Ava DuVernay’s 13th, which opened the New York Film Festival and is currently available to watch on Netflix, traces the history between the abolition of slavery with the 13th amendment and the current system of mass incarceration. It’s a sobering, incisive documentary that doesn’t pull any punches, even when it comes to criticizing both presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This short, two-minute clip is a particularly effective piece of agitprop, as it looks at the parallels between Donald Trump supporters and white supremacists who resisted the civil-rights movement.
During an interview with Vulture about the documentary, DuVernay discussed why it was important to make a visual link between Donald Trump’s rhetoric and the violence black people endure in America. “When you’re saying, ‘I love the good old days when people were taken out in stretchers,’ I have to show what that is,†DuVernay said. “I have to visualize what that is and what that looks like.â€