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Documentary: 13th

Documentary: 13th

Posted on May 30, 2022January 24, 2023

I have always been fascinated by incarceration. Locking people up in small areas, sometimes for their entire life. Why? How? This fascination even led me to do my internship in a Dutch prison back in 2017. I then saw everything from up front. I don’t know if I still would choose the same internship now in 2022, because my views have changed. But the fascination about incarceration has stayed. This led me to watch a documentary which shines light on mass incarceration in relation to racism in the United States. Today I am sharing this documentary with you: 13th.

Know Your History

Today I am writing about the United States and what I’ve learned from the documentary 13th. But in no way can I, as a Dutch person, judge the Americans for the things they’ve done or are doing, without knowing my own history. The Dutch history. I thank my wealth to ancestors who traveled the world, stole from nations around the world, showed extreme violence to different people around the world, enslaved entire nations and the list goes on. When I say anything about racism, it must be here in Netherlands. Because racism is here too, even though Dutch people think it’s not or not so much. This is simple not true.

And so, I try to combat racism here in the Netherlands. And I am not the person who says how things should be done in the United States. But! I do want to inform you about different issues around the globe. And the documentary I am sharing today is extremely important. Whatever you do after watching the documentary, know your own history if you’re white. Because we cannot judge other nations without looking at our own.

13th

Onto the documentary. 13th is a documentary which sheds a light on mass incarceration in the United States. The United States houses 5% of the world population, but 25% of all prisoners worldwide. And so we speak of mass incarceration, because these statistics are out of balance. How come? The documentary tells you why. The documentary is called 13th is because it resolved around the 13th amendment of the constitution in the United States. This 13th amendment makes it illegal to enslave anyone since 1865. It must assure freedom to all American people. But there is one exception to freedom: criminals.

Criminals are allowed to work for close to nothing in prison and sometimes locked up their entire life. Therefore the subtitle of the documentary is: from slave to criminal in one amendment. Right now, the chance for white men to go to prison in the United States is 1 in 17, for black men it’s 1 in 3. 13th shows us, in my opinion, how mass incarceration is just a symptom of a bigger issue: racism.

The documentary shows how complicated racism in the United Stated is and how many factors play a role. Mass-incarceration is just one example to portrait the entire system of racism. So many factors play a role. The so-called ‘war on drugs’, politics, mass-incarceration, socio-economic factors, demographics, private prisons, lobbying, plead deals, the violence inside prisons, police violence, etc. It also shows the absurd system around crime that the government has built. The three strike law for example or mandatory minimum sentences. The problem of racism is massive.

Change

Racism keeps getting a new form. It went from slavery to convict leasing, then the Jim-crow system, after that the mass incarceration and so much more. It shows that the core problem is of this injustice is racism and that’s what we need to combat. I am not here to tell you how to do that. The resources are there. We just need to listen to people of color and make room for them. A good Dutch website is Wit Huiswerk, where you can learn all about what you should do to combat racism.

Have you seen the documentary 13th? It can be seen on Netflix.

Another must watch is the series: When They See Us.

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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ABOUT ME

 

Hi! My name is Romee Hoeksma and I am on a journey to an eco-positive life. An eco-positive lifestyle is a lifestyle in which I have a more positive than negative impact on the beautiful planet earth. On this blog you can follow my journey to a life with only positive impact. At this blog you can find all sorts of things, from tips to recipes to personal experiences, but most of all fun (I hope!). I write about how I want to change the world, but don’t look at it as if I’m judging you. If anything, I like responses from my dear readers the most, so don’t hesitate to contact me or respond to any of my posts!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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Ik gebruik al jaren een bamboe tandenborstel, die van Humble Brush 🎋. Naast dat hun product duurzaam is, doen ze ook wat moois met de winst. Dat maakt een product nou echt eco-positief! Je leest meer over poetsen met bamboe op mijn blog, via de link in mijn bio. Vandaag op de blog: iets waarbij de relatie met eco-positief leven wat indirect is: diëten. Januari is dé maand waarin veel mensen weer aan het diëten slaan en daarom leek het me goed om deze post nog net op de valreep in januari te delen. De blog van vandaag gaat slechts over één van de vele nadelen van diëten: het leidt ons af van wat echt belangrijk is 🧐. Weten waarom ik dat denk? Lees dan nu het artikel via de link in mijn bio. Ik ga dit jaar weer de challenge aan om de winter door te komen zonder de warming aan te zetten. Hiervoor ging mijn essential, een warmwaterkruik 💦, kapot. In deze reel laat ik je zien hoe ik een ‘nieuwe’ tweedehands kruik kocht. Vandaag te lezen op whenateengoesgreen.com: een inspirerende documentary over Greta Thunberg: I am Greta. Een documentaire over hoop, maar vooral over doorzettingsvermogen 🔥. Lees het nu via de link in mijn bio. Meer vegan producten in de schappen, yay! Gisteren probeerde ik voor het eerst de vegan lentil tikki masala saus van Patak’s 🧑🏼‍🍳. Zie in deze reel wat ik ervan vond. Vandaag verscheen er een nieuw artikel op mijn blog over: 5 dingen die ik niet koop. Want we denken vaak dat we dingen écht nodig hebben, maar vaak is dat niet zo 🧠. Check het artikel via de link in miijn bio. Vorige week verscheen er een artikel op mijn blog over alles wat ik nieuw kocht in 2022. Dat is een groot deel van mijn negatieve impact. Deze week was het tijd om te kijken naar de andere kant van de medaille. Vandaag lees je op mijn blog een artikel over al mijn positive impact in 2022 🌞. Je vind de link naar het artikel in de link in mijn bio. Afgelopen week verscheen er op mijn blog een artikel over alles wat ik nieuw heb gekocht in 2022. Eén ding op de lijst waren deze onderbroeken (een stuk of 20). En nu denk je misschien: waarom zou je in één keer zoveel onderbroeken kopen? Op 31 december, nog net op de valreep in 2022, kwam er een video online op mijn Youtube-kanaal over voedselcoöperaties. Ik denk namelijk dat voedselcoöperaties ons voedselsysteem democratischer en eerlijker kunnen maken 🥦.

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  • Dieting distracts us
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  • My positive impact in 2022
  • All my new purchases in 2022

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