Amend: The Fight for America

[Greg]

tQ and I just started this documentary about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. You remember the 14th, right? It's the one that says we can....Speaking for myself, I wouldn't have been able to pick the 14th Amendment out of a line-up. Basically, the 14th says everyone is a citizen and we get all the rights that entails. As a white person, my thinking was didn't we already have that? Yeah, no.

The documentary posits the theory that what we think of as America really started with the 14th Amendment. And the show does a great job of proving it's case. Will Smith narrates but there's a huge cast of actors who recreate speeches from that time. It's also filled in with photographs and animations and really good music. Amend, so far, is incredibly well done. I say this only having watched Ep1 and half of Ep2. Hopefully, the show will keep up the quality.

Ep1 centers around Frederick Douglass, The Civil War and the passing of the 14th Amendment. Mahersala Ali does all the Frederick Douglass speeches. There is also a bucketful of analysts who do a great job of giving the era context. There is a lot of talk about what it means to be a citizen.

Ep2 shows how the white folk immediately moved to undermine everything the 14th Amendment meant to fix.

No sword fights yet.

[Greg]

Ep 3 moves away from Black Civil rights to see how the Women's Rights Movement used the 14th amendment to plead it's case for equality.

Ep 4 changes the formula a little bit focus on one man and how his life was the impetus for the Gay Marriage Act, again using the 14th Amendment.

It's a really well done powerful series. Also proves that I should have paid more attention in history class.

[Greg]

The final Episode dealt with Immigrants and how the 14th Amendment affected them. It highlighted the struggles of the Chinese and Mexican immigrants and how laws were promptly put in place to disenfranchise them as soon as they were no longer needed. I'm beginning to think the show should be subtitled 'White Americans are Bad' because every time there is a law helping immigrants there immediately follows a law stripping immigrants of their rights. The show even shows how these transgressions are being felt today. They had plenty of clips of Tr*** telling us how bad the 14th amendment was.

But it's done. I learned a lot of American History I was unfamiliar with. It made me sad. I recommend the show.