Now she's considered a bigot, and her kneejerk publishing company was among the first to stab her in the back.
People thought McCarthyism ended in the 50's?
Did Linda Fairtein tell Antron McCray, one of the "Central Park Five" to confess, because if he did, he might go home? No, that was his FATHER. When you're own father thinks you're no angel, and it's better to cop a plea, then something is wrong. McCray's mother also felt her son should fess up: “I didn't know what was going on. I was screaming and crying all the time.” The parents both seemed to know that their teenage son had NO business being in Central Park where "wilding" was the fun.
Strange isn't it, that with all the newspaper and magazine articles on "The Central Park Five" (that's not a pop group, that's a bunch of kids out "wilding"), Fairstein's books and reputation remained intact.
Till a MOVIE came out.
Helmed by Ava Duvernay, a young attractive "woman of color," the film was instantly taken as absolute fact. A white woman now old, wrinkly and heavy-set? Who needs HER?
Every film based on "actual events and characters" usually has a caveat buried in the final credits, indicating that for the sake of drama, some elements are fictionalized.
So it is, that the most important thing is to make a villainess out of Linda Fairstein, who wasn't one of the cops interrogating these boys, and wasn't one of their parents figuring confession by a teen who couldn't be tried as an adult, wouldn't be a bad way to cop a deal.
Lost in all this is the very real outrage citizens felt about a 28 year-old woman who was in a coma for several weeks following the brutal rape and beating that drained 75% of the blood from her body.
Is it such a surprise that people would have figured that a "wilding" bunch of gang-rapists would have done this, and that no one person could have inflicted so much damage?
The facts is that a black detective who arrested two of the very adult-looking 14 year-olds, and heard their confessions, heard them point the finger at others in the gang. Forensic evidence of semen on underwear, mud on clothes, and vivid bruises resembling fingerprints on the woman's thighs, proved that these guys were at the scene, pried her legs apart, and inflicted damage. A sixth person escaped detection for years; he either started the attack or finished it when the boys ran, but nobody's ever exonerated the "FIVE" until this movie came out, spinning them as totally innocent and also as having been beaten into confessions (when photos of them leaving interrogation showed no such bruises).
Ava Duvernay had a movie to make...in FOUR parts, because that would be much more money. You can't tell the story in a few hours. It's not like "Dog Day Afternoon" or some other NYC crime story.
So it's FOUR parts and it's all the PURE GOSPEL. EVERY frame?
People want heroes, they can have heroes. Dr. King was a womanizer, just like JFK. People are letting that go. Malcolm? The great Malcolm? He was one of the worst bigots America has ever seen. Go back and read some of Malcolm X's crackpot speeches loaded with garbled religious fanaticism and blue-eyed white-devil racism. Does that mean he wasn't a powerful force in civil rights? He sure was. As Bob Dylan sang it, "this world is ruled by violence, but that's better left unsaid."
Malcolm X pretty much said it. He advocated it. He was a scary bastard. But that's what the country needed. Dr. King and his non-violence may have evoked pity, but Malcolm X evoked fear.
FEAR is what gripped New York City when a fad called "wilding" erupted.
It involved everything from the Puerto Rican Day parade turning into a nightmare, to chaos in the streets, "Son of Sam," and ghetto kids coming down from the slum edge of Central Park to the center where the rich white people jogged.
The white Wall Streeter who blissfully went jogging around the reservoir either didn't read the newspapers, or chose to think she was some kind of gazelle who could outrun a cheetah. Or a pack of jackals. She couldn't.
Fairstein was not a cop. She was a prosecutor. Her role was to prosecute. What's next, go after EVERY prosecutor who got a conviction that turned out to be unjust? Go after the jury, too?
The case against the five was very convincing, and these were not innocent kids throwing a frisbee around. That's not why they went into Central Park.
Fairstein, seeing the blood in the water and the Twitters become a ROAR, immediately resigned from the CHARITIES she was involved in. At 72, she seemed to be ok with that.
If that would stop her being compared to the "we were just following orders" Nazis of World War 2, fine. Saying, "I was just doing my job" should be enough but sometimes, not.
Fairstein has become more well known as a prolific author. She's one of the few women around who churns out detective/cop procedurals rather than overripe romance paperbacks. She figured her intelligent and Liberal publisher would ignore the witch hunt.
She was wrong.
As the Twitter bullies jeered "ban her books" and "burn her books," and libraries and bookstores simply ignored this, her PUBLISHER knee jerked an announcement that Linda Fairstein was THROUGH.
And that may have been when Linda decided to fight back. She wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, a publication brave enough to NOT care if some asshole on Twitter shows a face-palm meme and adds "They be RACIST."
Fairstein dared to state that even though the rape conviction was eventually overturned because a one-man wrecking crew confessed years later, "there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges.”
This case was so convincing that there were convictions. Why not blame the defense attorney for putting up a lousy defense?
According to reports, there were several packs who were "wilding" and many other people robbed or assaulted, most of it very racist. Estimates were that 30 kids were roaming around, going after easy target whites in the middle of the park at 59th Street and not go after blacks with no money who were closer to 110th Street.
But it's just not PC to mention that, in this era of reverse-racism and spin-doctoring and witch hunts.
Fortunately, the "Five" were able to sue and settle for over $40 million, but let's throw in the white lady. Make sure she can't raise money for charity, can't sell another book, and is tainted as a racist for trying to get a conviction on a woman nearly killed in Central Park.
Fairstein is now being made the scapegoat for everything negative that happened. Not the cops who questioned the boys, not the tabloids who were screaming about "wilding" and a city gone rotten, and not the parents who let those kids roam in the park when they should have been home and under control.
It's all just black and white, isn't it?
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