For my fourth media blog post, I decided to watch Part One of the Netflix series titled When They See Us. I never watched this series before, but I have heard about the Central Park five from readings in class. The Central Park five were all convicted of a rape of a woman that happened to be jogging in Central Park. This episode showed prime examples of racial discrimination. African Americans seem to always get the short end of the stick when it comes to the criminal justice system. Even in the nineteenth century, states looked up to the criminal justice system to form policies and strategies that maintain white supremacy (Stevenson 2018). Even our modern-day criminal justice system shows implicit bias towards African Americans.
The episode starts out in Harlem in April of 1989. Slowly, young African American boys are being introduced in the episode. They all end up in Central Park at the same time on the night of an alleged rape. Some of the boys are harassing other people in the park on bikes. Then, a fight breaks out between some of the boys and the police immediately start chasing and tackling boys. Some are taken into the police station and are forced to wait there until their parents pick them up, even though they had no affiliation with the fight at all.
Police become aware of a rape that occurred in Central Park on the same night. The woman that seems to be in charge of the case is absolutely convinced that these young boys have committed this gruesome crime. There are major issues with the timeline of the rape and the locations of the boys, but this does not ease her suspicions. Still convinced, she forces them into questioning, even though they are minors without their parents present. These interrogations are nothing but harsh. One by one, the investigators scream at the boys at the top of their lungs. These boys are not in any way aware of their rights and are engulfed with fear. The investigators convince them that other suspects have already told on them, and that they were the ones to rape the lady. They each begin to fabricate stories in order to save themselves, even though they have no idea who they are even telling on. With all different versions of confessions, it is clear these boys have no association with the rape or with each other.
The episode ends with the suspects all meeting together in one room. As they begin talking to each other and officially meeting for the first time, they realize the situation they are now in. The boys apologize to each other and share their versions of the confessions. The police clearly made each of them lie in hopes of being able to go home. Next, they are all handcuffed and being taken away in police cars. I assumed they were being taken to a juvenile detention center to await trial. It seems as if they were just looking for anyone to blame, and a group of black teenage boys was their perfect fit.
The first emotion that comes to mind while watching this was anger. While I was watching, I kept thinking to myself, “How are they even allowed to do this?”. I could not believe the way these young boys were being treated. It is clear they were discriminating them based off of the color of their skin, just because they could. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Why were these young boys treated like cold hard criminals for a crime it was obvious they had nothing to do with? There was no physical evidence that any of them had any affiliation with the crime.
The psychological abuse these boys went through while being questioned should have never happened, and I think it made the case incredibly messy. One specific piece of information that stuck out to me was that some of these boys were taken to the police station and were detained before the police were even aware of the rape that occurred. Since these boys were minors and it was most likely their first altercation with the police, they had no clue what they were doing. Now with five different versions of confessions, no one even knows what they are talking about or who they are convicting.
It is clear these boys were unfortunate victims of racial profiling before the term even existed. Less than a year after this initial altercation, the term “racial profiling” was first used in February of 1990. Racial profiling mainly involves police officers who consciously view black men suspiciously, even if they have no involvement with crime (Hutchins 2018). Some of the suspects were just picked up off the street, with no real connection to even being in the park the night before. In the eyes of the police officers, these teenage boys were guilty of the crime purely based on the color of their skin.
I would recommend this series to anyone who wants to learn more about the Central Park five and the wrongful abuse they suffered through. This episode provoked powerful emotions from me and had my full attention the entire time. I sat in shock at the way these young African American boys were treated. As I said before, I did know about the Central Park five before watching this episode. However, I do not think I would ever have felt this strongly about their situation if I never watched this episode.
References
DuVernay, A. (2019). When they see us. Retrieved from www.netflix.com
Hutchins, R. M. (2018) Racial Profiling: The law, the policy, and the practice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 95-116). Vintage Books.
Stevenson, B. (2018). A presumption of guilt: The legacy of America’s history of racial injustice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 3-20). Vintage Books.