COMMENTS welcome
About the Central Park Five, the kids who were accused, tried and sentenced for attacking, raping and sodomizing a jogger in Central Park in 1989 (Ancient history? Not really, most NYers still remember the shock -- I certainly do):
About the Central Park Five, the kids who were accused, tried and sentenced for attacking, raping and sodomizing a jogger in Central Park in 1989 (Ancient history? Not really, most NYers still remember the shock -- I certainly do):
There was "no conclusive" evidence that they were the culprits. The only "evidence" were "confessions" extracted after hours and hours and hours and hours of non-stop interrogation. Once the police got the youngest of the kids to "confess" ('confess and you will go home'), other kids "confessed" also.
They were sentenced, a sentence confirmed after an appeal, to 6 to 13 years in prison.
In 2002, a convicted rapist confessed he ALONE did it. DNA testing confirmed it.
The District Attorney then "vacated" the charge against the 5 kids.
"Vacating" means that the charges never happened. Just a huge whitewash on the history blackboard. No apology, no contrition, no "Oh my god what have we done."
The message was "Kid, you got lucky this time. Next time, you are toast."
In 2002, a convicted rapist confessed he ALONE did it. DNA testing confirmed it.
The District Attorney then "vacated" the charge against the 5 kids.
"Vacating" means that the charges never happened. Just a huge whitewash on the history blackboard. No apology, no contrition, no "Oh my god what have we done."
The message was "Kid, you got lucky this time. Next time, you are toast."
Even before the trial started, Donald Trump bought ad pages in the NY newspapers, NYTimes included, demanding the death penalty for all of them.
That's how you buy a reputation for being "though on crime." It's cheap and readily available. The only requirement is that the alleged crimes must come from "them darker people down there."
I don't hate racism -- it's too abstract. I hate racists.
Amen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/opinion/the-white-rebellion.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
That's how you buy a reputation for being "though on crime." It's cheap and readily available. The only requirement is that the alleged crimes must come from "them darker people down there."
I don't hate racism -- it's too abstract. I hate racists.
Amen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/opinion/the-white-rebellion.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
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ReplyDeleteI also read this while researching about the Central Park Five. I found it absolutely disgusting. Just because your rich enough to buy pages of a newspaper your opinion is qualified to be "news". What about the kids who were wrongly convicted? What about their families? Didn't they deserve their any newspaper pages where they could say the judge that convicted them deserved to be fire? They were the ones who actually suffered from the mishandling of the case,unlike some rich white man with a biased opinion. But no, since they didn't have the money to buy a page of the NY newspapers what they thought and went through didn't matter that much, it didn't qualify as news.
ReplyDeleteAbout this man being President now, a lot of white people were just afraid this anti racism had gone too far and it would end up with them being discriminated against before racism had even properly ended.