The War of Humanitarian
If it were the life we chose, we would be all right with what we went through. Unfortunately, it was not the life we chose; it was the life given to us. The 13th documentary is a powerful work of history and a lucid argument for change. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the documentary examines the underlying causes, effects, and importance of the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which ended slavery. This is why Nixon's campaign was a political focus on white voters, "the War on Crimes," and the help of the media supporting the growth of the prison population are main points that connects the plot of the documentary. Although the level of corruption in the nation remained unchanged, some people's hearts did.
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This strategy was used because the more black people registered as Democrats in the South, the sooner the racist whites quit the Democrats and became Republicans. Nixon convinced poor and working-class whites to join the Republic Party. To win over voters, Republican leaders deliberately appealed to the racial hostility of many white Southerners. His strategies included avoiding racial language regarding crime, law and order, or the disorder in metropolitan areas freed by the civil rights movement. Conservative news reporter Newt Gingrich extrapolated on the issue, saying, "Squishy, soft liberals will not protect you, but tough conservatives will." It was said that the central purpose was to vote for the party that incarcerates more people of color rather than seeking to repair the system. Nixon's campaign appealed to voters because he gave citizens hope when they were going through tough times. In order to appeal to the "silent majority," those white middle-class Americans wary of significant social change, he focused on the issue of "law and order." Nixon used the vocabulary of "law and order" to clarify that he intended to stop activists, student demonstrators, and pretty much anybody who dared to question the existing quo of American …show more content…
The combination of drugs and unemployment increased crime, as drugs and alcohol disproportionately affected the black population. Above all the government's approach to addressing the harmful effects of drugs on society has created an oppressive atmosphere for poor blacks and other minority groups. The war on drugs targeted drug users and drug contributors similarly, and the group that was primarily affected was the African American community. However, they treated crack and cocaine differently, as it turns out; there is no significant chemical difference between them. The only distinction was in federal sentencing laws for possessing each form of the same drug, which had more to do with incorrect information and political pressure than public safety and health. According to Peter Jennings, "the drug pandemic is as lethal as any terrorist we face" because crack and cocaine are widely available in poor metropolitan populations, particularly many black communities, due to their low price, ease of manufacture, and distribution method. This epidemic has caused many black men to disappear into American prisons for extended periods for low-level
Crime played a particularly important part in Nixon's reign. He created a law and order period and crime began to stand in for race. Nixon’s presidential campaign, was on the outside a campaign against crime and drugs “if there is one area where the word “war” is appropriate, it is in the fight against crime” (Nixon, 13th15:30) But was he really was talking about, was a “war” against black political movements, the antiwar group and women and gay liberation. With this campaign he created a new era where there were a huge focus on the future and a rising outcry for law and order.
The documentary argues that the War on Drugs was a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize Black communities and disrupt the Civil Rights Movement. The film also examines the role of the media in perpetuating stereotypes of Black people as dangerous and
13th, directed by Ava DuVernay, is a documentary that touches base with race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States. Getting its title from the Thirteenth Amendment, which freed slaves and prohibited slavery, however UNLESS as for punishment for a crime. Which has allowed incarceration to simply re-enslave African-Americans but just under another name. African Americans are still slaves through the “justice” system”; they’ve just taken the chains away, to replace them with bars. Thus, leading into a fact within just the first couple of minutes into the documentary, we learn that “The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners.
Though the creation of certain policies criminalized drug use and began to target minority communities predominantly African American and Latino. It used a campaign with the message of violence and danger that needed to be controlled within the African American and minority
The article explores the historical context of drug laws and policies in the U.S. and their disproportionate impact on black communities. It emphasizes the negative effects of the war on drugs on black families, communities, and overall socio-economic mobility, perpetuating the enduring inequalities faced by Americans of color. The article relates to course concepts such as the effects of residential segregation, which has contributed to the development of underclass communities in the United States, and how these communities are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. Additionally, the article highlights the systemic racism and discrimination that has existed in the United States, perpetuating the inequalities faced by people of color. It discusses how drug laws have been used as a tool to target and criminalize people of color, while white drug users and sellers have largely been ignored or given lesser punishments.
Alexander’s book introduction addresses some of the injustices that minorities especially African Americans have to endure under the war on drugs. However, Alexander also points out that drug crimes are relatively low compared to other countries meaning that there is no correlation at all between rising efforts on law enforcement funding and declining crime rates. Alexander comes to the conclusion that the current criminal justice system is set up to keep social control over minorities. The New Jim Crow assignment has a total of twenty six questions.
Further, the drug war labeled blacks as drug dealers. This lead to the mass incarceration of African Americans for relatively minor crimes, and sentence time is even longer than that of a murderer. Since African Americans were labeled as drug dealers, they were denied food stamps, employment and housing benefits. There were several consequences; physical and mental resulting from mass incarceration. Alexander mentions that these individuals were denied employment or lost their jobs, forced to participate in exploitative labor, the stigma associated with what these individuals are labeled as, affect their child support, and finally make them feel hopeless.
Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.
With the gain of the Civil Rights Movement under LBJ, many protests, strikes, and riots were taking place and Nixon did not support this. Nixon wanted to restore law and order so while he helped the minority community; it was not a concept that he put above others as he pushed to helping white southerners as well. The main thing that Nixon did in an effort to support issues pertaining to the minority community was hiring Daniel Moynihan on his staff. Moynihan was an expert on social policy and he supported helping minority communities. He came up with the Moynihan Report where he explained that the problems poor black communities faced were are a result of the lower class black family being broken down.
His campaign was designed to reach out to the silent majority, which it did. Nixon main focus was on promoting peace. During this time period, there was a lot of antiwar and civil rights protests, so someone talking about creating peace really seemed to get the attention of voters. Nixon hated the media and referred to it as his “enemy”. Also during this election, there was a strong showing of the third party which could have easily helped Nixon get elected.
Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing.
Which at first glance looks like a positive thing but once you dive deeper into what his real motives are, it's rather eye opening. Let's start with the war on crime. During this time you had the black panthers who were people fighting for civil rights, people who were fighting for women's rights, and people who were fighting for gay rights. Nixon felt the need to fight against these movements and therefore one was more likely to get arrested for attending these rallies— for committing a crime which really wasn't a crime. He strategically blinded the public to this by calling it "the war on crime".
In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Era of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, she begins by points out the underlying problem in our Criminal Justice system. The problem being prioritizing the control of those in this racial caste rather than focusing on reasonable punishment and efforts to deter crime. Alexander begins by speaking of her experience as a civil rights lawyer and what soon became her priority after seeing a poster that mentioned how the war on drugs is the new jim crow when it comes to the application and outcome of it. As Alexander points out the correlation between the war on drugs and it being the new jim crow, she discusses the mass incarceration that is prevalent in our society and the number of African American
The use of narcotics like cocaine, claimed many lives and earned widespread coverage by media and news. Following this Nancy Reagan began the “War on Drugs”, a campaign to combat pre-existing drug usage and prevent future
Doors are shut at every turn. There are arguments that the War on Drugs has not disproportionately affected Black communities. This argument suggests that the impact of the War on Drugs on Black communities is not due to systemic racism, but rather a result of higher rates of drug use and criminal activity in those communities.