What’s it rated? TV-MA
When? 2016
Where’s it showing? Netflix
Ava DuVernay (Selma) directs this incisive look at the prison industrial complex and how the Constitution’s 13th Amendment created a loophole that allowed and continues to allow the enslavement of people convicted of a crime—largely African Americans and other people of color. If you missed it the first time around and find yourself searching for answers to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter protests, this is essential viewing.
Through historical footage and photos, and interviews with notable experts such as Cory Booker, Angela Davis, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., DuVernay guides us through the post-Civil War period, the Jim Crow era, the civil rights movement, the War on Drugs, right up to the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s a disheartening history lesson to say the least.
Likewise, its statistics and evidence of ongoing systemic racism are horrifying. If after watching it you’re not incensed, you’re complicit in the problem. With the information contained within, it’s impossible to deny America is a racist nation. (100 min.) Δ
This article appears in Food and Drink 2020.