I didn’t really understand the objective history behind the conclusions that slavery has just morphed into the American prison system that accounts for 25% of the world’s incarcerated individuals, even though America is only 5% of the world’s population. One of the biggest revelations from this documentary is the absolute dependency of the American economy on prison labor (ever single Idaho potato is processed from ground to grocery store by an inmate). There is no financial incentive to reform shit. In fact, they only incentive is to push more people into prison and give them the “criminal” moniker removing their rights against slavery as defined by the 13th amendment which says “unless they are criminals.” Our history is full of white people labelling black and brown people as “criminal” for the dumbest and smallest things originally to perpetuate the Southern economy, and then later to keep it working. Segregation was horrible, but for a lot of reasons that people like me didn’t understand. It made innocent school children into “criminals” just for wanting to go to the same school as everyone else, or drinking from the same fountain, or riding the same bus seats. This shit was specifically designed to turn innocent people into criminals, and to troll them into behaving even worse, because if they become a felon because they retaliate against the trolling segregation then they lose their rights as a citizen forever, which is why 30% of the black Georgia population cannot vote. If they could, things would be very different.
In short, we still live in exactly the same horrifying times of public lynchings and civil war. It is just different and adapted to be harder to identify, by people who have since come forth (like Nixon’s aide) and openly revealed their explicit strategy to criminalize people just for being black and therefore removing their power, because these white fucking assholes can’t have a country where everyone has an equal say. We have to do more, not as “white saviors” but as people who show up to be lead by those who understand the situation, those who have lived it every day, to them I will say, “tell me what I can do, guide me, I have a particular set of skills, show me what you want me to do with them.”
I was so moved after watching 13th that I’m going to dedicate my Christmases (a very white holiday) to buying and distributing Raspberry Pis with keyboards — working for a black community leader — in a way that makes sense for them, if that is even something that is needed. My wife has an artist friend with a podcast who has been active in this for a very long time, Crafted with Cradle. I look forward to build friendships with people deeply embedded in these communities and basically dedicating my skills to serving them as directed. I’m so fucking worried of coming off as a patriarchically oppressive “white savior” and I know how sensitive any people who have been beaten down so systematically for so long must be to even my appearance and privileged history. All I can do is focus on the present, and the present needs me, needs all of us to get off our fucking asses and help correct the wrongs of centuries of slavery in all its forms. This is our “holocaust” that we must never forget, the difference is, people are still being shipped off right under our noses. It never stopped.