Scholarly and lay literature pertaining to the criminal prosecution of black males are in contrast with white males. White male defendants are met by a system of judicial leniency. Conversely, the false convictions of the Central Park Five are met by judicial hostility. Considering the auspices of such hegemony, law enforcement, journalism, and the society at-large, are dominated by the concept of race as conduit of criminal prosecution. Evidence exists to substantiate race as implicit factor in guilt or innocence. Therefore, the solution to false convictions such as the Central Park Five must address race in the demonization of black defendants at every level. Moreover, “race” as a deceptive quantification of human category must be eliminated entirely from the treatise of criminal prosecution. “When they see us” will then be no more or less nefarious to the judicial process “than when we see them.”
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