AMERICA’S MODERN SLAVERY SYSTEM APPROVED

AMERICA’S MODERN SLAVERY SYSTEM APPROVED

BY THE 13th AMENDMENT

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Nowadays, it is estimated that one in three African Americans will end up behind bars. This can be explained by a long-term process of racial criminalization, which began in 1865, or the abolition of slavery by the 13th Amendment. The documentary excoriates how the 13th Amendment, which allegedly outlawed slavery, was designed to perpetuate the mass enslavement of African Americans. Produced by Ava DuVernay and released in October 2016, this poignant documentary points out the historical racial injustices and systemic racism in the United States. The documentary uncovers how race has manufactured political and economical purposes to this day. Chronologically, DuVernay demonstrates how African Americans have been associated with systems of racial and social control that appear to reveal that slavery has been replaced by mass incarceration. We step into one hundred and fifty years of history of racism, violence, political manipulation, and social injustice. Therefore, we will question how the director explores the transition between slavery and mass incarceration and the tools she uses to amplify her message.

Ratified by Congress in 1865 after the American Civil War, the amendment leaves an exploitable clause that subjects slavery to be used as a legal method to punish criminals. It doesn’t come unnoticed that slavery was a legal business that contributed greatly to build America’s economy — since the land was considerably vast colons benefited from free labor and slavery to exploit and build. Therefore, after 1865, the southern economic system had to be thought through to avoid an economic crisis. In consequence, a clause that accepts criminals of being enslaved was created to maintain slavery to manufacture profits, power, and political gain in the country. Following the Civil War, African Americans were massively arrested for “minor offenses such as vagrancy” , mentions M. Alexander, they were labeled as “criminals”, lost their freedom, and were enslaved, again.

Considered the first “prison boom” in the US, black culture representation was transformed. Fabricated stereotypes were created to portray black men as menacing figures, predators, rapists that had to be eliminated from society. The culture was used as a tool to instrumentalize public opinion: a strong example that illustrates this phenomenon is the movie The Birth of a Nation. Released in 1915, it was considered the first major production of American cinema because it confirmed the story about the Civil War while erasing the white’s defeat. The story depicts the Klu Klux Klan heroically and romantically— to this effect, the movement was popularized and a new wave of terrorism took place in the country. As a consequence, the black communities spread all over America out of terror and trauma… Moreover, the public “terrorism war” against the black community was later transformed into segregation. Less violent but just as stigmatizing, the "Jim Crow laws" were effective between 1876 and 1965, they established a separation of whites and blacks in schools, but also in public places and services such as trains and buses. The racial oppression was perpetuated through segregation and various policies continued to criminalize African Americans. Civil rights activists were targeted and depicted in the media or by politicians as “criminals” or as an “influence to violence ”, Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur were some of them.

The filmmaker remarkably demonstrates the intricate relationship between archival footage and the modern graphics. While she means to show the omnipresence of slavery, prison labour and mass incarceration, the choice in the music is very interesting. She features extracts of rap music, and intensifies the lyrics by presenting them in bold letters. It gives another perspective of Black’s traumatizing relationships with correctional institutions, law enforcement, racism, violence, justice…

Since then, the Civil Rights Act was signed (under President Lyndon Johnson) in 1964 — it outlawed any kind of discrimination based on color, sex religion, or origins. Yet the discrimination was perpetrated by political measures. For example, the Nixon era purposely replaced the word “race” with “crime”. This “dog-whistle politics” called for a “Law and Order” against drugs (marijuana and heroin were considered the same in terms of punishment) criminality. Therefore, drug addiction was treated as a crime

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