‘The 13th’ by Ava DuVernay
Overview
The movie “The 13th” - produced by Ava DuVernay in 2016 - was named after the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The goals of this film:
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2. Attempts to prove that the high black crime rate is a myth.
3. Takes the worst events and makes it appear to be the norm.
4. This film claims the way the 13th amendment was written was a conspiracy by whites to provide a loophole so whites could engage in mass incarceration of blacks now that they were no longer slaves. This is not true. What DuVernay doesn’t know is that the wording in the 13th Amendment is straight from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 - Section 14, Article 6.(1) This ordinance outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude except for a crime in the new states in the Northwest Territory - Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Mass incarceration of blacks is a myth.
“The 13th” relives the horrors of slavery, Jim Crow and Lynchings. After this history, the film becomes a lot of propaganda, hysterical exaggerations and outright lies. In addition to the 13th amendment “loophole,” whites have now invented new ways to arrest blacks through law and order legislation - the 1994 crime bill, minimum sentencing and the war on drugs. This is a conspiracy film were the conspiracy is all made up.
Another flaw in this film is the repeated fraudulent attempts to link conditions that existed 50 or 150 years ago to conditions that exist today. There is no linkage and attempting to do so gives this film zero credibility. DuVernay wants to convince blacks that they live under systemic oppression and their situation is hopeless. All the songs in this film proclaim black victimhood and hopelessness.
This film should be labeled a hate film since its obvious goal is to incite anger and rage against today’s whites for the sins of the past by a minority of whites. This film makes liberal use of domestic terrorists and liberal activists on the political fringe to ‘prove’ their narratives.
It’s important to note that only about 30% of whites owned slaves prior to the Civil War in the South and blacks also owned slaves - 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves.(2)
America INHERITED slavery from the British and then fought a horrific Civil War to end slavery. The U.S. is responsible for slavery from 1781 to 1865. From 1619 to 1781, the British were responsible. In Jefferson’s initial draft of the Declaration of Independence in June, 1776, he included a 168 word passage that blamed King George for his role in creating and perpetuating the transatlantic slave trade and condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the colonies by the British crown. The passage was cut from the final wording.(3) Over time, America and Britain led the way in abolishing slavery around the world.
The movie opens with Obama claiming 25% of the world’s prison population is in the US. Assuming stats from all counties is accurate, the real number is 21.25% as of 2015. But some countries (Russia, China, etc.,) don’t accurately report their prison population because many are political prisoners, so the true percentage would be less.(4) Regardless, if everyone in America obeyed the law, no one would go to jail. America is not responsible for the people in prison. The people who commit crimes are responsible.
Michelle Alexander, author, The New Jim Crow then claims that people who supported incarceration of blacks are now “unwilling to talk in any serious way about remeding the harm that has been done.” Thus begins the false narrative that there is mass incarceration of innocent blacks.
4:14 - The film claims the negative views of blacks lead to a mythology of black criminality. Sadly, black criminality is not a myth, although this film spends one hour and 40 minutes attempting to prove otherwise. DuVernay’s solution is to stop showing so many black criminals in the news.
Crime statistics don’t lie. The high crime rates of black violence are a matter of historical fact, not bigoted imagination. Some crime stats:
* “In 1921-22, the homicide rates in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans per 100,000 Negro population were 103.2, 97.2, 116.9, and 46.7 respectively, while the corresponding rates for the white population were 15.0, 28.0, 29.6, and 8.4.”(5)
“Throughout the South there are Negro rural and urban communities known for their relative freedom from crime while others are notoriously criminal.” (5)
* Homicide figures for Atlanta in 1931 show 106 Negros murdered. Seventy-six were killed by other Negros, 11 killed by policemen and 9 by whites. The other 10 were unknown.(5)
* From 1980 to 2013, 2,269 police officers were murdered. The racial breakdown of their murderers shows that 41 percent were black - although blacks comprise only 13% of the population.(6)
* Blacks committed 52 per cent of all homicides between 1980 and 2008 - even though blacks are only 13 percent of the population.(7)
* In 2015, 51.1% of people arrested for homicide were African American, even though African American people account for only 13% of the U.S. population.(8)
7:33 - This is deliberately a shock movie designed to arouse anger, with graphic photos and video of lynchings, murders and attacks on blacks. From 1882 to1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. What is NOT told in this film is that 27.3% of all people lynched were white - or 1,297 lynched. The most common reason for lynchings was murder and rape.(9)
Some have called the period of lynchings between 1880 and 1950 the Negro Holocaust. This is absolutely NOT true. There were 6 million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany over a 5 year period during World War Two. About 3,500 blacks were lynched over a 70 years period - and FAR more blacks were killed by fellow blacks during that time period then by lynchings.
Blacks got into vigilantism on occasion: “In Chicot County, Arkansas in 1872, armed Negroes took three white men from jail, riddled them with bullets, and went about burning and pillaging.”(10)
On Jan 12, 1908, blacks lynched another black in N. Carolina “for giving poor entertainment.”(5)
Since this film is so inflammatory and one-sided, we should expose horrific crimes against whites by blacks:
* August 11, 2020 - A black man, Darius Sessoms, ran up to Cannon Hinnant, a 5 YEAR OLD white boy in N. Carolina and shot him in the head in his father’s driveway - killing him. Sessoms was arrested the next day. Aolani Takemi Marie Pettit, 21, was also arrested and charged with felony accessory after the fact.(11)
* Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, were heading out to a friend's birthday party on the night of Jan. 06, 2007 when they were ambushed and carjacked in the parking lot of a North Knoxville apartment complex by five blacks - four males and one female.
They were taken in Christian's car to a rental house in East Knoxville where the group's ringleader, Lemaricus Davidson, lived.
Both victims were beaten, raped and tortured. Newsom was executed within a few hours of the abduction and his body set on fire. Christian is believed to have been held captive for another 24 hours, during which she was repeatedly assaulted. She was wrapped in garbage bags, stuffed inside a trash can and slowly suffocated to death.(12)
* On April 7, 2018, Raeqwan Hancock, a 22 year old black man, waited outside the home of a total stranger. He watched as 60-year-old John Letourneau, a white man, turned off the television and went to bed. He then entered Letourneau's home and shot him twice in the head as he slept.
He went downstairs, ate pizza and cake from Letourneau's kitchen, poured flammable liquid on Letourneau's body and set him on fire. He was sentenced to life in prison.(13)
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Of all the lies in this movie, DuVernay saves the biggest lie for the end. The film ends with Bryan Stevenson, Founder, Equal Justice Initiative, saying: “People say all the time, I don’t understand how people could have tolerated slavery, how could they have made peace with that. How could people have gone to a lynching, and participated in that. How did people make sense of this segregation, this white and colored only drinking fountain - that’s so crazy. If I was living at that time I would have never tolerated anything like that. AND THE TRUTH IS - WE ARE LIVING IT THIS TIME, AND WE ARE TOLERATING IT.”
So Stevenson is claiming that conditions today are like slavery, lynchings or Jim Crow. Insane statements like this proves there will never be racial harmony because blacks refuse to give up their victimhood.
This film IGNORES the TRILLIONS of dollars spent on the War on Poverty since 1965 - largely benefiting blacks. We have had quotas in everything for decades. Other nationalities have been denied college admission and employment opportunities due to quotas. Since the 1980s, private businesses have spent MILLIONS of dollars on programs directed specifically to blacks. ALL of this money and effort was intended to pull blacks into the mainstream of society - and KEEP THEM OUT OF JAIL!!
Apparently, all of this help means nothing. Whatever help is done for blacks in the future will undoubtedly mean nothing as well. What would really be appreciated is appreciation for all the money and efforts put into civil rights over the past 50 years.
The truth is NOTHING ELSE needs to be done for civil rights for blacks. They have all the opportunity needed for success and they have had this opportunity for decades.
DuVernay makes a fraudulent attempt to compare the incarceration of blacks following the Civil War to the high incarceration rate of blacks in modern day America. There is no comparison between conditions that existed in Jim Crow with today where blacks are legitimately imprisoned. There is NO ‘mass incarceration.’ An incarceration rate under 2% is not mass incarceration. (14)(15)(16)(17)
Year black pop.
Blacks in prison
percent of blacks in prison
.
* A video of ‘civil rights’ leader Al Sharpton encouraging blacks to kill crackers (white people) and cops.(18)
* A modern day Hitler wannabe - Kamau Kambon - taught Africana Studies in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University. Kambon told his audience at Howard University Law School in 2005 that the solution to racial issues is to exterminate white people off the face of the planet - and some in the audience clapped.(19)
3:15 - Jelani Cobb asks what do you do with 4 million former slaves who are now free. DuVernay says they were arrested en masse on minor charges to work under convict-leasing, essentially temporary slaves. There were 4 million blacks after the Civil War and by 1880 the black population of the US was 6.5 million.
The Southern states were generally poor and used convicts as a source of revenue. So how many blacks were subjected to ‘convict leasing?’ It is probable that the number of blacks on convict leasing was under 2 percent of each state’s black population.
In Alabama in 1880, ‘several thousand’ blacks worked under convict-leasing in industry around Birmingham. The black population of Alabama was 600,000. So less than 1% of blacks were used as convict labor. Convict leasing started in Alabama 1875 and outlawed in 1928.(20)
In Georgia in the 1890s, Chattahoochee Brick Company managed over 1,200 leased convicts, with about 150 working at the brickworks and the rest leased to other companies throughout the state. The black population of Georgia in 1890 was 859,000.
While the number of men in convict leasing was relatively small, the barbarism of this institution was worse then slavery. Many of these men died. If the leaders of convict leasing were put on trial in modern America, they would all be doing life in prison.
Despite claims to the contrary, the US economy was NOT built on the backs of blacks, whether slave or free. Nationally, blacks were 18.1% of the population in 1830 and 12.7% in 1870 - about the same as today. Obviously, if blacks are around 13% of the population they are only going to contribute 13% to the economy. (21) Most blacks lived in the south prior to the Civil War and for decades after the War. The South was primarily agricultural. In 1860, the South had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union.(22)
As the following chart shows, the industrial North was primarily white. So white workers were overwhelmingly responsible for the industrial and economic growth of the U.S. after the Civil War.(21)
White
Black
White
black
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A Review of ‘The 13th’
Before the 1960s
3:15 - Jelani Cobb asks what do you do with 4 millions former slaves who are now free.
Blacks faced many challenges as a free people:
“Slavery left the Negro illiterate and untrained for the responsibilities of freedom.”(10) “Unfortunately for the Negroes freedom meant the loss of certain attentions which they received in slavery, designed to keep them healthy and clean and to prolong their lives.(10)
Blacks were NOT abandoned after the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau’s was formed on March 3, 1965 and lasted until 1872. Both freed slaves and the Freedmen’s Bureau officials agreed that education was top priority. Prior to the Civil War, no southern state had a system of universal, state-supported public education and prohibited slaves and free blacks from gaining an education. Now former slaves went to school.
The Freedman’s Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for blacks. By the end of 1865, more than 90,000 former slaves were enrolled as students in such public schools. By 1870, there were more than 1,000 schools for freedmen in the South.(19) In 1870 the illiteracy rate among the non-white population was 80 percent. By 1890, it was down to 57 percent and by 1910 it had dropped to 30 percent.(20)
Abolitionists worked to help blacks even before the Civil War. The first historically black colleges (HBCUs) were Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in 1837, University of the District of Columbia in 1851, Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) in 1854 and Wilberforce University in 1856 (Ohio). LeMoyne-Owen College was founded during the Civil War in 1862 for freed and escaped slaves in Tennessee.
Other colleges founded shortly after the Civil War were Alabama State University in 1867, Allen University in 1870 (S. Carolina), Barber-Scotia College in 1867 (N. Carolina), Benedict College in 1870 (S. Carolina), Bowie State University in 1865 (Maryland), Claflin University in 1869 (S. Carolina), Clark Atlanta University in 1865 (Georgia), Dillard University in 1869 (Louisiana), Edward Waters College in 1866 (Florida), Fayetteville State University in 1867 (N. Carolina), Fisk University in 1866 (Tennessee), Hampton University in 1868 (Virginia), Howard University in 1867 (Washington DC), Johnson C. Smith University in 1867 (N. Carolina), Lincoln University of Missouri in 1866, Morehouse College in 1867 (Georgia), Morgan State University in 1867 (Maryland), Rust College in 1866 (Missouri), Shaw University in 1865 (N. Carolina), St. Augustine's University in 1867 (N. Carolina), Talladega College in 1867, (Alabama), Tougaloo College in 1869 (Mississippi) and Virginia Union University in 1865. Some of these colleges were founded with the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau. Many other Universities were founded primarily to educate blacks after 1870.
The first Freedmen’s Bureau Act in 1865 included plans for 40-acre tracts to be sold on easy terms to former slaves. Following Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson unwisely terminated this program. Many blacks today believe EVERY family would have gotten 40 acres - which is not accurate. The original plan called for seizing 400,000 acres along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida and selling tracts to former slaves - divided into 40 acre parcels to create 10,000 farms. This land distribution would have helped 10,000 families and the people they hired get a fresh start. This program would have benefited about one percent of the 4 million freed slaves.
Nevertheless, blacks advanced in farming. Freedmen’s Bureau focused on facilitating a transition from slave to various types of farm operations and labor relationships. During a 4-year period, the Bureau mediated agricultural production contracts between planters and freedmen.(27)
W.E.B. Du Bois estimated land ownership by black farmers: 3 million acres in 1875, 8 million in 1890, and 12 million in 1900 (Aptheker, 105).(28)
The Census of Agriculture did not distinguish between white and non-white farmers until 1900.
Year
1900
1920
1930
1940
1950
1959
1964
1969
1997
Black
746,717
925,708
882,850
681,790
559,980
272,541
184,004
87,393
18,451
White
4,970,129
5,498,454
5,372,578
5,377,728
4,801,243
3,423,361
2,957,905
2,626,403
1,864,201
Since 1950, farm ownership has declined for both races but black farmers had a far steeper decline.(29) It's odd that the biggest declines started after 1950 when civil rights laws began to be passed.
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4:35 - The movie ‘Birth of a Nation: The racist 1915 film ‘Birth of a Nation’ by D. W. Griffith was a propaganda film utterly demeaning to blacks. This film had a negative effect on race relations primarily in the south. The animosity this film produced caused millions of blacks to move from the south to other parts of the country after 1916.
Kevin Gannon claims “Birth of a Nation confirmed the story that many whites wanted to tell about the Civil War and its aftermath. To erase defeat and take out of it sort of a martyrdom.” Virtually no one in the North believed this fraudulent history. Certainly there were people in the South who didn’t either.
Gannon noted that “Woodrow Wilson, the sitting president, had a private screening of Birth of a Nation in the White House. Gannon claims Wilson called the movie ‘history written with lightening.’”
Accusations need to be based on solid evidence. Although Woodrow Wilson was a staunch segregationist, it is doubtful Wilson ever said this, so this quote should not have been used. Also, Gannon fails to mention the showing at the White House was by chance.
A racist named Thomas Dixon Jr. was responsible for the movie ‘Birth of a Nation’ in 1915. He knew the movie would be controversial. Federal government censorship boards and local political leaders had the power to ban any film deemed “injurious to the public’ so he conspired to have it viewed by his old friend, President Woodrow Wilson. Dixon and Wilson were graduate students at John Hopkins University in 1883-84 and occasionally exchanged letters. Dixon believed that telling would-be censors that the president had viewed his creation would prevent any national restriction on its release.
In Jan. 1915 Dixon wrote to Wilson’s secretary and asked if he could have a half-hour appointment with the president. The appointment was set for Feb. 3. Dixon did not specify what he wanted to discuss with Wilson, only that he was working on a new powerful form of communication.
At their meeting, Dixon asked Wilson if he would watch a new historic film he was making. Wilson’s wife had died the previous August and he felt it would be inappropriate to go to the theater. Wilson told Dixon he could show his film at the White House and Dixon quickly agreed.
Birth of a Nation was shown at the White House on Feb. 18, 1915. The attendees included Wilson, his daughter Margaret, several cabinet members and their families and a few friends. Dixon and the film’s Director/Producer D. W. Griffith were also present.
Wilson’s controversial remark was supposedly uttered at the end of his private showing. No one in the audience who later wrote memoirs or diaries recorded that Wilson made the ‘history like lightning’ quote.
Following the White House screening, Dixon was able to arrange a second presentation one day later for an audience of 500 people, including Supreme Court justices, 38 Senators, 50 Representative and their families. After this second showing, Dixon was sure his film wouldn’t be censored.
Birth of a Nation opened in New York City in early March. Wilson’s supposed quote was NOT used in advertising brochures for the film in 1915. Dixon DID use quotes from other famous people and politicians. The first mention of the Wilson quote was in an interview of Griffith in the New York American On Feb. 28, 1915. Griffith claimed the film “received very high praise from high quarters in Washington.” “I was gratified when a man we all revere, or ought to, said it teaches history by lightning.”
The filmmakers bragged that 21 members of Congress had “sent voluntary letters of enthusiastic commendation” - but Wilson was not one of them. The filmmakers did advertise the film was shown at the White House as a sort of implied endorsement.
As violence against showing the film grew, Wilson came under political pressure to denounce the movie. In late April, 1915, Wilson issued this statement: “It is true that ‘The Birth of a Nation’ was produced before the President and his family at the White House, but the President was entirely unaware of the character of the play before it was presented and has at no time expressed his approbation [approval, praise] of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old acquaintance.”
So where did this phrase come from? Probably Woodrow Wilson, but not connected to ‘Birth of a Nation.’ In the late 1800s, Wilson wrote an essay comparing Thomas Carlyle’s writings to seeing history by “flashes of lightning.” In Mere Literature (1896), Wilson wrote in a discussion: “It is the summer lightning, which will bring more to your startled eye in an instant, out of the hiding of the night, than you will ever be at the pains to observe in the full blaze of noon.”
Dixon and Griffith were familiar with Wilson’s writings. It is possible that they misappropriated his remarks and used them for ‘Birth of a Nation.’(30)
DuVernay ignores how controversial this film was. Whites and blacks both condemned this film. Initially, this film was banned in several parts of the country. Ultimately, the film was shown around the country as it was protected by the First Amendment. The NAACP fought to censor the movie for several decades. “While the film wasn’t banned, the fact that by the 30’s and 40’s cinema managers knew that showing it would lead to demonstrations outside their theaters acted as a strong disincentive to showing it.”
Music, film, and political writer Dorian Lynskey commented on the NAACP’s fight to ban The Birth of a Nation, “When you consider how tainted the film’s reputation became by the end of the 20’s, and will remain forever, you could argue that [the NAACP] did ultimately succeed in making this movie a pariah. Not all victories come quickly, or are immediately apparent.” (31)
Whites went to see the film due to it’s gripping story line and to see what all the controversy was about. Audiences were in awe at the technical advances in film making. This film was groundbreaking in its cinematic production, wide angle shots, and use of extras, Most whites today have never heard of Birth of a Nation much less seen it.
* There were demonstrations in many cities. In Boston, the film was opposed by “Governor Walsh, Lieutenant Governor Cushing, Mr. Moorfield Storey, Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury, Hon. Samuel W. McCall, Rev. Samuel M. Crothers, D.D., Dr. Alexander Mann of Trinity Church, a majority of both branches of the legislature and many religious and civic organizations. (32)
* Birth of a Nation was banned in Kansas from 1915 until 1923 for promoting racism and historical inaccuracies. (33)
* Dec 4, 1915 - Front page editorial denouncing the KKK and declaring that Birth of a Nation must not show in Denver, Colorado. (34)
* March 4, 1916 - Birth of a Nation was banned in Ohio. The attorney general declared: “After viewing the photoplay entitled ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ I am firmly of the opinion that the board of censors did right in not permitting this picture to be shown in Ohio. Over and above the treatment of the Negro, the picture is an insult to the north and a contemptible distortion of well known history regarding the civil war.”(35)
In addition to “The 13th,” there are other propaganda movies out that inflame racial tensions against whites.
* In 1999, “The Hurricane”, a film about the life of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, a middleweight boxer was released, starring Denzel Washington. This movie claims Carter and a friend were innocent of killing three white men in a bar in Paterson, NJ in June, 1966.
This movie is propaganda and lies from start to finish. It portrays Carter as a man with near saintly integrity and character. Nothing could be further from the truth. Carter was a predator. The movie makes up a lot of lies in a bogus attempt to prove Carter did not commit cold blooded murder. Another lie concerns the boxing match.
In the opening scenes Carter is shown soundly defeating a blood spattered Joey Giardello in the 1964 title fight but the bigoted white judges give the victory to Giardello anyway. The TRUTH is Giardello clearly won the REAL fight in a unanimous decision. (36)
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6:20 - Jelani Cobb then claims “What we overlook about Birth of a Nation was that it was also a tremendously accurate prediction of the way in which race would operate in the United States.” After this statement a clip from Birth of a Nation is shown where a black man is lynched. Other clips are shown of lynchings of black men.
This is another fraudulent attempt to create linkage between lynchings in the past and conditions in modern America. Insane statements like this will cause the racial divide in America to get ever bigger.
9:09 - Again, more shock videos and pictures to arouse anger against white people. Jelani Cobb claims: “We are something other then this visceral image of criminality and menace and threat people associate with us.” Sometimes blacks ARE the visceral image of criminality.
* In Detroit, in Sep 2016, an 18-year-old black man - George Steward - was sentenced to 30 and 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Authorities say Steward beat 91 year old Paul Monchnik to death. Steward then doused the World War Two veteran with gasoline before setting him on fire last November. Steward lived next door to Monchnik with his grandfather, family members say. His motive is unknown.
Steward’s family is as twisted as he is. Outside of court, Steward’s family and friends defended him. His sister, Taige Steward, said her brother was not a “monster” and had never been in trouble before this murder. “I feel sorry for the family and for my family as well, because we are all going through,” Steward said. “I know he honestly feels terrible about what happened.”
Tyrone Davison, a Steward family friend, said the family wants to appeal the sentence. “It’s an unfortunate situation on both sides,” he said. “I think it’s more to the story than what’s been told.”(37)
In May, 2020, a white Army veteran, Paul Marino, 86, and his wife Lidia, 85 were executed by a black man in a random act of violence while visiting their son's grave at the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Sheldon C. Francis walked up behind the couple and shot them in the back of the head.
Delaware State Police shot and killed Francis during a protracted shootout in which a total of at least 150 rounds were fired. Francis fired at least 78 rounds at police.(38)
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Sources:
24. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp