Write a reading response discussing opposing claims about the Thirteenth Amendment
Instructions
In the documentary 13th, Jelani Cobb (Links to an external site.), a professor at Columbia Journalism School, makes the following claim:

One of the things to bear in mind is that when we think about slavery, it was an economic system. And the demise of slavery at the end of the Civil War left the Southern economy in tatters. Uh, and so this presented a big question. There are four million people who were formerly property, and they were formerly kind of the integral part of the economic production system in the South. And now those people are free. And so what do you do with these people? How do you rebuild your economy? The 13th Amendment loophole was immediately exploited. (2:50-3:32)

In “Demystifying the 13th Amendment and Its Impact on Mass Incarceration,” Patrick Rael (Links to an external site.), a professor of history at Bowdoin College, acknowledges that 13th’s “powerful overview of the crisis of mass incarceration from the Civil War to the present has earned it plaudits from critics, activists, and scholars,” but he argues that “we need to revisit its faulty foundational history.”

Rael first summarizes the argument of Jelani Cobb in the documentary: “that the amendment created a ‘loophole’ that permitted the massive criminalization of blackness that has defined the post-emancipation experience from Jim Crow to the prison industrial complex.” Rael then explains why he does not agree with the “loophole” argument:

In a nutshell, the [“loophole”] argument is this: The country did the right thing in passing an amendment intended to make all people equal, but some connived against that noble aim in permitting, and then exploiting, the mass incarceration loophole. When we put these claims to the test with a closer look at the Amendment and its origins, we learn that they bear little resemblance to the actual history.

First, watch13th (Links to an external site.)(if you have not already) and read “Demystifying the 13th Amendment and Its Impact on Mass Incarceration” (Links to an external site.) by Patrick Rael.

Then, in of at least 750 words, address the following questions:

What is the “13th Amendment loophole,” as explained in the documentary 13th?
Why does Patrick Rael believe that claims made about the 13th Amendment loophole “bear little resemblance to the actual history” of the amendment? (Briefly discuss Rael’s counter-argument and the kinds of evidence he uses to support his own claims.)
Which do you find most persuasive: the argument of Jelani Cobb (and others in the 13th documentary) about the 13th Amendment loophole or Rael’s counterargument? Explain your response.
For full credit, please support your claims with