Thoughts on 13TH - by Ava DuVernay
There were times while watching the documentary when I had to physically press my hands against my chest to keep my heart from leaking. I cried, I mourned, I got mortified at the levels of corruption that lawmakers can legalise in the guise of keeping our society "civilised" with blatant oppression and I choked at the idea of how universal these problems can be if one decides to start digging into the system.
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| 13TH Poster (source: Netflix) |
In a nutshell, the documentary tries to understand the "modern day" solution to racism and slavery in America, how it is illegal to confine people as slaves unless they can somehow be labelled as criminals and Then confine them in chambers in the name of law. The criminalisation of actions based on the demographic of prevalence and not on their harmful effects on the society, aka. the war on drugs. The "over-representation of black and brown people on news media as criminals" to sew hatred towards these communities in the minds of the viewers and do it so seamlessly that even the people from their own communities begin to buy into these narratives. It's ingenious and brilliantly well-executed really and the diplomacy is top-notch, however uncanny that may be.
Divide and rule, the ultimate white weapon for centuries. If you can't break them from outside, create conflicts within and watch as they break themselves apart.
In a democratic state, we rely on our laws and orders from our constitution to serve and protect the citizens, but how is it that they always protect the rich and the privileged manifolds over than those who aren't? Kind of makes you wonder who these laws are serving after all, and why is it that the powerful people always get to decide how others should live when they have Zero Shared Experience on the livelihoods that they are directing?
While reading a book by Robert Kiyosaki, I learnt that the tax system is biased towards the mind-numbingly rich and he brushed the statement off under "Don't ask me why, I didn't make the laws" rhetoric, but that sadly is not the case. Rich people and Corporations may not pass these laws in US but they sure influence them Actively under ALEC. The myth of invisible hands working behind our backs? Well, not so much a myth as it is a reality. It's bonkers! The framework we have in place for people to function is not just and blind to begin with! It's no wonder that the powerful people get away with the most heinous of crimes while the black people get stuck in the jail, unable to prove their innocence or pay for bail. And that's the just the tip of the iceberg on America's Systemic Racism.
It bothers me a great deal. I have never been to America nor am I super sympathetic towards it, but it kills me to think that if such monstrosities are tolerated in the "land of the free" I am not sure how to cope with the truth of of my own history. And I mean the subcontinent of India, because the nations within are obviously a product of recent history.
I am terrified to learn how my uppercaste ancestry has contributed at keeping the society so divided, and the dalits so poor for generations that it is still very much relevant. I am afraid to learn about the root of our problems because I am certain that I have been a part of it in some shape or form. I don't even know what I don't know and I sure am scared of dismantling that bubble of security but it kills me more to conceptualize that most of my population have to live through the hell hole that I am only fortunate enough to want to "study" and "learn" through second hand experiences. It physically hurts to realise that I still have a choice to turn a blind eye and my life would remain ignorantly blissful, but these people who "die like rats" don't even get to realise that they shouldn't have to pay that horrendous price and that our constitution guarantees them the same right to live as the rest of us.
Democracy promises equal rights for all but we are galaxies away from putting it into practice. We have only managed to scratch the surface of the democratic model, there's so much room for work.
13TH does such a heart-wrenchingly excellent job at humanizing the "criminals", at shedding light into how society plays a part at maintaining the divisions and hierarchy, at the profits made out of keeping a certain section of the society deprived and under-nourished, at the bigotry of the criminal justice system in the US. But most importantly it shows how the onus is on us to uncover the truth through the history of our existence in order to make sense of why shit happens the way it does. If we want to bring about a change in the current state of affairs, the answer always lies in the past because as the director, Ava DuVernay, brilliantly says in her interview with Oprah, nothing is really happening that hasn't happened before; all we have to do is start digging through hole so we can uncover where the hate is coming from. Only through that clear understanding of it's origin can we begin the work of exoneration.
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