When They See Us is a Netflix series based on the true story of the Central Park Five. The series focuses on the mistreatment of the five juveniles by the justice system. The Central Park Five were five teenage boys that were hanging out in the evening in Central Park, New York City. The case occurred in 1989, and on the same night a white woman named Trisha Meili had been jogging at the park. She was found severely beaten and raped and was in a coma for 12 days. The victims accused were five young boys, Black and Hispanic, all around the ages between 14 and 16 years old.
Photo of the Central Park Five and the Actors that played them in the series
Left to right: Antron Mccray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise.
The young boys were convicted of a crime they didn’t even commit, just because of their race. The teenage boys were robbed of their whole lives in just a second. They ended up serving, “between six and thirteen years in prison, eventually won a $40 million settlement from the city” (Morales). These innocent boys were only targeted for this crime because of their race. They were immediately shown as thugs and criminals in the media after the arrest. New York Police officers arrested them and they were taken to the station. These young boys were scared out of their minds because they didn’t know what they did. Lawyers claimed they were coerced into admitting to a crime they didn’t even commit. All these boys were under the age of 18 and yet were interrogated by police officers without their parents being present, which is illegal.
Injustice, race, socioeconomic status and discrimination are all main themes of the show. The series shows the injustice these young boys faced during this horrible time. The show also hits on the fact of how people of color often don’t have the knowledge of how the law works. Some even have problems with legal representation because they can’t afford to hire a good lawyer. In other cases, like the Latino communities, many encounter injustice because of the language barriers they may face. This is presented in the series, when the parents of the accused are flooded by the process of the law, and had difficulties with knowing how to properly support their children.
The oppression these young boys faced reminds me of the topic we discussed in class intersectional identity. The boys were poor disadvantaged New York boys who weren’t treated as equal as others. They were Black and Hispanic young boys and that makes them minorities. Minorities have always been seen as dangerous and criminal like to the white communities. The justice system sough to oppress them in their broader community because of their skin color, socioeconomic status, and the fact that they were minorities.
I think the creator of When They See Us wants us to takeaway the discrimination that many face based solely on their race and socioeconomic status. The creator wants us to see the effect that the wrongful convictions had on these innocent young boys lives. The creator focuses on showing the injustice that young minorities face in the American legislation and how one wrongful conviction can change a person’s entire life.
Sources:
Morales, Ed. “Perspective | ‘When They See Us’ Is a Reminder of the Racial Hysteria That Gripped NYC in the 1990s – and That Still Lingers.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 June 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/07/when-they-see-us-is-reminder-racial-hysteria-that-gripped-nyc-s-that-still-lingers/.