OccupyForum // Film: “The 13th” by Ava DuVernay

OccupyForum presents…

Film: “The 13th” by Ava DuVernay

The words of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution were supposed to guarantee that slavery and involuntary servitude effectively were outlawed. With the exception of punishment for a crime where the “party shall have been convicted.” That’s the loophole. And as detailed in Ava DuVernay’s “The 13th”, the injustice system in America has not changed all that much since the earliest days of slavery. The statistics DuVernay puts onscreen say it all: African-Americans make up 6.5% of the U.S. population but a whopping 40% of the prison population — in a country with the highest level of incarceration in the world; up more than tenfold since 1970 and existing mostly to put away black and Latino men.

It all comes down to money. That was the driving force in the beginning, when slavery effectively was ended, but the South had to figure out a way to balance the economics when suddenly short about 4 million slaves. Using the loophole in the 13th Amendment, Southerners started putting blacks in prisons for petty reasons and used them as a workforce without calling them “slaves.” Today the practice is very much alive, overcrowding our prisons and filling them with minorities, the most vulnerable and underprivileged among us. Private prisons, which have become a hot-button political issue, exist to make money off incarceration, as do other factors in a system that is rigged against the poorer elements of our society.

“The 13th” is a remarkable denunciation of that system, detailing its beginnings with the end of slavery, right through the Jim Crow South, the Civil Rights movement and today’s presidential election and the seething white anger and racism on view at Donald Trump rallies. Experts, historians, and politicians such as Angela Davis, Senator Corey Booker, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Michelle Alexander, Van Jones, and the likes of Newt Gingrich explain the sorry state of incarceration today. DuVernay lays out the case that “Black lives matter” and that this movement contains a human obligation to not only understand the history, but to do something about it.

Monday, November 21st 2016 from 6 - 9 pm at Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street (94110) near 16th Street BART

Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!

Announcements will follow. Donations to OccupyForum
to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away.