The Echo of Injustice
From Central Park to CECOT, Trump’s Legacy of Racial Scapegoating Faces a Reckoning
Donald Trump is once again facing legal scrutiny for a pattern that has defined his public life for decades: knee-jerk, reactionary racism dressed up as law and order. A federal judge has allowed a defamation lawsuit to proceed against Trump over false statements he made during a 2024 presidential debate about the Central Park Five, five Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully convicted of a 1989 rape in New York City. Trump, when confronted by Kamala Harris about his role in the case, doubled down, falsely claiming the men had “pled guilty” and that the victim had been killed. Neither statement is true. The men were exonerated in 2002 after DNA evidence and a confession by the true perpetrator cleared them of any wrongdoing.
Trump’s relationship to this case has always been grotesquely political. In 1989, he paid for full-page ads in major newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty, exploiting racial panic and the media’s demonization of young Black and Brown boys. Even after their names were cleared and the city paid a $41 million settlement, Trump refused to acknowledge their innocence, maintaining that “they must have done something.” To him, the facts were always secondary to the utility of fear.
Now, as Trump seeks to whitewash history while literally trying to whiten the country through mass deportations and racially coded policymaking, the parallels are stark. Recent reports show that 90% of the Venezuelan migrants deported under Trump’s administration had no criminal record in the U.S., and yet they were swept up and expelled as part of a political performance masquerading as border enforcement. The same playbook. A different stage. Just like the Central Park Five, these Venezuelan families have become pawns in a narrative designed to stir racial resentment and fuel an illusion of control.
Both episodes reveal the same underlying truth: for Trump, and for the systems he manipulates, being Black or Brown near the scene of a crisis is enough to forfeit your rights. Guilt is assumed, and punishment is spectacle. Whether it’s teenagers coerced into confessions or asylum seekers cast as criminals, the point is not justice, it’s dominance and cruelty. It’s about making an example, reinforcing a hierarchy, and making sure that whiteness remains centered and protected.
That the same man who helped destroy the lives of the Central Park Five is now back in power, repeating the same script with new victims, is a condemnation of a nation that keeps giving him the stage. But this time, the courts may offer a sliver of accountability. If justice has a long memory, then perhaps five men who were once silenced will finally help silence the lie.