The Central Park Five Analysis

The meaning that could be made in the documentary The Central Park Five through a Historical lens is that New York City historically had a period of racial violence which accounts for the events in the documentary story. Acknowledging New York City in 1989 illustrates the story’s development in the documentary. Five teenagers, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise were convicted of brutally raping a white women that was jogging in Central Park. Four of these men came from African American heritage while Raymond Santana came from a Hispanic heritage. During this time period, New York was quite violent and assaults became common. There were probably six murders a day, but people didn’t pay much attention to them. Conversely, the teenagers’ case attracted people all over New York City since it involved a
Once the boys were arrested, the police were yelling, harshly accusing, and brutally interrogating them. This made the teeenagers stressed and tired. They soon became weak and vulnerable throughout the long process. The police forcefully pulled stories out the young boys that fit to the case story, and made them sign to it. The teenagers only agreed so they can go home and finally relax. This brutal treatment from the authorities was able to occur because of the way New York City treated others that were different. When the young men were finally pleaded innocent the people of New York reacted differently then when they heard that five black boys committed a crime against a white women. The people seemed to feed off the stories that involved the fault of black men, and were not as interested in their innocents. The society reacted like this because of the historical presence of racism in New York City, and the historical presence obviously was feeding the trial, resulting in five innocent, black men to be tried