‘When They See Us’ and the delicate balance of depicting black trauma

In April 1990, five boys of color were falsely convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park in April 1989. In 2002, after the men, who had become known as the “Central Park Five,” had already served or were near the end of serving sentences that ranged from 12 to 14 years in prison, the real perpetrator of the crime confessed. As a result, the five men — Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, and Kevin Richardson — were exonerated and given a settlement of $40 million.

When They See Us, a four-part series directed by Ava DuVernay that premiered on Netflix on May 31, reexamines the crushing details of the boys’ experiences before their convictions were vacated. The series depicts the police arresting the boys then separating them from their families, even though they’re minors. The police beat these children — who are crying and pleading to go home — and yell at them while interrogating them and ultimately coercing them into confessing. Prosecutor Linda Fairstein toys with the facts in order to create a story against them, and then-businessman Donald Trump takes out an ad in the New York Times calling for the boys to face the death penalty. Korey Wise, the only boy sent to an adult prison at age 16, is mentally and physically abused by both inmates and guards during his stays in prisons such as Attica and Riker’s Island. After they complete their sentences, but before they are exonerated of their crimes, the group returns home only to realize their lives will never be the same.

Despite critical acclaim, some viewers have expressed how hard the series is to watch. Recently, a friend of mine referred to the show as “black trauma porn,” which, for me, raised the question: Who gets to tell stories of black trauma and how and when should they tell them? Or even — should we tell them at all?

Black trauma porn has been defined as “any type of media — be it written, photographed or filmed — which exploits traumatic moments of adversity to generate buzz, notoriety or social media attention.” It has typically been used in the context of resharing and reposting videos of unarmed black people being shot and killed by the police. Some argue that the circulation of such horrific videos not only re-traumatizes black people but creates a numbness to these deaths, dehumanizes black families, and robs them of the opportunity to grieve in a private and intimate way.

Black trauma porn hasn’t often been connected to TV and film, although some argued that Orange Is The New Black, a show about a privileged white woman who ends up in a women’s prison, employed it in its depiction of the death of an innocent black character. Given that the show was created by a white woman, and that episode was written by white women, it seems more plausible that the death of a black character in this context could have been considered exploitative of black pain for the goal of increased viewership.

When They See Us, however, was written and directed by a black woman who is already known for spearheading projects of similar subject matter. And this seems to be the key to the question of whether or not black trauma should be depicted in our media: These stories need to be told and we — creative minds of the black community who understand that pain, who care about those victims, and who have the talent to create work that forces others to care about them, too — need to be the ones to tell them. We need to tell stories like that of the Central Park Five with the level of detail that Ava Duvernay managed to do, no matter how hard it is to watch. As the executive producer of When They See Us, Oprah Winfrey, recently said of the series, “For everyone who says it’s ‘too hard to watch,’ think about the people who still find it too hard to live.”

Today, one in three black men will be imprisoned in their lifetime compared to one in 17 white men. The incarceration rate of black women is twice as high as that of white women. On any given day, 10,000 children are housed in adult prisons. Black Americans are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted than their white counterparts.

Stories such as the Central Park Five’s need to be told not only to draw attention to the injustices still occurring in this country 30 years later, but in order to give justice to the people America’s history has left behind. Already, the prosecutor who orchestrated the accusation, Linda Fairstein, has faced a series of repercussions for her involvement after decades of being considered a law enforcement hero. Without a platform as big as Netflix to share the truth, her participation and culpability would likely never have been acknowledged.

When They See Us intends to make these men, and their story, visible — to force Americans to ask themselves what they missed the first time they saw Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, and Kevin Richardson in the news and, hopefully, to make it harder for such an injustice to occur in the future.