested due to higher police force in areas that require it. The next fact I saw that raised many questions that tie to my information above is