Text Review: 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets

I chose the documentary film “3 ½ minutes, Ten Bullets” for the text review assignment. This is the documentary made based on the event that happened on the night after Thanksgiving of 2012. That night a young black man (Jordan Davis) got shot ten times within three- and one-half minutes by a middle-aged white man (Michael Dunn) over an absurd reason: where Davis and his friends were playing loud music outside of a store. The film contains a sequence of interviews with Davis’s parents and friends where we can see outright discrimination they have faced. This documentary sums up all the stereotypes and injustices African Americans face here in the United States, and this is what we have been talking about throughout the semester. The film lays out the reasoning behind Dunn’s predisposition action where his conscious or unconscious assumption about black teenagers with loud rap music with guns and gangs. The murderer Dunn stated on the trial that he saw a weapon held by Davis and was being attacked so he counter-attacked for his safety but no sort of weapon was recovered after the event. The color of the skin of a person should not be seen as a weapon. Just being black does not mean they are a threat to other non-blacks. This is just an example; it seems like the system is designed to disproportionately impact people of color since there are many other cases where black men are getting killed for similar reasons recent example being the death of George Floyd. The director of this film had captured all the events outside of the courtroom not just to tell all the details of what happened that night, but rather to make viewers aware of what is happening around them and to gain more understanding of an individual who is unable to tell their own story.

One thought on “Text Review: 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets

  1. Hi, thank you for your presentation. I watched this documentary a few years back and remember feeling very shocked at the events that played out. However, as the years have gone on, these types of occurrences have only seemed to become more frequent unfortunately. As you mentioned, I love how this film addresses many stereotypes that Black people face. I think that it is a great tool that one can use to discern internal and blatant bias that they may believe which ultimately hurts many minorities in our society.

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