● The 13th
○ The United States home to 5% of world’s pop
○ 25% of world’s prisoners
○ 2.3 million people incarcerated
○ Product of our history and set of choices of our ancestors, or lack of choice
○ 13th amendment makes slavery unconstitutional
■ Exceptions including criminals
■ clause/loophole that can be manipulated
● It was immediately manipulated, after Civil War black people were
arrested for minor crimes (vagrancy, loitering)
● Forced labor to rebuild economy of South
○ The mythology of the black criminal
■ “Uncontrollable”
■ “Violence against white women”
■ “The angry black Negro”
○ Slavery was integral part of the Southern/U.S. economy
○ Birth of a Nation
■ Praised for political commentary
■ Confirmed white story about civil war and aftermath
■ Erase defeat and create martyrdom
■ Woodrow Wilson had private screening
■ Cannibalistic, animalistic portrayal of black men
■ Part of rebirth of Ku Klux Klan
■ Burning of cross was cinematic image that became reality
○ Lynchings from Reconstruction to World War 2
○ 300some Democratic delegates in 1924 were Klansmen
○ Black people left South out of terror
○ Terror became Segregation
■ “Jim Crow”
■ Regulating of black bodies
■ Psychological warfare
○ Civil rights activists were portrayed as criminals, violating laws (segregation)
■ Arrested became noble, transformation of criminality
○ Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act
■ 100 hundred years later
■ “Their cause must be our cause too”
○ Crime was increasing
■ Related to demographic change
■ But blamed on Civil Rights Movement and Black Freedom
○ 1970s
■ Era of Mass Incarceration begins
■ Nixon and Law & Order
● Used crime as word for race
■ Prison population in 1970
● 357,292
○ “No progress for America if there is no respect for law”
○ “Total war on public enemy #1”
■ Drug use became criminal and not rehabilitated
○ Nixon’s Southern Strategy
■ Persuading poor, working class whites who were Democrats to vote
Republican through thinly veiled race talk
■ Part of backlash against civil rights movement
○ John Ehrlichman
■ Associate Hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin makes it easy to
vilify and get agenda done
○ 1980 Prison Population:
■ 513,900
○ Election of Reagan
■ Turned rhetorical war into real war on drugs
● 1982
■ “Just Say No” campaign used by Nancy Reagan
■ “It’s an individual problem, it’s on you” (neoliberalism)
■ Assault on welfare by Reagan
○ Crack
■ As bad as terrorists
■ “It’s dangerous and it’ll kill you”
■ Cheap drug to destroy poor, inner cities
○ Mandatory sentencing
■ Harsher for crack than cocaine
○ More allocation for prisons
○ War on Drugs helped develop hyper-segregation of communities
○ Lee Atwater, Reagan campaign manager
■ Forced-busing, states rights, etc.
■ Talking about economic things whose by-product hurts POC communities
more than whites
○ 1985
■ 759,100 prison population
○ Black people overrepresented in news as criminals
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■ FBI statistics show otherwise
Media used to make people afraid
■ dehumanize
■ Super-predator
● “No empathy, no consciousness”
● -Hillary Clinton
■ Central Park 5
● Donald Trump pushed for death penalty
● All proven innocent
○ Served 6-8 years in adult prisons
“No one who is white understands being black in America”
■ -Newt Gingrich
1988 Election
■ Dukakis lost because of Willie Horton case
● Crime became theme of presidential campaign
● “Stabbing the man repeatedly, and raping his girlfriend”
○ Ad used as return of mythology of violent black man
Interracial rape
■ More white men rape black women in this statistic
1990
■ 1.179 million people in prison
1992 election
■ “New Democrats”
● Tough on crime
■ High profile violent crimes appear in news
California 3 strikes law
■ Third felony means life imprisonment
■ Overcrowding means release of some to make room for third strike
prisoners
Most elected prosecutors are white
Judges have lost discretion to prosecutors
Parole has been taken away, was meant to help people get out
30 billion dollar 1994 Federal Crime Bill
■ Massive expansion of prison system
■ Lock up drug criminals more
2000
■ Prison population: 2,015,300
Bill Clinton now says it was a mistake
■ But then yelled at Black Lives Matter activists...yikes
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878, 400: African-American population in prison in 2001
You can tell the story of white leadership w/o mentioning FBI
Can’t mention black leadership without the full weight of criminal justice system
J Edgar Hoover
■ “Panthers represent biggest internal threat to U.S.”
MLK #1 on FBI watchlist
Fred Hampton, assassinated by police in 1969
■ Leader of Illinois Black Panthers
Media represented Assata Shakur as dangerous
Angela Davis portrayed as villain as well
■ “What does it mean to be a criminal in this country?”
■ “At any moment, we could have been attacked”
● On growing up in Birmingham, AL
2014
■ 2,306,200 people in prison
George Zimmerman before killing Trayvon Martin
■ “These assholes, they always get away”
Florida Law:
■ ‘Stand Your Ground’
■ Pleaded self-defense
ALEC
■ American Legislative Exchange Council
● Has politicians and corporations
○ Mostly Republicans
○ Influences lawmaking
■ 1 in 4 state legislators are part of ALEC
■ Been around for 4 decades
■ Paul Weyrich, co-founder, 1980
● “They want everyone to vote, We don’t want everyone to vote”
○ Voter turnout down, our power increases
■ Walmart family funds ALEC, but family still a member
■ PHARMA in ALEC
■ Verizon, AT&T, Coca-Cola
■ Most importantly, CCA
● Corrections Corporation of America
Prison system became a growth industry through private prison contracts in states
■ Lock people up to keep prisons filled
State Bill 1070 in Arizona
■ Pushed by CCA
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■ If you look like an “immigrant” cops can stop you
“Detention facilities”
“Crimmigration system”
CCA left ALEC after NPR story in 2010 about how they pushed for bills to get
passed
“Wholesale reform”
■ “Positive” (privatization) changes to laws
GPS monitoring
■ Wrist bracelets, ankle bracelets
Perpetual surveillance
■ Companies making money of gps monitoring
Inflating prices for prisoners
■ Aramark for food
● Maggots in food
■ Corizon Health Care
● Denying procedures
■ Securus for phones
● Expensive phone calls
Idaho Potatoes farmed, packed, shipped by prisoners
JC Penny, Victoria’s Secret used prison labor
Kalief Browder
■ 10,000 dollar bail
■ Example of people too poor to get out of jail
■ Courts punished him for audacity to not take plea
■ Destroyed his mental health
■ Charges dropped, set free years later
■ 2 years later he hung himself at home, age 22
Wealth not culpability determines outcome
Dolores Canales’ son
■ 14 years, no human contact, no window, etc.
Criminal history can affect housing, insurance, student loans, etc.
■ “Scarlett Letter”
Felony takes away your rights
■ New Jim Crow
Attempts at reform historically lead to more oppression
White men lifetime possibility in prison
■ 1 in 17
Black men lifetime possibility in prison
■ 1 in 3
■ 40.2 % of prison population
■ 6.5% of national pop.
○ Ferguson, MO
■ 3 warrants per household
○ Colored communities become occupied territories
○ Riots always a result of police brutality
■ Harlem ‘64, Watts, Rodney KIng (L.A.) ‘92, Newark ‘67, Detroit ‘67
○ “Too much of anything becomes unhealthy”
■ But also when things are made visual, people are shocked into movement
○ Emmett Till murder
■ Open casket viewing
■ Sparked civil rights movement
○ Use of Television used to get message and reality across, confirm testimony
○ Today, social media can force conversation online for the world to see
■ Sandra Bland (name not shown or mentioned)
■ Oscar Grant
■ Freddie Gray
■ Eric garner
■ Laquan mcDonald
■ Tamir Rice
■ Eric Courtney Harris
■ Philando Castille
■ Alton Sterling
■ Etc.
○ BLM: redefining human dignity
● Discussion
○ Three ways to approach film criticism
■ Moralism
● View it thru a moral lense rather than on the art
○ Ex: police officer rejecting Beyonce
■ Ethicism
● Form influenced by the creator’s ethics
○ Certain music to invoke certain feelings
■ Formalism
● Separate art from artist
○ Look at art on it’s own
○ Ignore the artist
○ Art could increase empathy but do we reject that in this case?
○ Neoliberalism
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■ Privatization of many aspects of life, the reign of the free market
■ Democrats ushered in era under Bill Clinton
● But both parties are married to this idea
White male chivalry used to oppress black men, by using white women as prop
■ Seen in ​Birth of a Nation of early 20th century
straight black men the symbolic racist white people of black people?
Where is the discussion of gender, sexuality in 13th?
■ Focuses a lot on black men
13th lacking in talking about women, while still addressing Latino communities
and immigration
13th was directed by a woman, but then why is the movie lacking in deeper
discussion
Opportunity missed in how we formally allow exclusionary practices against
illegal immigrants
Who has access to the rights of citizenship?
Another missed opportunity: privatization of police
Black figures are implicit in these events
■ Ken Thompson is indicative of this
● Late DA of Brooklyn
Neoliberalism marked by
■ Privatization
■ Profitization
■ Deregulation
Who is the targeted audience of documentary?
People involved with film are professors, politicians, intellectuals
■ But that doesn’t mean the ivory tower and the streets are separate
● Personal experience shapes academic life
Trauma can become capital in this discussion
What do we choose to prioritize?
Cory Green
■ Showcasing of black murder
■ Is it appropriate?
■ Is trauma taking a backseat?
■ Mobilizing black people?
■ Educating white people?
■ Mobilizing multi-racial society?
Ultimately it gets larger than mass incarceration, racism runs deep
Real Nat Turner story central to story of relationship between black community
and Jewish community
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■ Queering of Christianity by the black community
■ Religion tool of liberation as much as oppression
Nate Parker turned story into one of male redemption…
Critique of white people, it is of whiteness
Critique of straight people, it is of heteronormativity
Critique of men, it is of maleness
■ These ideological systems, detach from bodies
■ Attack the ideological systems not the people