(CNN)Documentaries have become a prime platform for exploring race and class distinctions, with two worthy examples arriving the same week. "Class Divide," on HBO, exposes the impact of gentrification on a New York neighborhood, while Netflix's "13th" delves into wholesale incarceration of African-American men, connecting that to the 13th Amendment and the abolition of slavery. Directed by "Selma's" Ava DuVernay, "13th" builds a compelling case for how after the Civil War racial division historically served the needs of political elites, and how coded language and policies -- including "wars" on crime and drugs in the 1970s and '80s, respectively -- advanced those objectives. DuVernay prosecutes the case almost chronologically, from the image the original "The Birth of a Nation" painted of black men in 1915 through the steady rise of a prison population weighted toward them over the last 45 years.
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