Netflix’s When They See Us has many outraged by the actions of Linda Fairstein, who was the lead prosecutor in the Central Park Five case in 1989.
Fairstein was in charge of the New York City’s sex crime unit in 1989 when Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise were on trial for raping a woman in Manhattan’s Central Park. As depicted in the limited series on Netflix by Ava Duverney, the then Assistant District Attorney found the five teen boys, ranging from 14 to 16-years old in age, guilty long before they went to trial and did everything in her power to connect them to the crime, including pushing the police to force confessions out the boys.
Fairstein went on to become a New York Times best-selling crime/mystery novelist while the boys did time in prison. Some of them even having completed their sentencing and parole before the real rapist, Matias Reyes confessed to the crime and their convictions were vacated in 2002. However, even after Reyes’s confession, Fairstein attempted to connect the boys to him, saying Reyes was the sixth man. The “driven†women, children, and sex crimes worker never apologized to the boys either, and though they were later awarded 41 million dollars by the city, the city did not pay their court and attorney fees, nor did they give their families any money.
Now through the use of social media and the hashtag #CancelLindaFairstein, people are calling for the ban of Linda’s books and seeking justice for her actions surrounding the case, as well as questioning her other cases and convictions… as they should.
Took me 3days many pauses & tears to get through this. Like other recent movies this can’t go unanswered.
Cases need to be reopened, careers reexamined.#KoreyWise!! & #CP5 we won’t forgot. &
Other victims because a rapist walked free!!Sister @ava thank u!!#WhenTheySeeUs pic.twitter.com/vVrNRcf93M
— Jumaane Williams (@JumaaneWilliams) June 3, 2019
In an interview with When They See Us director, Ava Duvernay, shared that when she reached out to Fairstein for interviews while creating the series, Fairstein “tried to negotiate conditions for her to speak with me, including approvals over the script and some other things.â€
Girl bye!
If you hadn’t watched When They See Us already, please do. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the knowledge of the system is imperative and Duvernay’s storytelling is amazing as always. I would also suggest watching it in different sittings if it gets to be too much. While I’ve seen many online share that though it was heartbreaking the storytelling was so good that they couldn’t stop watching, those close to me have agreed that they had to watch in bits and pieces because they were crying 20 minutes into the series.
If you would like to sign the petition calling for the prosecution of Linda or for publishers and book stores both physical and online to stop the sell of Fairstein’s books, here are a few petitions below.
Prosecute Linda Fairstein
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-state-house-prosecute-linda-fairstein/psf/promote_or_share
Remove Linda Fairstein from Vassar Board of Trustees
Linda Fairstein Central Park Five Book Removal
Don’t forget to share these with your network. Change starts with us!
