"THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE" A MUST SEE FOR EVERY BLACK MAN IN AMERICA!

24 years ago five black teenagers were picked up off the street by Central Park police officers, coerced into making incriminating written and video confessions without any legal consul and while being separated from their parents.  They did not come home again until ten to thirteen years later.  For The Central Park Five the journey home was a long and difficult one but ultimately one that fate turned around in their favor.  The charge was the rape, attempted murder assault and battery among a total of 8 charges.  In spite of obvious evidence that these children were not the perpetrators NYPD and the NYC Attorney General, riding the wave of media frenzy, indicted and prosecuted all five teens until in 2003 the true rapist confessed to the crimes.  DNA and other critical evidence missing in the original trials forced the trial to be re-opened and it was finally determined that the five children, now grown into men were innocent.  Even though their records were expunged and they were released from prison the roughly 7 to 13 years taken away from their lives can never be repaid.   But the most disturbing fact is that the police officers and prosecuting attorneys, all of whom were in on this heinous crime to justice have not been brought to justice.  For their crimes their sense of home has never been threatened...

For 24 years Linda Fairstein, the District Attorney presiding over the Central Park Five case has lived with the knowledge that she wrongfully prosecuted and irreversibly damaged the lives of five young men and in order to save face, even though she left the District Attorney’s office in 2002, maintains that if the teens did not commit the crimes they were improperly condemned of then they must have been accessories.  The actual film footage of Fairstein, her assistants and the NYPD officers involved in the case shows that they not only knew they were lying but were actually winging it as they went along.  It is a sad commentary for NYPD but a wakeup call for every Black American man.  Throughout the more than 400 years that Black American men have been in the Americas our constant struggle has been coming back home...

As a Black man in America I was uniquely touched by this documentary and at the end I found myself no longer holding back tears.  The odd familiarity that acts of racism, no matter what the circumstances, have on the psyche of all men unify us across all racial, socioeconomic and political fields.  Racism has a way of pulling us away from who and what we are, it deprives us of home.  Defeating racism brings us back home again... Though racism is a universally felt force that unifies the oppressed everywhere, the experience of a Black man in America is unimaginable by anyone save ourselves and the more privileged ones upbringing the sharper the inevitable reality of racism will cut one's very spirit!   The sheer randomness and deliberateness of racism the cockiness and arrogance of its toxic and inane breath, the intensity with which its anger and hatred is focused leaves one virtually stunned if only for the first instant of realization that it has chosen you for its next victim!  But like anything else a seasoned, war hardened veteran not only detects racism well in advance but has a full arsenal of weapons to beat it back down into its grave!  These young teenage boys of 13 through 16 years old had not the wellspring of such an arsenal to draw from nor did their strong but naive families.  These children were tricked into writing being videotaped while making confessions with their families with the false promise and illusion that if they cooperated they would be free to go home.  Like many black people who find themselves in trouble they just wanted to do whatever they needed to do in order to  can go home again... The struggle of the Black man in America has always been for his freedom to go to a place he can call home and exist there without harassment or oppression by the pathological disease of racism.

I was disturbed that I did not see any other Black American men in the audience and that led me to understand how such a horrible crime could have been committed in 1989.  Vigilance and communication are key elements in preventing this kind of racial violence.  When I was in college we had a pact among my male associates that if we encountered another Black man being arrested or questioned by the police we would stand and watch, take the police car number, get the police badge numbers and if possible ascertain the identity of the brotha being detained to follow-up later.  I cannot count all the times I have done this then and now just to let the police know that somebody who is knowledgeable of their rights is watching them and taking notes.  Most racism in America is successfully executed because racists assume their victims are too ignorant and unsophisticated to fight back legally and eloquently.  What Black men must understand is that racism is a pathological disease similar to a psychopathic serial killer who gets off performing ritualistic homicides, who's lust is insatiable.  For many hundreds of years Black men were the victims of these psychopaths whose murderous lust was sanctioned by the very laws of our country.  To think that this blood-lust would suddenly die is grossly naive.  And to imagine that reason or kindness would engender humanity or conscience in  the cold heart of a psychopathic killer or racist is equally absurd.  Black men must always be on guard... it is the life we have inherited... Fortunately more and more Americans have made the choice to end the perpetuation of racism against black men in future generations... Unfortunately The Central Park Five were caught up in one of the most infamous race crimes and cover-ups of the late twentieth century... When one really thinks about the scale and gravity of this crime it is hard not to lose faith in humanity...  Fortunately it is  the miraculous way  this tale of horror was resolved that renews our faith in the ability of the human spirit to persevere and ultimately replace evil with goodness...

  

Go see this film, whether you are black or white if you are a humanitarian it will be an eye opener revealing the insidiousness and hypocrisy of racist practices which still haunt the legal system of this great country…  Go see it ASAP!  The Central Park Five is more than just a documentary about a monstrous event that pulled out the very worst of trusted public officials who sank to the lowest depths of racism and debauchery... it is ultimately a story about how five young black boys, after many years finally managed to get back home...

FIN

By David Vollin