Decades after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, slavery still exists in the United States in various ways. Currently, mass incarceration is the largest form of slavery in America, as shown in Ava Duvernay's documentary "13th." The criminal justice system in the United States targets African Americans to keep them in slavery-like conditions, and as a result, their lives deteriorate every day due to unfair trials established to incriminate them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original EssayFirst, the documentary “13th” documented the important events that influenced the survival of African Americans over the years and illustrated the whole situation. that everyone must recognize. This documentary also identifies the source of the legacy of oppression of African Americans in the United States. African Americans are socially perceived as “super-predators, rapists and murderers,” and this is an issue that has not arisen recently. Whites used these terminologies to control newly freed African Americans, in response to the ratification of the 13th Amendment. In the Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, it is stated that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime of which the person shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the States -United”. Whites took full advantage of this amendment's loophole, namely the legalization of slavery as a punishment for criminals. They adopted a new system: mass and extensive incarceration. This is how the “mythology of black criminality” was born. In fact, “the 1915 drama film The Birth of the Nation is the perfect example of white people portraying African Americans as rapists and murderers.” Indeed, the main objective of this dramatic film was to convey a feeling of fear and permanent hatred towards African-Americans. This is the time when the criminal justice system became biased and began to criminalize African Americans in order to enslave them. Subsequently, this also led to segregation in the United States. Two defining elements of segregation were the Black Codes and Jim Crows laws. Essentially, both laws “relegated African Americans to permanent second-class status and limited their freedom.” African Americans were forced to live in fear because they could easily be arrested and returned to slavery if they violated these discriminatory laws. Furthermore, past presidents had used similar strategies to confine African Americans and keep them in second class status. For example, Richard Nixon used "the oxymoron known as the 'war on drugs' to specifically target African Americans" and incriminated them for minor crimes. Instead of trying to solve drug abuse through humanization, Nixon decided to address this problem of uprising through criminalization. He did not want to recognize African Americans as worthy individuals in need of help. For this reason, “prison was seen as a beast that ate black people for breakfast and dinner.” The government continued to overcrowd the prisons and, ultimately, "the prisoner rate continued to increase massively." Currently, the prison population in the United States exceeds two million and "America has the highest incarceration rate." 25% of the world's prisoners are in the United States. This is due to the continued “rationalized control” of African Americans. Furthermore, the.