13th Ava Duvernay Analysis

Researched Argument Essay Having accurate representation matters. Unfortunately, that is a concept that the media industry has not quite grasped. The portrayal of African Americans in the media, whether it be plays, television, news, movies, or social media has always been negative since the birth of slavery in the United States of America. Playing on the negative stereotypes of African Americans, white Americans have gone on to believe their false impressions of Africans Americans and this has hindered African Americans from gaining social change and respectability.

Due to the unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs by the Reagan administration started a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration. The huge number of offenders incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenders increased from 50,000 to 1980 to over 400,000 by the year 1997. In 1981, Nancy Reagan began a highly publicized antidrug campaign called “Just Say No”, as public concerns arose due to the portrayals by the media about people addicted to a smoke-able form of cocaine dubbed as “crack”. This campaign set the stage for zero tolerance policies implemented in the late 1980’s.

Throughout this time period the government believed that Congress was not legally capable of monitoring possession and use because of the Constitution. However, they did believe that they had to power to impose taxes to decrease drug use instead of imposing federal criminal

As a black person we are taught to praise the 13th amendment to the constitution but, it didn’t really help us completely, it just gave racist a new way to control people of color or

In 1928 Herbert Hoover is elected president burning the dust off onto Al Smith by simply walking away with electoral votes, winning 444-40. Hoover designed his campaign to focus on rebuilding America. As Lisa Mcgirr explains it in her book “The War on Alcohol”, “The nation was awash in illegal

How are the messages the same? How are they different? How is the use of visual imagery the same or different? “In June of 1971 President Nixon officially declares a war on drugs, identifying drug abuse as public enemy number one. This declaration lead to the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in July 1973.”

In the year of 1865, the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress. This Amendment formally abolished slavery within the United states. This ratification was the final consent to considering the Three-Fifths compromise obsolete; A compromise that was relevant for many years reforming the idea of how the slave count should be considered into the population of the United States. Not only did this Amendment shatter the idea of giving slave three-fifths of a count toward the population, this was the first formal movement towards giving slaves an identity.

The 1990’s marked the beginning of a new war on drugs. Drug abuse rates had started to increase, wider variety of drugs became more common, and more people started to use. Not a lot has changed, because drug abuse is still very common in today’s society. In the 1990s, drug usage was bad, however a lot of the drugs in today 's society were not as common. Drug abuse is not just in the big cities,the problem is all over.

Over the decades, mass incarceration has become an important topic that people want to discuss due to the increasing number of mass incarceration. However, most of the people who are incarceration are people of color. This eventually leads to scholars concluding that there is a relationship between mass incarceration and the legacy of slavery. The reason is that people of color are the individuals who are overrepresented in prison compared to whites. If you think about it, slavery is over and African Americans are no longer mistreated; however, that is not the case as African Americans continue to face oppression from the government and police force.

Angela Davis Once said “Well for one, The 13th Amendment to the constitution of the U.S. which abolished slavery, did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.” Although the amendment was desperately needed it made more problems for the U.S.The thirteenth amendment was about abolishing slavery. Many people had different opinions about this amendment. The amendment affected our nation dramatically. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution says that, "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.

Restrictions and the Prohibition became a thing and many people in the late 19th and early 20th century were questioning the objections to non-medical usage and it soon became a hot debate. Drugs were used for everyday use within industrial workers and laborers. Drugs today are either known as Licit or Illicit ones because we know which ones are actually okay to use in everyday life and then the ones that hurt people. Caffeine is used today worldwide, and it is legal, but only some of the drugs are this way. We still have the illicit drugs that will always be that way such as cocaine and meth.

The thirteenth amendment stated that all former slaves were granted freedom. The reconstruction period, “did create the essential constitutional foundation for further advances in the quest for equality”. It laid the building blocks for the future building for civil rights not just for blacks but women and other minorities. Former slaves, “ found comfort in their family and in the churches they established”. Blacks took community in each other and bonded over the mutual idea of freedom .

Gaudio states “Early reformers, convinced that society’s duty was not to confine youth, but rather to save them.” (p. 213). Drug laws are far too strict and based on moral panic and not factual information. Drug use prior to the drug war was not seen as an issue and even though crime rates have been dropping since the 1980s, when asked, a majority of the population will say that crime rates are increasing. These responses are based on perception, because the media and politics put fear into the perceptions of the public and they play on that fear to gain views and votes.

The film 13th directed by Ava DuVernay targets an intended audience of the Media and the three branches of the United States government with an emphasis that mass incarceration is an extension of slavery. It is intended to inform viewers about the criminalization of African Americans and the United States prison boom. 13th uses rhetorical devices in its claim to persuade the viewers by using exemplum in the opening seconds of the film. President Barack Obama presents statistics, saying “the United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners.” Also the film uses a hyperbole in talking about the movie Birth of a Nation produced in 1915 which portrays a black man as a violent savage who will kill white women.

Furthermore, several acts were enacted to regulate the use of specific drugs as well as the federal prohibition of alcohol. But in 1933, Prohibition ended, making it legal to consume alcohol again. In the 1970’s, drugs were categorized based on their “potential for abuse” (Levinthal, 2016). Unfortunately, many of the illicit drugs are manufactured outside of the United States.