As a white person in the suburbs of another state I
swallowed the verdict hook, line and sinker. Now I am ashamed that I
along with probably the majority of the nation did. We did not know
these boys were coerced and beaten into submission by the police
investigators and prosecutors.
When they are found innocent years later because of sheer luck that the real perpetrator of the horrific rape and assault shared the same prison milieu as one of the boys. DNA does it again as it has many times before. It finds the real perpetrator and frees five boys who have been in prison hell unjustly for years.
In the end I cried and could not stop crying. I am still crying for the miscarriage of justice, the immense suffering of the five innocent boys, for those of us who believed the press, police and the prosecution at the time and who did not question power. Power will do anything to keep that power even if it means ruining the lives of young innocent human beings.
Shame on the prosecutor who because of the docudrama has now resigned, shame on the NYC police of that time and shame on us who think we are in post racial times as our Supreme Court has erroneously proclaimed only to deny justice to persons of color yet again and again and again. When will it stop? This taught me yet another time to, as Howard Zinn said to me years before, always question the decisions of those in power. Who do those decisions benefit and why?
Deep apologies to those boys, and deep apologies for a Donald Trump who knows no justice nor humanity still and who wanted execution of those innocent boys paying $85,000 to the New York Daily News advocating it without knowing a thing about this miscarriage of justice. May the Trump crime family of massive hypocrisy see the inside of those cells those boys had to endure and may our nation understand the racism that still exists here embedded in the sinew of our bones. May we always know, as the crowds in Harlem proclaimed, that black lives matter and understand well that they do!
When they are found innocent years later because of sheer luck that the real perpetrator of the horrific rape and assault shared the same prison milieu as one of the boys. DNA does it again as it has many times before. It finds the real perpetrator and frees five boys who have been in prison hell unjustly for years.
In the end I cried and could not stop crying. I am still crying for the miscarriage of justice, the immense suffering of the five innocent boys, for those of us who believed the press, police and the prosecution at the time and who did not question power. Power will do anything to keep that power even if it means ruining the lives of young innocent human beings.
Shame on the prosecutor who because of the docudrama has now resigned, shame on the NYC police of that time and shame on us who think we are in post racial times as our Supreme Court has erroneously proclaimed only to deny justice to persons of color yet again and again and again. When will it stop? This taught me yet another time to, as Howard Zinn said to me years before, always question the decisions of those in power. Who do those decisions benefit and why?
Deep apologies to those boys, and deep apologies for a Donald Trump who knows no justice nor humanity still and who wanted execution of those innocent boys paying $85,000 to the New York Daily News advocating it without knowing a thing about this miscarriage of justice. May the Trump crime family of massive hypocrisy see the inside of those cells those boys had to endure and may our nation understand the racism that still exists here embedded in the sinew of our bones. May we always know, as the crowds in Harlem proclaimed, that black lives matter and understand well that they do!
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