White police, black suspects: "They see us so" or racism as a political weapon

VALÈNCIA United States, 1989. The crack I had broken into poor neighborhoods, mostly people of color, who were shooting at crime. Cities like New York they suffered on average six daily murders. So much Nixona long time ago as Ronald Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bushhad declared war on drugs energetically ("the public enemy number one", called him Nixon). Over the decades, federal budgets have doubled to go down the street more police and they opened (or expanded) more prisons. With such repressive measures, that year, about a million Americans lived in jails (a figure that would double another two decades later). 40% of them were black.

Social hysteria against crime was magnified and overrepresented in the media. Newspapers like The New York Daily News they lived on the sensationalism of what should have been treated rather as a social epidemic and yet he was treated with hard hand by administrations. In March, spring was just beginning, a TV show was born on Fox, who was the ancestor of the reality show. He was calling The cops. Created as a result of the writers' strike (in addition to being extremely cheap), the TV show about arrests by police it has become a stitch that has nurtured social concern. The story of the format was extremely simple: White policemen arrest black suspects. End

With this fusion of information that I advance before you talk about the series, you can already contextualize time I'm going to talk to you about it: 1989. The "fear of crime" (just like "Vox's fear" worked in the last general election) was then a powerful political weapon that won the voters, as well as the media. for entertain the population based on fear.

"Black Beast" violates "white woman"

The fateful day has arrived. It was a hot night of April 19th. Nail young, white woman named Trisha Meiliappeared almost dead after being raped in Central Park. The case was not an ordinary crime: it was a cruel crime against a Caucasian woman, young, beautiful and respectable profession (she worked in the financial sector, profession more chic of the decade). For the city leaders, who lived off incomes of "their fight against crime", the crime had to be solved with force and speed.

The media, looking for carnaza, focused on this case more than any other occurrence each day, especially when the profiles of the victims were revealed. Inmates: five boys of color aged 14 to 16 from Harlem. "Wolf Pack"; "Wild"; "Predators", "beasts"; "Animals", could be read on the front pages of the press. The story was perfect. He reaffirmed the myth of "Black rapists of white women", a history since the beginning of time in American popular culture (remember The birth of a nation D. Griffith).

Mediated before being judged

"The Five of Central Park", as they were nicknamed, were actually Yusef Salamm, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise. Five children, no criminal record, who, with a large group of boys from the Harlem neighborhood, were in the park at the time of the crime. Only for this circumstance were detained and interrogated for hours and hours, some of them without even the presence of their parents, and of course without the help of a lawyer. After long interrogations that left them exhausted and desperate to get out of there, they were forced to testify against the rest and intervene only as witnesses (as they believed).

Once their statements were recorded, using them as the only argument that implicated them in the crime, They were tried and sentenced. American society applauded their homes, while Donald Trump, by advertisements published in the main newspapers of the country, called for the introduction of the death penalty in the state of New York. The "beasts" would eventually rot in correctional facilities (some) or in prison (the one who was 16 years old), and administrations liberated whites from good and crime on the street. Happy ending…

Well no. In 2001, a man named Matías Reyes he confessed to being the true author of the violationand after checking the DNA samples, it was confirmed that It was him and not the five young people.

By the time this truth was revealed, the blisters did not seem so painful to the convicts unfairly. On the contrary: they avoided the mea culpa. Beyond the responsibility of the press, fortunately for the five, For the first time, justice tried to repair its mistakeby compensating them with $ 42 million years later.

The best work of Ava DuVernay

Based on this real story, Netflix commissioned the prestigious African-American designer Ava DuVernay perform a fictional series of four episodes about the case and what happened later. DuVernay is a screenwriter and director of award-winning film and documentary films at the Sundance Film Festival. Middle of nowhere (2012), or the excellent documentary on racial inequality in the United States titled 13th (2016), which I recommend to see if you want more. On television, she is the creator of the series Queen sugar.

Under That's how they see us (When they see us), is one of the credits with Oprah Winfrey as an executive producer, in addition to other names such as Robert De Niro. And among the actors, they will recognize Felicity Huffman in the role of the implacable prosecutor of violent crimes, Linda Fairstein, in addition to Michael Kenneth Williams, known to the public for his role as Omar Little in Thread.

With a very high level of interpretation as a whole, emphasizes in his last episode the work of the very young Jarrel Jerome (Moonlight) as Korey Wise, in an interpretation that will undoubtedly give her a multitude of rewards, besides putting them Goose bumps.

This week, while critics had almost unanimously decided that Chernobyl was without doubt the best series of the year, arrived without making a lot of noise and through the back door That's how they see us, what is obviously the other super miniseries of this prolific 2019. With a deep aroma Thread, a The night ofand even, in his last episode, to The midnight express, I strongly encourage you to see him. And if you want to meet the five real guys from Central Park, look for the newspaper library documentary directed by Ken Burns and Susan Burns, Central Park Five (2012), look at these children's eyes and understand how bad the system is.