13th: America’s Hidden Truth
America. Often labelled the land of the free…or so they claim to be. Passed on January 13, 1865, and implemented on December 6, 1965, The United States passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted anyone who was a slave to be set free. According to 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” (13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery, n.d.); In simpler terms, if you were not a convicted criminal, you are deemed to be free under the law. However, once deemed a criminal, you were considered to be a slave of the state. The United States used the loophole that was the 13th Amendment to build back the economy since the Civil War and ultimately tattered the representation of what it means to be a Black individual living in America — even in 2020.
The Netflix documentary 13th revealed how African-Americans are portrayed as criminals within the media and how that has contributed to America’s systemic anti-Black racism. Used as a prominent example is D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which confirmed the story that every white American wanted to tell about the Civil War and its aftermath (Averick et al., 2016). Every image that you see of a black person was one that was demeaned, barbaric, cannibalistic, and animal-like (Averick et al., 2016). The film’s famous scene shows a white woman throwing herself off a cliff because she would rather do that than be raped by a black male criminal, which adds to the representation that black people are a threat to white women (Averick et al., 2016).
Along with The Birth of a Nation came the use of various news headlines and television broadcasts and how these media outlets fed into this horrific depiction. Many civil rights activists and politicians were represented in the media as criminals as they were actively defying the law to fight for their right to be free in America. Richard Nixon became the person who forced law and order to be put out onto the streets stating that there could be no progress in America without respect for the law (Averick et al., 2016). Black people were seen as “super predators;” animals that needed to be controlled by the law (Averick et al., 2016), a definition that defined a whole generation of black individuals as nothing by lowlife, second-class citizens and criminals.
Black people have been overrepresented in the news as criminals more times than are accurate (Averick et al., 2016). The media has aided in depicting black people and how they “act,” making them look like animals that need to be tamed and locked in cages. 13th vividly illustrates how systemic racism still exists within the American system. The degree of care that the media shows in their depiction of Black people needs to change, and the first step to that is to own up to their mistakes, make an active effort for change and continually speak up about these issues that are still ongoing. Black people are not animals. We are not barbaric. We are human, just like everybody else.
Black lives matter. They always have and always will.
References
Berger, M. (2018, March 30). Dr. King’s Complex Relationship With the Camera. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/lens/dr-kings-complex-relationship-with-the-camera.html.
DuVernay, A. (2016). 13th. [Motion picture]. United States of America: Kandoo Films
“13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery” n.d. America’s Historical Documents. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/13th-amendment
