13th (2016)

  This is a really good documentary.  It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars this year but lost to O.J.:  Made in America.  Both are fascinating explorations of the legacy of racism and the on-going commodification of African Americans in this country.

The title of this film refers to the 13th Amendment which prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime.  Ava DuVernay gathered a host of well-educated, prominent historians and social justice leaders to link that last clause in the amendment to the dramatic rise the criminalization of black and Hispanic Americans for profit by mostly white-owned corporations in the prison-industrial complex.  The film explores the effect of D. W. Griffith's landmark film The Birth of a Nation on perpetuating the stereotype of black men as violent criminals and the restrictive Jim Crow laws, but quickly moves to more recent history with the Nixon administration's backlash against the Black Power movement and the Viet Nam protesters.  The War on Drugs is given more context with the revelations by one of Nixon's top aides that it was most certainly racially motivated.  The association continued through the crack epidemic of the Reagan years, seeing much harsher sentences for (mostly black) crack users and dealers than (mostly white) cocaine users and dealers.  Segueing from politics to profit, the film exposes the links between politicians and corporations in the shady network of ALEC, a nonprofit conservative organization that drafts legislation for use in state governments.  Some of their members include the Corrections Corporation of America and the American Bail Association.  These companies have a financial incentive to put people behind bars and keep them there, feeding on a system of human misery exacerbated by years of prejudice and disenfranchisement.

It's depressing as all hell, mostly because I realized as I watched it that I already knew most of what was being said.  I had heard it before but separately.  I knew about the Nixon thing.  I knew about the crack thing.  And the minimum sentencing.  And the police brutality.  I even knew about the Birth of a Nation as a love letter to the KKK.  But I had never before had it all linked together and presented as a damning indictment of our entire justice system as a way to perpetuate the use of slave labor without violating the 13th amendment.

Oh, and I didn't know that all Idaho potatoes are planted, grown, harvested and shipped by prisoners.  Now I can't look at Five Guys without being sad that my fries are the product of a sweatshop.

Here's the thing.  I'm not actually opposed to prison labor.  I think the spirit of the amendment, forcing convicted prisoners to work off their debt to society, is positive.  But I cannot condone deliberately structuring laws to target the poor, the uneducated, and the voiceless just so rich people can get richer.  Fuck that.  America is a symbol around the globe for freedom and we can't even provide it to our own citizens?  I don't accept that.

Anyway, this is a really great documentary and you should catch it on Netflix.