When They See Us

In a recent meeting of stakeholders with a vested interest in the GIZ funded and British Council managed skills and Entrepreneurship Program, Jobs for Youth, Migration, and Employment Promotion project. I led a session on identifying issues, lessons learned, problems solved and the way forward.

I titled my presentation "When they see us", using the narrative of the events of the 1989 Central Park jogger who was sexually assaulted by a suspected group of five juvenile boys of color: Kevin Richardson, Antron Mcray, Yusef Salem, Korey Wise, and Raymond Santana. They were eventually sentenced to maximum terms for juveniles except for Korey Wise, who was 16 at the time of the crime and treated as an adult by the legal system.

After a while, the true assailant was identified in 2002 by confession, DNA evidence, and other evidence in an investigation by the DA's office. He requested that the court vacate the convictions of the five men. By that time, all the men had served their sentences. The state withdrew all charges against them from the 1989 case and removed them from the sex offender registry.

The Justice system at that time was convinced they could make a statement with these five boys and deter others from venturing into crimes of that nature. But it is obvious that crimes of that nature still persist. They focused the battle on the wrong enemy, the battle is against the falling standards of society and not a group of five boys who were having fun at a park.

Increasingly, when working on projects that have a wide variety of stakeholders from different backgrounds, there is this instinctive posture of losing focus on the scope of the project and focusing on who was supposed to do what and who didn't submit a report on time. It evolves into a “we against them" conversation rather than getting to the root of issues and accepting responsibility. 

Just as the justice system in New York in the year 1989 lost focus, and invested their energy into making sure that the fates of these five boys were sealed in a maximum prison sentence.

As stakeholders in any venture we find ourselves in, we have the tendency to shift focus from what is necessary holistically to what is desired as individuals.

Once and more than twice I have lost focus, it’s easy to because you don't know until you have completely drifted into that endless pit of finding satisfaction in insatiable ventures. 

Losing focus is an expensive venture