The documentary we watched in class very articulate in its analysis of the criminal justice system. It used compelling evidence and used many persuasive speakers. However, the documentary was heavily biased and made many sweeping generalizations about American politics and society.
Being Biased is not inherently wrong. Everyone has a bias. The problem begins when your bias is so extreme that it leads you to present only the information that supports your side and rejects any information that contradicts that position. In "13th," the documentary presented information concerning the beginnings of the War on Crime and War on Drugs that showed how the policies were objectively terrible. The problem is that the documentary presents strong evidence that the Southern Strategy and the policies used by the Nixon Administration were born purely of racists intents and then the bias of the documentary leads to the conclusion that all southern voters and the Republican Party that supported these policies were racists. This is a false conclusion because not everyone in the South was racists, and not every member of the Republican Party was racists.
Throughout "13th," a biased interpretation of the evidence undermines the very real truth that the American criminal justice is broken. Yes, many of the supporters of these policies were racists or had racists ideas. But, this does not mean that everyone who supported those policies was racists. Spending time trying to pin down who is to blame for this crisis and spending time arguing about who is racists means that we are wasting time that could be spent fixing the problems in our justice system.
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I agree that it is a slippery slope to claim that the use of the Southern Strategy meant that all southerners were racist, the quote by Lee Atwater, the man who essentially put together the Reagan campaign, seems to give at least some indication that Reagan's programs had racist roots. This is not to say that the Reagan campaign created these policies, but rather they pushed forward popular policies that had semi-racist roots.
I agree that the documentary we watched in class only presented, for the most part, one side of the story concerning the War on Drugs and policies instituted by our government in the 70s and 80s. I would like to add that I saw much of the same in the Criminal Injustice podcast I watched. The episode talked about issues within the criminal justice system, including how criminals often receive unfair trials due to abuse of power by prosecutors and the mandatory minimum sentence. However, it was displayed in such a way, with little diversion from the main argument, that it felt like an attack on the criminal justice system rather than an informative piece regarding its shortcomings and flaws. This comes as a sharp contrast to other podcasts that I watched, like Criminal and Ear Hustle, which both presented different viewpoints and stories.
While the documentary may have focused on one side of the story, it got its point across. The current criminal justice system was flawed in the past and is still flawed. The privatization of prison has allowed these businesses to profit off of the overcrowding of prisons and take advantage of a flaw in our 13th amendment. I also agree with you in that the documentary while it spreads awareness of this current issue. It provides no solution or any way we as a society can come together to stop it
I agree. I think the documentary does have a little bit of bias. The beginning does show facts from the past, but I noticed it gets more biased towards the end. I wouldn’t enjoyed it more if I saw interviews from other perspectives instead of seeing on primary view of the whole idea of slavery as the foundation of prisons. I also think sympathizing with the prisoners was a good approach but understanding the victims side would’ve been just as interesting.
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