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When They See Us
Available on Netflix SA
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Based on a true story that engrossed people from around the world, When They See Us relives the notorious case of five black teenagers from Harlem – labelled the Central Park Five – who came to be arrested, convicted and sentenced for a crime they did not do – the rape and beating almost to death of Trisha Meili, a young white woman who was jogging in the park. Created by celebrated film maker Ava DuVernay, the series focuses on the five – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise – from the spring of 1989 when the teenagers were first questioned about the incident. Despite the fact that evidence points to a single attacker, the district attorney’s sex crimes unit head, Linda Fairstein, is set on convicting the boys. Their prejudgment is entrenched in racism, as an unspoken agreement is made among all the white police that the boys are the obvious culprits.
The performances by the actors perfectly capture the purity of the children, and the loss thereof, as we are taken through 25 years, highlighting their exoneration in 2002 and the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014.
Over the last few years, the presence of DuVernay’s works on our screens has been to shift the lens through which we, black people, see ourselves and the world. Her work not only helps shake the truth of a distorted history but always ends with a depth of indiscernible healing. That’s a powerful amount of talent for a storyteller who thinks compassionately as an artist and global citizen in every project.
