Thirteenth
“People say all the time, ‘I don’t understand how people could’ve tolerated slavery. How could they have made peace with that? How could people have gone to a lynching and participated in that? How did people make sense of the segregation, this white and colored-only drinking… That’s so crazy. If I was living at that time, I would have never tolerated anything like that.’ And the truth is, we are living at this time, and we are tolerating it” said Bryan Stevenson an attorney and author. 13th, is a powerful documentary, filled with a lot of ethos, pathos, and logos. A way that pathos is used is by having multiple examples of powerful imagery and videos, as well as music. Ethos is used by having credible people, such as Angela Davis, a political activist and professor emerita, Bryan Stevenson, an attorney and author, Michelle Alexander, educator and author, Cory Greene, formerly incarcerated activist, and Charles Rangel, congressman of New York. 13th has a plethora of logos used, for example, one in three black males will go to jail in their lifetime. 13th is persuasive and uses ethos, pathos, and logos by showcasing how being in jail is like modern day slavery.
13th is a film that is extremely touching with strong meaningful messages. The documentary begins with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment and moves onto the famous movie Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation is the story “many whites wanted to tell about the Civil War and its aftermath” (DuVernay). After the Civil War, there were Jim Crow Laws. African Americans were being told not to go through a front door, not allowed to vote, or go to school. Followed by Civil Rights, where Civil Rights activists were portrayed in the media as criminals (DuVernay). Mass incarceration was the start of law and order, war on drugs, and super predator. The term super predators was aroused around the same time Richard Nixon had the idea of law and order, and Bill Clinton with the idea of the “three strikes and you’re out” law, and supporting the death penalty. Modern issues such as police brutality, Kalief Browder, and Black Lives Matter.
Ethos is a rhetorical appeal that is often used in the documentary that involves credibility and character. There was a plethora of characters that have credible information. For example, political activist, Angela Davis, was represented by the FBI as being armed and dangerous. The government of the state of California was set up against Angela Davis (DuVernay). Kalief Browder is another person that shows as an example of why the system is so corrupt. Browder was on his way home from a party when he was stopped and arrested by police for a crime that he didn’t commit. He wasn’t able to make bond just like other poor African Americans in the U.S. He didn’t take the plea bargain and ended up being badly terrorized in Rikers Island by the inmates and guards, and two years after Browder was released from jail he committed suicide (DuVernay). Former president Barack Obama shows as an additional credible person in the film. A way that Obama shows as a credible person is by going to multiple prison facilities in America and talking about the numerous problems going on inside the prisons.
There were multiple examples of pathos. Pathos is an emotionally based rhetorical element including things like songs, colors, animals, or children to get an emotional appeal. One being the powerful imagery and the other being the music. Listening to the music and watching the images of lynchings and African Americans being physically abused, brought a lot of emotions, such as fear, anger, and sadness. The video of the African American male being pushed and spit at during his walk, puts anger and sadness in others because he couldn’t walk anywhere without being racially harassed. Similar to African Americans going to Donald Trump’s rallies, African Americans were protesting how they didn’t want Trump as president while Trump was telling his supporters to “knock the crap out of” (DuVernay) the African Americans that were protesting against him. Trump even said, “In the good old days, this doesn’t happen, because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once,… they would not do it again so easily, I’d like to punch him in the face…You know what they used to do to guys like that in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks” (DuVernay). For any African American to hear that quote come from our current president is really disappointing because as Americans were always looking for change, but how can America change if our leader is saying such horrendous things.
Logos is a logical element that appeals to the mind and has facts and statistics. Logos was used often during the film. For example, the African American prison population in 2001 was 878,400. The likelihood of a white male to go to prison is one in seventeen versus the likelihood of a black male going to jail is one in three (DuVernay). That statistic is extremely shocking because any African American can get stopped on the street and go to jail for just walking. What’s quite outrageous, is the population of black males in the U.S is 6.5%, but the population of black males in prison is 40.2% (DuVernay).
Although the film was persuasive, some flaws, were the film was very graphic, over using pathos and lacks credibility by not showing enough ethos. For example, there were some graphic images, such as lynchings and a photo of Emmett Till’s beaten face. The film didn’t show enough ethos by not giving the name of the speakers as soon as the speakers were interviewed. The documentary only showed the names of a select few speakers once, in the middle of the film, making it very difficult to cite quotations.
Although there are some flaws in the film 13th, the documentary still showed persuasive elements by using examples of pathos, ethos, and logos. An example pathos is used is by having powerful imagery that has an abundance of emotion. Ethos is shown by having credible interviewers such as, Angela Davis, a political activist that shared her own stories. One example of logos is, 40.2% of black males make up the prison population (DuVernay). “For years now, I have heard the word ‘wait.’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This wait has almost always meant never. Justice too long delayed is justice denied” Martin Luther King Jr, a Civil Rights activist who fought for African American rights.
Works Cited
DuVernay, Ava, director. 13th. Kandoo Films, Forward Movement, 2016.
Rhetorical Analysis Reflection: As I look back and read my rhetorical analysis, I can see how I improved in my writing. I really enjoyed watching the documentary because it was very informing about things that was going on today. I felt as though it was one of my strongest essays that I have written.