Introduction
The film 13th is an Oscar-nominated documentary regarding such topics as racism, minorities, incarceration, police brutality, and other relevant social themes in post-Civil War America. The contemporary society actively attempts to make a positive change in these fields, however, the movie portrays deeply-rooted causes of these issues and explains the gravity of the problem in the United States. The current essay discusses two key themes – racial formation and gender performance, showing how these concepts can be exploited to demonize minority groups for political agenda.
Racism and Racial Formation
The primary topic of the documentary concerns racism, racial categories, and incarceration in post-Civil War America. There is a relevant problem of social and financial inequality among American citizens, and the government has deliberately emphasized race as one of the causes for a large part of American history (13TH). As a Harvard University professor, Khalil G. Muhammad, notes, “There’s really no understanding of our American political culture without race at the center of it” (13TH, 26:04). For many people in the country, it means that poor minority communities are to blame for crimes and violence.
However, it is a highly superficial perspective that does not reflect the causes of the issue. Omi and Winant explain that this categorization based on race is flawed and leads to additional violence. The authors mention, “Race is a way of ‘making up people.’ The very act of defining racial groups is a process fraught with confusion, contradiction, and unintended consequences” (Omi and Winant 105). This approach is called racial formation, and it allows politicians to exploit race to push their agenda. In reality, the concept of race is a much more complicated concept that connects ethnicity, culture, and multiple social traits. In his article, Berg shows that the American political culture deliberately ignored these specificities for the majority of the 19th and 20th centuries. Specifically, shortly after the Civil War, it was easier for politicians and lawmakers to categorize people based exclusively on their skin color regardless of culture, sense of identity, and social background (Berg). As a result, this negligence led to even more division between races and social classes, and it explains a large number of contemporary American problems.
Minority Groups and Gender Performance
While the documentary primarily discusses relevant social topics through the lens of race, it indirectly examines the connection between minority groups and political agendas in general. Namely, an average person can get used to the surrounding environment unconsciously, even if it concerns racial segregation, lynching, and other terrible practices of the past (13TH). The same concept is applied to gender performance, meaning that people, from an early age, learn and adapt to how they should act according to society (Palmer). Palmer explains, “At this point in your life, your gender performance is almost certainly something you do automatically and without thought” (para 10). This notion explains how people can tolerate police brutality towards minorities, social inequality, and racial formation. They can because this concept is something that most people grow up with and consider normal in the United States.
Conclusion
Race has been the primary focus of American political culture for nearly two centuries. The current essay has demonstrated how politicians can take advantage of racial formation, division in society, and superficial classification to push their agendas and achieve public support. Moreover, as the concept of gender performance shows, most people can adapt to society’s rules and tolerate terrible practices. Ultimately, it means that people who strive for positive change should raise public awareness concerning the dangers of racial categorization and further advocate for social equality.
References
13TH. Directed by Ava DuVernay, Kandoo Films, 2016. YouTube, uploaded by Netflix, Web.
Berg, Justin. “Is Racial Identity Based on Biology or Society?” Sociology in Focus, Web.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 3rd edition, Routledge, 2014.
Palmer, Nathan. “‘This Isn’t an Act!’ The Sociology of Gender Performance.” Sociology in Focus, Web.