The Justice System Needs a New Name

"They are

Jusef

Antron

Kevin

Raymond

and

Korey.

Those are their names and we need to KNOW them and SAY their names."

(Ava DuVernay)

Over the last few days I have raged and wept over Ava DuVernay's latest work, "When They See Us.'

Ava takes the viewer on a journey through the 'Central Park 5' case through the eyes of the five young boys, wrongly accused of rape and assault in 1989. These BOYS, 14-16 years old, were in the wrong place at the wrong time, running through Central Park NY at the same time a 28 year old woman was brutally raped and assaulted. These boys, who did NOT commit this atrocious act, were hounded by the police and investigators for hours upon hours. They were terrified, unaware of the attack or why they were being interrogated. Some of them, despite being minors, were interrogated even without their parents by their side. Korey, one of the five who was ONLY at the station to support his best friend taken in by the police, was literally beaten into submission. They all feared for their lives. They were all told the other boys had named them as the perps. They were all fed lines to say, promised that if they just said them they could go home. There was no DNA matches found, no blood or mud or anything on the boys clothes; no fingerprints, hair, ANYTHING that put them at the scene of the woman. But there had been a string of rapes and murders in New York that year and the world wanted justice. They didn't care who had to pay the price.

Years later, the real man who committed the act admitted guilt and the boys were exonerated... after already having spent 6-13 years in prison; robbed of their innocence, their childhoods, and (as criminal records go) their futures.

It is also brought to light how Donald Trump spent $85,000 dollars on an ad calling for the death penalty for these boys. [To this day only 21 of our 50 states have completely abolished the death penalty; New York doing so in 2007, years after these boys were convicted.] There were many people at the time that shared this line of thinking - the boys were in the park, the crime was in the park, ergo the boys did it, end of story, kill them all. However, it is crucial we always LISTEN and assume innocence until proven guilty.

I have to admit how hopeless it all makes me feel.

After the first of the four episodes of 'When They See Us' I wanted to turn it off, forget I ever knew such things, pretend like the world is a better place than it is... but what does that get me?

We have to know where we have been in order to know where we are going.

No matter how painful, we must know our history.

Our TRUE history (not the 'white-washed' version).

It is the only hope for a better future.

And we MUST. DO. BETTER.

Oprah interviewed Ava, the cast, and the actual five boys (now grown men) in an hour segment called 'When They See Us Now.' In that interview, something Ava said laid things out so clearly and inspired me to hope, to never give up, to ACT. She said,

"She [Linda, the driving force behind putting these men behind bars] is part of a system that is not broken it was built to be this way. It was built to oppress. It was built to control. It was built to shape our culture in a specific way that kept some people here (low) and some people here (high). It was built for profit. It was built for political gain and power and it is incumbent upon us, it lives upon us, our taxpayer dollars, our votes, the goods that we buy that are made inside of prisons. It lives off of our IGNORANCE and we can no longer be ignorant. And so the goal of this... the real thing we are all trying to do... is to be able to say

GO America! Lets do this! Lets change this! And you can't change what you don't know, so we came together to show you what you may not know. Now that you know, WHAT WILL YOU DO? How will you change this?"

Ava's goal was of course not to make us feel hopeless, ashamed, guilty, or any of those things.

She made this masterpiece with the goal of moving people to action, being a catalyst for conversation, moving people to evaluate what they think and how they behave in the world. (interview with Oprah)

So what will YOU do?

How will you respond?

Will you change the way you think about other people and how you treat them?

Will you fight for the rights of ALL people?

Will you stop hate when you hear it?

Will you protect your brothers and sisters with black and brown bodies?

Will you protest oppressive systems and fight for their renewal?

Will you see the eyes of God staring back at you no matter who you're facing?

Will you refuse to rest until ALL are free?

Or will you kick back in your comfortable life and thank God you don't have to deal with such issues?

Or will you refuse to listen, turn off the Netflix, and insist they must have been guilty and that justice was served? Will you choose hate over love? Will you choose ignorant bliss over knowledge and truth?

The choice is yours.

But I for one cannot live in a world where things like this not only happen, but are the norm.

I refuse.