Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing series. Anyone who touches the criminal justice system should watch it. It should be shown in police academies and law schools. White people (I am white btw) want to believe the world is just, and the American justice system is color blind, and only people who deserve to go to jail are in jail. To have your eyes opened to the systemic racism and injustice that exists in this country is to face the uncomfortable reality that we white people benefit from this system that robs others of their rights & their lives.

Whiteness protects us in so many ways. It is an awful reality. I love this country and want it to be just. To get there we have to bear witness to the horrors inflicted on our fellow Americans who are Black - like the Exonerated Five. Recognize and acknowledge the soul deep suffering that these boys and their families were put through because of racism and an unjust criminal system. And all the Black Americans who are still suffering today. We’ve never had anything close to truth and reconciliation in this country. How can we reconcile when we haven’t atoned for the atrocities of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, white supremacist terrorism, and other American policies and institutions that have disproportionately kept Black Americans from building wealth, that are responsible for poorer health outcomes and higher maternal mortality rates across the board, and that have resulted in Black Americans being incarcerated at higher rates than other groups?

Yet a sizeable section of white America doesn’t believe racism exists! Or worse, that white people are victims of “reverse racism!” How do we heal and move forward as a unified country when this is the case? It makes me sad.

At the very least, watch this series and bear witness to the injustice. Realize it is still happening. Don’t try to justify what happened to these youth. Don’t put it off because it’s uncomfortable. Black people in America don’t have that luxury. Watch it and let it break your heart. Our hearts have to break over the injustice and suffering before anything else can happen.

Did whiteness protect the Duke lacrosse players? I think you might want to chillax on the AA studies classes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing series. Anyone who touches the criminal justice system should watch it. It should be shown in police academies and law schools. White people (I am white btw) want to believe the world is just, and the American justice system is color blind, and only people who deserve to go to jail are in jail. To have your eyes opened to the systemic racism and injustice that exists in this country is to face the uncomfortable reality that we white people benefit from this system that robs others of their rights & their lives.

Whiteness protects us in so many ways. It is an awful reality. I love this country and want it to be just. To get there we have to bear witness to the horrors inflicted on our fellow Americans who are Black - like the Exonerated Five. Recognize and acknowledge the soul deep suffering that these boys and their families were put through because of racism and an unjust criminal system. And all the Black Americans who are still suffering today. We’ve never had anything close to truth and reconciliation in this country. How can we reconcile when we haven’t atoned for the atrocities of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, white supremacist terrorism, and other American policies and institutions that have disproportionately kept Black Americans from building wealth, that are responsible for poorer health outcomes and higher maternal mortality rates across the board, and that have resulted in Black Americans being incarcerated at higher rates than other groups?

Yet a sizeable section of white America doesn’t believe racism exists! Or worse, that white people are victims of “reverse racism!” How do we heal and move forward as a unified country when this is the case? It makes me sad.

At the very least, watch this series and bear witness to the injustice. Realize it is still happening. Don’t try to justify what happened to these youth. Don’t put it off because it’s uncomfortable. Black people in America don’t have that luxury. Watch it and let it break your heart. Our hearts have to break over the injustice and suffering before anything else can happen.

Did whiteness protect the Duke lacrosse players? I think you might want to chillax on the AA studies classes.

Anonymous wrote:Amazing series. Anyone who touches the criminal justice system should watch it. It should be shown in police academies and law schools. White people (I am white btw) want to believe the world is just, and the American justice system is color blind, and only people who deserve to go to jail are in jail. To have your eyes opened to the systemic racism and injustice that exists in this country is to face the uncomfortable reality that we white people benefit from this system that robs others of their rights & their lives.

Whiteness protects us in so many ways. It is an awful reality. I love this country and want it to be just. To get there we have to bear witness to the horrors inflicted on our fellow Americans who are Black - like the Exonerated Five. Recognize and acknowledge the soul deep suffering that these boys and their families were put through because of racism and an unjust criminal system. And all the Black Americans who are still suffering today. We’ve never had anything close to truth and reconciliation in this country. How can we reconcile when we haven’t atoned for the atrocities of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, white supremacist terrorism, and other American policies and institutions that have disproportionately kept Black Americans from building wealth, that are responsible for poorer health outcomes and higher maternal mortality rates across the board, and that have resulted in Black Americans being incarcerated at higher rates than other groups?

Yet a sizeable section of white America doesn’t believe racism exists! Or worse, that white people are victims of “reverse racism!” How do we heal and move forward as a unified country when this is the case? It makes me sad.

At the very least, watch this series and bear witness to the injustice. Realize it is still happening. Don’t try to justify what happened to these youth. Don’t put it off because it’s uncomfortable. Black people in America don’t have that luxury. Watch it and let it break your heart. Our hearts have to break over the injustice and suffering before anything else can happen.

Anonymous wrote:A number of news outlets are reporting that Lederer resigned from Columbia Law.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-central-park-5-lederer-columbia-black-law-students-20190612-a6rqou3hdvhyljpzkzafqtncca-story.html

Anonymous wrote:A number of news outlets are reporting that Lederer resigned from Columbia Law.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-central-park-5-lederer-columbia-black-law-students-20190612-a6rqou3hdvhyljpzkzafqtncca-story.html

Anonymous wrote:I have watched the documentary on amazon last year and honestly this was one of the cases that most impacted me emotionally. I started watching the series yesterday and I almost couldn’t finish the first episode. I told my husband that I will not watch it until my summer classes are over. I went to bed crying and took me a long time to fall asleep. Somehow, I think if you watched the Ken Burns’ doc, this Netflix series is even harder to swallow. Those actors are doing a great job and I hope they get recognized for it.

Anonymous wrote:I’ll pass. Sounds like a bunch of agit prop from the left to counter racism from the right. Unlikely to be either entertaining or educational.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finished Episode 2 and saddened by how the evidence (or lack thereof rather) was totally ignored and the conviction of these boys came down to confessions that even Stevie Wonder could see were totally coerced.
Saddened to even imagine how many people of color over the years were bullied and brutalized into making admissions of guilt during unlawful interrogations and ultimately railroaded by a corrupt criminal justice system that totally ignored their Constitutional rights as the Fifth Amendment commands that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Saddened to think of just how many people of color over the years have been beaten and threatened into giving involuntary confessions all because of How They See Us.


In 1989 the first DNA exoneration took place. There have been 365 DNA exonerees to date. 28% of those 365 exonerees were pressured into false confessions and 33% of those false confessors were 18 years old or younger at the time of arrest. And of those 365 exonerees, 225 (62%) were African American.
I’m glad that we live in a time now where forensic science is available and widely accepted.
DNA evidence was the key to overturning the convictions of those boys, but they still spent years locked up before that happened.
Saddened to think of how many people of color spent so many years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit but were coerced into confessing and never got out and never saw justice prevail because in their day there was no forensic science.
Whole thing is saddening.

Yep, only happens to people of color

Anonymous wrote:Finished Episode 2 and saddened by how the evidence (or lack thereof rather) was totally ignored and the conviction of these boys came down to confessions that even Stevie Wonder could see were totally coerced.
Saddened to even imagine how many people of color over the years were bullied and brutalized into making admissions of guilt during unlawful interrogations and ultimately railroaded by a corrupt criminal justice system that totally ignored their Constitutional rights as the Fifth Amendment commands that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Saddened to think of just how many people of color over the years have been beaten and threatened into giving involuntary confessions all because of How They See Us.


In 1989 the first DNA exoneration took place. There have been 365 DNA exonerees to date. 28% of those 365 exonerees were pressured into false confessions and 33% of those false confessors were 18 years old or younger at the time of arrest. And of those 365 exonerees, 225 (62%) were African American.
I’m glad that we live in a time now where forensic science is available and widely accepted.
DNA evidence was the key to overturning the convictions of those boys, but they still spent years locked up before that happened.
Saddened to think of how many people of color spent so many years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit but were coerced into confessing and never got out and never saw justice prevail because in their day there was no forensic science.
Whole thing is saddening.