Today, we discuss
Netflix's 13th
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Yeah.
It's that kind of show.
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Review
So to review:
This documentary is
brilliant.
Summary:
The documentary is about
the U.S Constitution's 13th Amendment.
For those who weren't in
Ms. Johansen's AP I/II U.S. History class and had to have each of the
Amendments memorized here it is:
"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 Constitution
Now, what does that
mean?
Well, to give you kids
some knowledge, there was this little thing in the United States.
Slavery
So from the very first
slave ship, which populated Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, the South prospered
for the wealthy, white landowners.
Whereas the poor,
criminalized, and displaced whites and blacks did very poorly indeed.
Slaves were used
primarily on plantations in the Southern coast where the land was fertile and
vast.
Tobacco and cotton
plantations were the most profitable.
However, the exhaustive
process of collecting cotton by hand was time-consuming.
Cotton is grown in pods
and the fiber must be separated from the seeds in order to be processed.
One of the large reasons
slave labor was in such demand was because of the amount of time it takes to do
this.
According to
Bailey:
"Prior to the invention of the cotton
gin...cotton production languished. So dismal were the prospects of an expanded
market for raw cotton that southerners agreed in 1787 to a constitutional
compromise that prohibited the importation of slaves into the U.S. after
1808"
And then there was this
guy:
The inventor of the
cotton gin in 1793
"With the aid of the hand-operated gin, one
person could clean 50 pounds of cotton in a single day, instead of the one
pound that was possible without it." (Bailey)
This machine mechanized
the entire process of collecting cotton save for the, you know, actual
collecting of the cotton.
And that is where slaves
came in.
- "Only
1.5 million pounds of cotton were produced in 179C [sic].
- Within
ten years after the invention of the gin in 1800, 35 million pounds of cotton
- was produced
- By
1840 the figure had grown to 331 million pounds.
- Just
prior to the civil war in 1860, the amount had reached an astonished 2,275
- million pounds" (Bailey).
So slavery became of
vital importance to the Southern economy.
It helped to fuel the
textile revolution that was happening in the North.
It produced roughly 40%
of all raw industrial materials for Britain (Bailey).
According to
Deyle:
- [Slave property] was roughly three times greater than
the total amount of all capital, North and South
combined,
- Three times what
was invested in manufacturing,
- Almost three times the amount invested
in railroads,
- Seven times the
amount invested in banks.
- Equal to about seven times the total
value of all currency in circulation in the country
- Forty-eight times the total
expenditures of the U.S. federal government that year.
- By 1860, slave property had even surpassed the
assessed value of real estate within the slaveholding states (Deyle
60).
By the time of the Civil
War, there were an estimated 4 million slaves in the United States.
In the end, slavery was
abolished under the 13th Amendment., which is the subject of the documentary.
Because it wasn't
abolished.
This is not the land of
the free...not by a long shot.
Read it again:
"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 Constitution
The Argument
There can be no slaves
on United States soil, save for those who have been convicted of a felony or a
crime.
Those people can be
slaves.
The moment that they
introduced that as premise, I saw the horror of what would unfold:
As a result of the
Emancipation and the Abolition of slavery in the United States, there was a
federal government that openly condemned slavery.
However, at the state
level, many states supported the idea of what came to be known as Jim
Crow laws.
These laws led to:
Segregation and bigotry
and violence against anyone who was stigmatized as different:
Blacks, interracial
couples, mixed children.
This intense interest at
the state level of overt racism and ambivalence from the federal government led
to the Civil Rights Movement:
Leaders like Malcolm X, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, who became
symbols of a world on the brink of change.
By leading non-violent
(and sometimes violent) protests, coupled with suits to the government, they
were able to affect new legislation to be passed.
Which, after his
assassination, led to his successor Lyndon B. Johnson to push along with
leaders like Dr. King, Dorothy Height, and others for the bill, which passed in
1964. (Source)
It assured among other
things that there would be no discrimination based on the color of one's
skin.
Much of the language may
even be familiar to you under the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission,:
"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin"
-Source
And that is where most
of my history books stopped.
But, it went on in a
much more subtle way:
President Nixon's "War on Drugs"
- "Crimes of violence will double by the year 1972
- More police: better-trained, better-paid, and
better-equipped
- New laws, new tools to root out organized crime
- A new respect for law, a new determination that when a
man disobeys the law, he pays the penalty for his crimes. Some of our
courts have gone too far in weakening the peace forces in this country as
against the criminal forces, and we must restore the balance
There were others.
There were many others.
But, these were among
the more pertinent ones in the documentary and our current national
sentiments.
Now, the importance of
the "violent crimes" statistics were so important to Nixon and his
campaign.
- In 1960 for violent crimes was 160 per 100,000
- In 1968 for violent crimes it was 298 per 100,000
- Whereas the population had only grown by 20,000,000
from 179 million to 199 million (UCR).
However, the makers of
13th draw attention to an important cultural event: Baby Boomers.
Baby Boomers are
generally understood to be the generation that immediately followed the end of
World War II (i.e. babies born in the period of 1946-64).
This chart illustrates
their arrival:
At a remarkable rate of
3.5-4.0 million babies born almost every year from 1946-1964 an estimated 72
million baby boomers were born during that time period.
By 1968 nearly 20
million were turning/turned 18.
The makers of 13th
suggest that this trend in the population dramatically increased the
statistical crime rates and inflated the fear surrounding such crimes.
For those curious about
today, violent crimes have been steadily falling from their peak in 1991 of
approximately 758 violent crimes per 100,000 to
approximately 383 violent crimes per 100.000 last
year (2015).
That is with an increase
in population of roughly 70,000,000. (Ibid)
Long
Title: An Act to amend the Public Health Service Act and other laws to
provide increased research into, and prevention of, drug abuse and drug
dependence; to provide for treatment and rehabilitation of drug abusers and
drug dependent persons; and to strengthen existing law enforcement authority in
the field of drug abuse.
President Nixon through
executive order created an administration called the DEA (Drug Enforcement) to
oversee the provisions of the CSA and Title II The Comprehensive Drug Abuse
Prevention Control Act.
According to CSA drugs are broken down into Schedules of which there are five.
These definitions are
pulled directly from the DEA website:
Schedule
I drugs: substances,
or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a
high potential for abuse.
Schedule
II drugs: substances,
or chemicals are defined as drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use
potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence. These drugs
are also considered dangerous.
Schedule
III drugs: substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a
moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Schedule
III drugs abuse potential is less than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs but
more than Schedule IV.
Schedule
IV drugs: substances,
or chemicals are defined as drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk
of dependence.
Schedule
V drugs: substances,
or chemicals are defined as drugs with lower potential for abuse than Schedule
IV and consist of preparations containing limited quantities of certain
narcotics.
Basically: the lower the
number, the more strictly regulated and controlled the drug needs to be due to
its high potential for abuse, both physically and psychologically.
Schedule I drugs
include, but are not limited to: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis),
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote
Most notably HEROIN:
a drug which has a 23% instant addiction rate, can cause fatal
overdose, spontaneous abortion, contraction of hepatitis or HIV, collapsed
veins, infection of the heart lining and
valves, absesses, liver or kidney disease,
etc. (Source)
Lies in the same
category as CANNABIS: a drug which may have a 30%
"problem use" rate according to the same statistics, can
cause similar lung infections and cancers as regular
tobacco use and has literally never caused an overdose...ever.
(Source)
"No death from
overdose has ever been reported." -Drug Enforcement Administration
Okay. Seems a bit weird.
But, whatever. What else made the list? LSD? Ecstasy! Who made this???
Perhaps what is more
concerning is what didn't make the list or rather what made a lower Schedule.
Schedule II substances
include: Meth! Fucking meth beat cannabis! Cocaine?!
Now, to be fair, it is
described in the definition (see above) that "these drugs are also
considered dangerous."
What else is in this
category? Glad you asked: Vicodin, Oxycodone, Adderall, & Ritalin...
Now, I am not a medical
expert. I am a performer and would-be writer.
But, the fact that
cannabis is even in the same category as any of these drugs is ridiculous.
The fact that Schedule I
& II have a difference is big: Schedule I drugs have no medical use and
Schedule II have high risk for potential abuse.
Therefore, the drugs in
Schedule II must have a medical use.
You read that right.
Exactly one medical
use:
Now, to be fair, I was
not able to find a medical use for heroin.
Roger O Egeberg
suggested that cannabis be put temporarily on Schedule I list
until the Commission's report was heard.
In Schafer's report to
Congress, he reported that:
"The existing
social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm
engendered by the use of the drug. To replace it, we have attempted to
design a suitable social policy, which we believe is fair, cautious and attuned
to the social realities of our time" (Nahas).
Their
design for a suitable social policy was they recommended two pertinent changes
to the federal government with regards to marihuana [sic]:
- Possession of marihuana for personal use would no
longer be an offense, but marihuana possessed in public would remain
contraband subject to summary seizure and forfeiture
- casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for
no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration not involving profit would
no longer be an offense
They suggested making it
legal for recreational use, but still don't do it in public.
In fact, in a special
note at the end of the commissions statement before Congress:
"Considering
the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does
not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would
deemphasize marihuana as a problem." (Nahas)
The President and his
staff did not remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I drugs.
The Drug Enforcement
Administration monitors these controlled substances and their uses and their
abuses across the nation.
They also graciously
tell the penalties for abuse of these controlled substances:
Seriously, if you have
time to browse it, just do it. It is one of the most shocking reads I have ever
gone through.
There are three
tables.
The first names specific Schedule
I/II drugs including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, PCP:
- You can carry up to five times the
amount of cocaine as heroin in order to
receive the same penalty (no less than 10
years to life imprisonment and $10 to $25 million)
The second table is
pretty generic penalties for all other Scheduled drugs from tiers I-V.
The third table is
entirely devoted to Marijuana and similar drugs (Hashish oil)
- It has similar if not identical restrictions and
penalties as the worst on Table I including, but not limited to minimum
sentencing (not less than 10 years to life imprisonment)
and a similar fine ($10-50 million)
Granted, the amount of
cannabis one has to hold to incur such penalties is ridiculous.
A LITERAL METRIC TON OF
CANNABIS.
And granted, I am not a
drug dealer, nor a law enforcement official. I do not know how much of each drug
is a likely amount. I don't know how much more likely it is to find 1 kilogram
of heroin versus 5 kilograms of cocaine versus 1,000 kilograms of
cannabis.
The point I am trying to
illustrate is that these seem like woefully balanced scales with cannabis being
treated as among the worst offenders in both the level of its control and even
in its execution within the penalties (with heroin coming in at a close
second).
Why might this be so?
According to the makers of 13th, there may be a reason.
Richard Nixon through
executive order created the federal organization the Drug Enforcement Agency, in
order to establish a single unified command to combat "an all out global
war on the drug menace." (DEA.org)
"You want to know what this was really all
about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had
two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying.
We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but
by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with
heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their
meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we
were lying about the drugs? Of course we did" (Baum).
-John Ehrlichmann President Richard Nixon's
domestic policy chief
Now, to be fair, there
are too few to corroborate this quotation.
But, it does paint a
stark portrait.
The act introduced the
idea of mandatory minimums:
- Whoever commits an offense, or conspires to commit an
offense, described in...for which no specific penalty is otherwise
provided, shall be imprisoned not less than 2 or more than 10 years and,
in addition, may be fined not more than $20,000.
- For a second offense, the offender shall be imprisoned
not less than 5 or more than 20 years and, in addition, may be fined not
more than $20,000.
- For a third or subsequent offense, the offender shall
be imprisoned not less than 10 or more than 40 years and, in addition, may
be fined not more than $20,000.
These removed the
ability for judges to take into account the mitigating circumstances of each
case and instead imposed necessary sentencing or blanket sentencing across all
cases.
Later in 1970, this was
repealed, but in 1986 it was reintrodued by Reagan under the "Anti-Drug Abuse Act"
To make a long story
long: the legacy continued.
- Increased police force
- Increased funds
- Increased militarization of the police force
- Increased minimum sentencing
It all piled up until
what you eventually had was a system in place that punished the poorest and
most marginalized groups in our society for recreational drug use.
To be fair, everyone gets punished for recreational drug use, but some are more punished than others. And therein lies the trouble.
That is the argument of
13th.
Relevance
Many of you might be
wondering how this applies to us.
If you are, then I have
to say, you probably aren't my audience.
In it, he consulted many
legal parties about what the President-elect's term might look like given his
campaign promises.
He started the segment
with this:
"The
political science on this is pretty clear, and it tells a very different story,
which is that if you go back over the history of the presidency, you find that presidents
tend to achieve the majority - the overwhelming
majority of the things that they set out to accomplish when they were
candidates.
So the sort of classic study on this was by Michael Krukones who, in 1984,
tabulated all of the campaign pledges of all of the presidents between Woodrow
Wilson and Jimmy Carter, and what he found was that altogether they had
accomplished 73 percent of the pledges that they said they would.
This has been replicated in other studies all the way up to the present where
PolitiFact, which is a nonpartisan fact-checking site, has evaluated the
campaign pledges by Barack Obama and found that he has achieved at least 70
percent of them."
Politifact that tracks
President Obama's campaign promises: Obamameter at
70% (as of this writing)
Politifact that tracks
the GOP's campaign promises: GOP pledge-o-meter 68%
(as of this writing)
I have attempted to
illustrate that President Nixon fell in with that trend.
What he campaigned under
is exactly what he accomplished.
Gross and Osnos go on to
illustrate that this may not be done simply because they wish it so from the
outset.
Quite to the contrary,
many politicians make statements, campaign promises that they may not
whole-heartedly believe in, however:
"And
that gets us back to this kind of the core discovery that surprised me most
which is that even when candidates don't seek to do the things that
they actually said they would on the stump that the internal momentum of
politics ends up forcing them to do things that are more emphatic
or more absolute than perhaps they might have originally imagined."
In a wider study
Francois Petry and Benoit Collette discovered a similar trend across forty
years of records and two continents:
"We
find that parties fulfill 67% of their promises on average"-(Isbaum
Abstract)
Wide variation between
parties, regimes, and countries were also denoted (Ibid). However, with greater
amount of reporting and statistical date available, the trend continued towards
the two-thirds.
Why/how is this
relevant?
- Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and
ultimately jail his political opponent Secretary Hillary Clinton
- Build a wall across the shared border between the U.S.
and Mexico and have the Mexican government pay for it
- Pull out from the Transpacific Partnership and NAFTA
(global trade deals)
- Renegotiate the Iran Deal
- Repeal Obamacare and replace it with a privatized
insurance solution
- Defund Planned Parenthood
- Save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security without
cutting benefits
- Temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States
- Stop spending money on space exploration
- Allow Russia to deal with the Islamic State in Syria
- Target and kill the relatives of terrorists
- Bring back waterboarding
- Deport 11 million undocumented immigrants
Some stark similarities
have been drawn between the presidential candidates (13th was published in
October 2016) and some moments of historical significance.
I'll leave that to
tantalize someone who has made it this far into watching the bloody thing.
I really haven't given
anything away besides the major argument: slavery did not end with the 13th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, all of the
research I have presented is my own and hopelessly skewed in an attempt to
illuminate what the creators have discovered in their much more impressive
work.
Conclusion
For my own sanity.
For the sanity of all
the other people of our community:
How about we see some
black and brown people in beautiful or even ecstatic pictures as opposed to
what we normally see on the news and media?
This is a selection of
images from the DIA's 30 Americans exhibit
Specifically the work of
Kehinde Wiley:
You can check out his
work and others like him at 30 Americans at the DIA.
Bibliography
Bailey, Ronald. "The Other Side of Slavery: Black Labor, Cotton, and Textile Industrialization in Great Britain and the United States. (Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, 1793-1993: A Symposium)." Agricultural History 22 Mar. 1994: n. pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
Baum, By Dan, By Kiera Feldman, By Walter Kirn, By Elena Ferrante, By Andrew Cockburn, By Daniel Asa Rose, and By Fred Bahnson. "Legalize It All." Harper's Magazine. Harper's Magazine, Apr. 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
"Civil Rights Movement." History.com. Ed. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
Deyle, Steven. Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Why Was Cotton ‘King’?" PBS. PBS, 30 Oct. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
Gross, Terry. "Could Trump 'Undermine The Legacy Of The Obama Presidency' With The Stroke Of A Pen?" NPR. NPR, 15 Nov. 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Imbeau, Louis M. Do They Walk like They Talk?: Speech and Action in Policy Processes. Vol. 15. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. Print. Ser. 2.
Nahas, G. G., and A. Greenwood. "The First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana (1972): Signal of Misunderstanding or Exercise in Ambiguity." Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 1974. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Osnos, Evan. "President Trump’s First Term." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 19 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
"Richard Nixon for President 1968 Campaign Brochure." Richard Nixon for President 1968 Campaign Brochure. 4 President Corporation, 1 Jan. 2000. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.
"Vital Statistics of the United States." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
