13th

With something like one quarter of the world's prison population being incarcerated in the USA, this documentary attempts to break down that fairly startling statistic and analyse just whether history and historical attitudes and prejudices have been instrumental in arriving at this situation. Crossing generations and centuries, the narrative postulates that much of this is down to grievances between ethnicities and to assertions that the white population is and has been using the penal system to unfairly and consistently persecute African Americans as effectively as state-sponsored segregation ever did. In many ways and thanks to a wide variety of archive and contributors it makes a point that is often hard to refute; it also suggests quite forcefully that being Republican or Democrat doesn't neccessarily mean you are any more pro or anti the case being put forward here about the disproportionate application of discriminatory punishment. Is the film balanced? No, not in the least. It has an axe to grind and finds evidence to support the claims it set out to prove in abundance. Does that make it one-sided? Yes, but that doesn't make it wrong - it just makes the case for the Caucasian communities to present their own version of events to explain and respond to the legitimate questions posed here and to ask equally legitimate questions about ingrained anti-white racism too. There are few saints here, just a great many sinners trying to seize the upper hand in a debate that quite often would sooner discuss politics than look at just why people commit crimes. Are most crimes against non-whites committed by whites? Are most against African Americans carried out by people of their own race or by those of another? Statistically, what percentages of the population as an whole are in jail because they killed someone, or raped then, or because they routinely steal cars or peddle drugs that do a similar job a few days down the line more recreationally or addictively? This neit...