Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talks with “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer about his latest film, “The Central Park Five,” which chronicles the conviction of five black and Latino teenagers for the rape of a jogger in Central Park in 1989. The convictions were overturned 13 years later in light of another man’s confession and DNA evidence linking him to the crime.
Burns discusses the role race played in the convictions and reflects on stop-and-frisk, a current New York City Police Department tactic used most frequently on black and Latino young men. “We still judge people not on the content of their character but on the color of their skin, and we have to change that,” he says. “‘Birther,’ ‘Muslim’ — these are now code words that we used to use the N-word for. But it’s just a simple replacement of the age-old fear of the other.”
