When They See Us, The Central Park Five Story

Writer: Noel Austin

If you haven't heard of or seen the Netflix miniseries: When They See Us, you are missing out on crucial story about the history of racial injustice in the American justice system.

The miniseries is based on the true story of the Central Park Five: Korey Wise, Antron Mcray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana.

The Central Park Five were five, young, African American kids who were wrongly convicted of the beating and the rape of a white women jogger in 1989. They were sentenced to six to 15

years in prison.

In 2002, the five had all of their charges dropped because the real criminal who committed the rape and murder confessed to it, and the DNA they found at the crime scene matched with him. The five soon sued the state of New York, and in 2014 they were awarded $41 million.

There is one thing money can't buy in life and that's time and memories. These five kids were essentially robbed of their childhood and teenage years. They will never experience prom or walking across the stage to graduate high school. When They See Us is an important series to watch because racial injustice within the American Justice system is still going on even in 2019.

At the time of the case which was 1989, media publications used words like; animal and Wolfpack to dehumanize these kids. They were just kids, but the narrative that other people wrote were that they were these savage animals. Director, Ava DuVernay, did a great job humanizing these kids in this case because at the end of the day they were only kids in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This mini-series was hard to watch. I heard from many people that they had to pause the show because it was too much at times. Sometimes the truth is the hardest to watch, but this is the reality of young black kids. We are held to a different standard when we are being policed in this country. We are seen more as a threat to police than people.

For a generation that didn't know who the central park five was, this miniseries opened all of our eyes to the reality of injustice in this country. Now that this series sparked more conversation of the case, lawyers are reopening the case and those involved in putting these five kids away especially Linda Fairstein are losing everything one by one. They are also looking to insight Linda Fairstein, the women who put this whole case together and illegally interrogated these five kids.