Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Melina Abdullah | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Michelle Alexander | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Cory Booker | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Dolores Canales | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Gina Clayton | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
William Jelani Cobb | ... | Self - Interviewee (as Jelani Cobb) | |
Malkia Cyril | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Angela Davis | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Craig DeRoche | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
David Dinkins | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Baz Dreisinger | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Kevin Gannon | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Henry Louis Gates Jr. | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Marie Gottschalk | ... | Self - Interviewee | |
Newt Gingrich | ... | Self - Interviewee |
The film begins with the idea that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the U.S. Although the U.S. has just 5% of the world's population. "13th" charts the explosive growth in America's prison population; in 1970, there were about 200,000 prisoners; today, the prison population is more than 2 million. The documentary touches on chattel slavery; D. W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation"; Emmett Till; the civil rights movement; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Richard M. Nixon; and Ronald Reagan's declaration of the war on drugs and much more. Written by Ulf Kjell Gür
There is something to be said of a person who does not know when to stop and listen a message that has left them in the past. I watched this film and cried because I have spent my adult life keeping myself and my children out of the "system". I have spent teaching my children that they are more than what white society is trying to pin on them. To read a review that basically regurgitates all of the right leaning rhetoric that, if they watched the film, started at the very beginning of slavery. The US was/is built on the backs of other races that the US has no intention acknowledge. The history that is taught in the US not only white washes (pun intended) but also teaches to have pride in a misrepresented history. To find out what contributions brown and black people made to this country is an elective in college that most white Americans will never even glance at. So to say that this film is one sided...yes it is but white America has had it one sided for over 400 years with all the strength, weight, industrial, and political power at its disposal. SO, go a look at the history from a perspective other than Rush Limbaugh and the like. You just might finally understand that brown and black lives are not a tool for whites to use at a whim but humans that have the RIGHT to be treated the same......