As said by Freddy Miyares, who played Raymond Santana in the Netflix series, When They See Us , “They say ‘boys will be boys.’ When they say ‘boys,’ they not talking about us. They talking about other boys from other places. When did we ever get to be boys?”
When did the “Central Park 5” ever get to be boys? The youngest 14, the oldest 16, that was the time when they were supposed to be boys. Instead that opportunity was swept from under them and they had to be men, when they were just kids.
The Central Park 5, now also known as the Exonerated 5, were five boys who were at the wrong place at the wrong time, convicted of crimes they did not commit, rape and assault.
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Six to 14 years spent locked away, just wishing to be home. To be told you would go home if you did what the detectives wanted, but then not go home. How would you feel? Hours spent with physical, verbal, and mental abuse by detectives, police officers, interrogating, without a guardian present. These young boys were told what to say, rehearsed what to say, lied even though they didn’t even know each other. The abuse put on them should never be what someone should go through.
We live in a world where African-Americans, Hispanics as well, will be guilty, even after being proven not guilty. The justice system is supposed to be equal and fair. You cannot call what happened to these individuals fair. They didn’t have a fair chance at proving they weren’t guilty. They didn’t have a fair chance at life.
Hearing this story first-hand from Kevin Richardson, one of the Exonerated 5, at the Bowling Green State University Black Issues Conference Feb. 15 opened my eyes. Being able to ask him questions and listen to all he went through, what really hit me was him saying that even though he isn’t bitter, it doesn’t mean he isn’t angry. To be able to stand up there and speak about your trauma, I truly would never understand. But his strength through it all is motivational in itself.
Watching the show, doing the research, hearing about it first-hand makes me angry. As an 18-year-old Biracial woman, I refuse to allow this to continue to be a thing. Yes, they were exonerated and this was a while ago. Yes, they received a settlement. But money is only temporary. The mental abuse, the memories, the trauma, that’s for life. I liked how Mr. Richardson said, “Physically I was a prisoner, but mentally I wasn’t.” These setbacks in life made them all stronger and created a start to change.
Who’s to say this can’t happen to our future children, siblings, friends, us? I choose to be the voice for the present and the future.
The woman who was sexually assaulted and other horrible things, said on ABC News’ 20/20 , “I support the work of law enforcement and prosecutors. … They treated me with such dignity and respect.” And while I can sympathize with her as a female myself, how did they treat those boys? Were they respectful? Were they fair? If roles were reversed, races reversed, would they still do the same?
The future scares me. What will the future hold for our generation and the ones to come? Will the criminal justice system continue to fail due to the racism and unfairness this world has to bring? Will there be another “Central Park 5?” Will my kids go through this?
I don’t want our future generations to be scared to grow up, scared to walk down the street, scared to drive. We have to stick together. We have to be that voice to advocate for our rights and fairness. We have to be the person we each can lean on. The five individuals were that for each other.
Being in the presence of one of the Exonerated 5 gave me the motivation to make a change. I can be an advocate, a mentor, a counselor. We can come together, all races, and be the change for each other. We can make sure what happened to these men won’t happen next time. I feel like sometimes it is generational for how we act and what we bring to each other. But none of us, Black, White, Hispanic, etc., have to be our past. We can use our history’s past to make a better past for this generation to look back on and progress into a better society today.
Jasmine Evans, of Toledo, is a senior at Jones Leadership Academy of Business in Toledo. She has been accepted at Ohio State University where she plans to major in social work and minor in entrepreneurship and possibly creative writing.
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