Phoenix Kiula

Some good info and stats in the film, but the opening salvo about the 13th amendment that leads to the name of the film is about it is pretty feeble: "..no one can be a slave, unless a criminal". This sounds reasonable and all countries have laws like these. What's so wrong about this? This does NOT explain why US jails so many. What's the implication: that jailing is a surrogate form of slavery? That's the worst kind of strawman balderdash. The footage from old films about black men shown as monsters belie the reality of the last 50, 60 years. Sure, lot of respect for people who abolished slavery and fought for equality such as MLK. Also people who banished redlining etc. What now, though? What's the excuse for the last fifty years: no slavery, no redlining, no segregation. In fact, there have been "affirmative action" programs targeted at blacks. Why then is a 12% segment of population represented 53% in violent crime and 33% in all crime? Why are Asians or Jews, who are also discriminated against, also proportionately represented in the prison population and instead keep showing intergenerational growth? Sorry, this documentary just perpetuates the uber-sensitive and flawed laments as 'facts', and adds nothing to the insight of what the data actually suggests is holding back the African population. It's not this culture of incarceration proxying slavery (that's a woefully absurd suggestion), and it's surely not *systemic* oppression. It's culture.