summitrock t1_j13k1he wrote
Gate of the wrongly accused….
I despise what happened to these kids and how Trump went after them was hideous but they were out on a jacking spree mugging everyone in sight when the rape occurred. I’d like to see them compensated for their lost time but putting up a stone monument to them is a little perpexling.
[deleted] t1_j149p5q wrote
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Dan-D-Lyon t1_j14i3lt wrote
"This Monument stands as an apology for the time the criminal justice system of New York falsely accused a group of violent, larcenous reprobates of also being rapists"
[deleted] t1_j14pxno wrote
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tuebrook1976 t1_j287w2s wrote
Exactly.
newestindustry t1_j15tgsl wrote
If your main takeaway from the Central Park Five is that it doesn't matter whether or not they were innocent of the crime they were incarcerated for because they were a bunch of "scumbags" (I might have gone with "savages" or "thugs" if I was blowing the dogwhistle that hard), to quote Bad Santa, your soul is dogshit and everything about you is ugly.
tuebrook1976 t1_j287zr8 wrote
Or, alternatively, you are intelligent. I go with the latter.
nyc-ModTeam t1_j16w7vz wrote
Rule 1 - No intolerance, dog whistles, violence or petty behavior
(a). Intolerance will result in a permanent ban. Toxic language including referring to others as animals, subhuman, trash or any similar variation is not allowed.
(b). No dog whistles.
(c). No inciting violence, advocating the destruction of property or encouragement of theft.
(d). No petty behavior. This includes announcing that you have down-voted or reported someone, picking fights, name calling, insulting, bullying or calling out bad grammar.
newestindustry t1_j14bis9 wrote
This is how conservatives argue about everything now, I guess. So tiresome
lazerphace t1_j15jsg8 wrote
NYC is tired of people who constantly excuse criminal behavior. The "conservative" you responded to says
>sorry that it bothers you that I don’t honor scumbags who commit gang assault and muggings.
and I agree.
JetmoYo t1_j14i92e wrote
Aside from wishing we all have mercy for teenage mistakes*, big and small, I think you might be missing the point. The Fives' case has taken on much larger significance in terms of how the entire system abuses its power. Criminal justice, media, prisons etc.
To that end, the plight of the "exonerated" goes beyond just the Fives' story. The gate seems to honor this. And if their story continues to bring attention to issues of systemic bias and even more pointed reforms against corrupt prosecutors and coerced confessions, then I'm all for it.
(* Not sure where the men are now with admitting these lesser/other crimes, but the on-the-record confessions of the robberies or assaults also gets muddied with the coerced confession of the rape. Cops were coercing confessions. But supposedly the boys confessions of the lesser crimes matched with eye witness accounts and timelines (According the the Times). While the rape confessions did not.)
summitrock t1_j14n23b wrote
Just getting back to this thread now and I very much agree with this statement.
And now that I’m actually reading the article it appears the gate is in fact not directly for the CP5 but rather for all people who have been exonerated like you say, which is a noble cause. So here here to the people who made this happen and I hope the CP5 get more of these symbolic shows of remorse + fat pockets due to the injustice. Now just have to put trumps head on a spike outside the gates of the exonerated and go full GoT.
(Yes I Commented without reading the article have mercy for me 😂)
JetmoYo t1_j14r845 wrote
You are exonerated! Walking to the exit o_o
HEIMDVLLR t1_j13s549 wrote
This country erected statues and created holidays for men who did a lot worse.
WickhamAkimbo t1_j13zm6z wrote
And those statues were also wrong. Does that make you right?
HEIMDVLLR t1_j140o84 wrote
Yet here you are defending this statement, about a group of boys who went to jail and spent a lot time behind bars. They paid for whatever crimes they may have committed that night and for crimes they didn’t commit.
What jail time has any of the individuals this country erected statues of serve? Also love how you leaped over the holiday part!
WickhamAkimbo t1_j141uxp wrote
Those statues and holidays are also wrong. Does that make you right?
HEIMDVLLR t1_j143s6r wrote
You speak as if those statues no longer exist and those holidays are no longer celebrated.
I’ll answer your question after you create a post about why we should get rid of those statues and why we shouldn’t be celebrating holidays that honor criminals.
WickhamAkimbo t1_j144i3m wrote
I'll edit to "are".
I'm not even making a post about getting rid of this one, just expressing mild dissent. 😂 I generally save my energy for more pressing issues than statues, but feel free to point me towards anything you think should come down. The most obvious target to me in NYC is the Columbus statue at Columbus Circle.
HEIMDVLLR t1_j145wlc wrote
> I generally save my energy for more pressing issues than statues
That is a lie. Look at you in the comments right now. I wasn’t even talking to you and you jumped in the comments. Why?
WickhamAkimbo t1_j14iobm wrote
I guess you asked me to create a post, and that's more energy to me than a comment. These comments take very little energy.
summitrock t1_j149q36 wrote
Heheh erected
BiblioPhil t1_j13xzb5 wrote
Yeah, but those were white guys!! These are black teens and they might have stolen from people, so who cares if we wrongly accuse them of rape??
...is the thought process, I assume
WickhamAkimbo t1_j13zidm wrote
Or maybe they're both bad and you shouldn't treat politics as a team sport? Maybe grow up a little?
BiblioPhil t1_j140255 wrote
Maybe acknowledge that being wrongly accused of rape is unjust regardless of whether you've stolen from someone. Team sports have nothing to do with it (unless you're suggesting that only one "team" says that).
WickhamAkimbo t1_j141p56 wrote
It is absolutely unjust and should be recognized as such. This thread was, from the beginning, talking about recognizing that while not memorializing people that nonetheless also committed other crimes.
BiblioPhil t1_j1425zr wrote
I actually don't think whether or not they committed "other crimes" was the point of the post. The point was that they were wrongly accused due to racism.
As another commenter pointed out, it's never been a requirement that someone be perfect for a statue to be made of them. Why start imposing that requirement now?
[deleted] t1_j143smj wrote
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WickhamAkimbo t1_j143yon wrote
That's a good counter-argument. I think for a lot of people the spree mugging is a big enough issue that they are going to have an issue memorializing them.
newestindustry t1_j1479ie wrote
Spree mugging or not, those people would have an issue with this particular memorial no matter what, for reasons that are extremely obvious to everyone.
BiblioPhil t1_j14fq1n wrote
I wonder what the overlap is between people who oppose this statue on those grounds and people who defend Columbus monuments or Trump votes. I'm guessing...very large.
drpvn t1_j14g2je wrote
This is the flowchart I use to determine my position on every issue.
BiblioPhil t1_j14n731 wrote
The point is that supporting both is contradictory, yet many people do it. Because their issue with commemorating the exonerated people isn't that they were flawed individuals. It's something else.
drpvn t1_j14p7zu wrote
I’m not a mind reader. My issue with honoring these five guys in particular—and there’s a gigantic difference between, on the one hand, apologizing to them on behalf of the city and state, paying them compensation, and condemning the miscarriage of justice that happened, and, on the other hand, honoring them—is that all the information I have strongly suggests that these guys were absolute pieces of shit, at least as teenagers.
What Trump voters think about this just doesn’t enter into my mind at all. Not every issue needs to be a fight among two warring factions for control over an overarching narrative. But that’s just me.
If Mark Wahlberg were unjustly convicted of rape and then exonerated, I would still think he was a piece of shit.
Taking a step back, though, this debate shouldn’t really be about these guys in particular. The gate doesn’t honor them specifically. It’s about people who have been exonerated. But it’s hard to separate them from the larger issue given that they always show up as the poster boys.
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