13th

13th, is a documentary about the administrations and prison systems of America, about injustice, racial prejudice and anti-black rhetoric. What follows in this post is only part of the argument that I gleaned from this poignant film and I can't recommend that you watch it enough to understand the bigger picture. If you're nervous about this week's election result, then watch this film and understand that there is a lot more to worry about than we realise, that there is a lot of work still to do and that the fight for civil rights and liberty continues to this day.

Number 13, unlucky for some and perhaps surprisingly, unlucky for anyone who believes in justice, freedom and racial equality. The 13th Amendment was the amendment to the US Constitution that abolished slavered and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime.

"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."

LAWCHA

But although the amendment abolished traditional slavery, the latter clause was one that would shape a future of negative racial rhetoric against black people through to the modern day. The probability of a white man going to prison in their life in the US is 1 in 17. The probability for black men stands at 1 in 3. Black men account for 6.5% of the US population but a huge 40.2% of its prison population.

The adamant racism of members of the American administration, have manifested a rhetoric over time, utilising the exception of freedom if punishable for a crime. On the abolition of slavery, black people were arrested for the smallest of crimes, such as vagrancy and interned as labourers, and importantly, as criminals across the South. Popular culture aided this negative campaign against blacks, by painting them as criminals, as rapists and as violent savages who are not to be trusted with their white women. They even lynched a 14yr old boy to death for supposedly flirting. Brutality towards young black men of course, is not something that we, in 2016 are unfamiliar with.

aglfblog

When, during the civil rights movement, black people headed a power shift over this criminalisation by deliberately getting themselves arrested in standing up to the state, the rhetoric then manifested into dog whistle politics concerning a mostly-fabricated 'War on Drugs', in which black people were painted as the problem. The War on Drugs became one of the most important battles of Nixon and Reagan's administrations, all the while coveting and condoning racial prejudice and the targeting of black Americans by law enforcement services and the deliberate over-represented depiction of black Americans as criminals, monsters or 'super predators'. And black communities themselves bought into the lies spread about their own children. The Central Park 5 were interned for sexual assault and murder, just one example, of an outrageous number of unlawful and racially driven arrests. Never mind that the facts point at the higher percentage of interracial rape being of white men towards black women, than black men against white women. Public opinion made these boys guilty before they were even handcuffed.

Columbia.edu

Den Of Geek

Over decades, the generalisation that black men and black people in general ARE criminals had become veined as a social norm. It had manifested over years, not just in whites, but in black people too. It became a primitive fear, the same fear depicted over decades since the abolition of slavery, abused as part of the Bush presidential campaign by publicising his opponent's support of the weekend release of Willie Horton, a black American and felon, serving a life sentence for murder. This was followed by Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in favour of the death penalty to tackle crime, followed by mandatory minimum sentencing without parole, and a three-strike rule that saw prisoners given life sentences for their third felonies, a rule that put immense strain on prisons, forcing the LA Sheriff's Dept. for example, to release 4200 prisoners every month, held for misdemeanors. A rule that saw crimes such as shifting cocaine put people away for life, without parole. A rule that prompted the building of more prisons and more police on the street. This was, in effect the beginning of the militarisation of policing that is exactly the problem that black Americans face today. A rhetoric that has turned law enforcement into a weaponised mafia on the understanding that black people are, and have always been, the problem. But Bill Clinton apologised - so it's all ok.

Los Angeles Times

But it isn't ok. The prison population is higher in 2016 than EVER before. Ordinary people can take the law into their own hands, murder an innocent young black man simply because they feel threatened by their presence and be excused of their crime under the Stand Your Ground law, written by a private group (ALEC) made up of politicians and corporations. A law that could basically mean that if I so wanted, I could declare that I felt threatened by the old lady across the street, so I shot her. Of course no-one would believe that. But if my target were black, particularly a black male, I could probably get away with it. So corporate lobbyists have their sticky hands in key US legislation and old a great deal of leverage over their result. It gets more unbelievable the more we dig. The corruption runs deep, fast and thick throughout the 50 states. Turns out, the minimum sentence, the 3-strike rule - all of it came through ALEC, including SB1070, a law that allowed police to stop anyone who looked like an immigrant. A lot of people have become very rich on this falsified notion of criminal punishment and THOSE people, should be held accountable. As the rhetoric continues to manifest itself, to slip through the cracks of federal and state law, we must be on our guard to challenge its every move.

"If you look at the history of black people’s various struggles in this country, the connecting theme is the attempt to be understood as full, complicated human beings. We are something other than this visceral image of criminality and menace and threat to which people associate with us."

newyorker.com

Today, young black people are arrested on a whim on the street for petty crimes and charged bail amounts of thousands, which they cannot afford to pay. Often, even if innocent, they will take a plea bargain to plead guilty for a reduced sentence, in fear of the mandatory minimum sentence still operating from the Clinton administration. The Central Park 5 fell victim to this. Khalief Browder decided not to take the plea deal and take the decision to trial. After 3 years of awaiting trial behind bars on Rikers Island, after attempting suicide several times, the charges were dropped and he was released. They had nothing on him. He was innocent. And it seems to the masses, that no-one with any political leverage is challenging this kind of injustice. Justice isn't justice unless it's universal. In 2015, after his release and a battle with psychotic episodes probably associated with the trauma of having been wrongfully incarcerated and beaten for 3 years of his young life, Khalief Browder hanged himself at his home in the Bronx. His mother found him.

And today we witness the US election result, Trump or Clinton. Now is the time to share this film. Now is the time to challenge corruption. Now is the time to end this heinous era of criminalising black people and the privatisation of prison services that trades sweat shop labour for phone time. Corporations, under the blanket of self-improvement and rehabilitation, are operating inside prisons and making millions from the labour of the interned. Now is the time to demand human rights for those imprisoned, and those released having served their dues. But most importantly now is the time to realise, that this is ingrained in our society, it has been channelled directly from the days of slavery, and it can no longer go unnoticed, unchecked or unchallenged.