Yusef Salaam, one of five Black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted of a 1989 rape in Central Park, joins MSNBC's the Rev. Al Sharpton to discuss Donald Trump's role in the Central Park Five case and the irony of the former president's recent felony conviction.
Quote:
Yusef Salaam:
I want to first echo the fact that for many many years I called it the criminal system of injustice because of what happen to me and people just like me. And when it came to Donald Trump I was very very clear. I wanted to make clear that people understood that I wanted him to be afforded the opportunity that was not afforded me or my brothers. They looked at the color of our skin and deemed us guilty in a country that says you're innocent until proven guilty. Where as you come to the court system and you have a person who has been privilege and has used their money to garner favor. Now getting to understand what exactly the criminal legal system is all about. I wanted him to be able feel that, to see that, to experience that. And I was proud that our jurors, 34 counts. When you think about the 12 jurors. Each of them looked at all of the counts and made a decision to find this man guilty. And so I think that that is significant. I think that that number comes up to something like 408 different um guilty charges. Right. From 12 individuals. Profound. And for me, I was looking at this, Really um, with tremendous hope. With the opportunity to say to myself again, Is this an opportunity for us to having a semblance of becoming the United States of America? Yeah, all of the rhetoric that Donald Trump has been spewing has been the exact opposite of that. That we are divided. We been divided. We been dived even more so under his so-called leadership. And now get the opportunity to really truly understand HE IS NOT LIKE US. And that not just a rap song. But, the truth of the matter is that we've always had a love affair with Donald Trump. Some of my favorite hip hop artist, like Nas, He said I want to be rich like Donald Trump and Marla Maple. His father gave him a loan that was more than the money than we received from the state. And so, we have to truly understand that where are we right now in this country? When we read the Constitution, We The People. We would never consider a whole human being. They never reform that.
Rev.Al Sharpton:
Let me ask you this, Yusef. Because we are going to be out of time. They're saying that a lot of young blacks are looking to Donald Trump. Those young blacks watching you right now. As one, Donald Trump took ads out to take your life. What do you want to say to them?
Yusef Salaam:
I want to tell them. Don't be tricked and hoodwinked and pulled away, because you have an individual who is willing to speak in a manner that we have not heard before. There have been many people who look just like me, who have been willing to speak truth to power. But, when you have a person like Donald Trump who is saying the same thing off camera he saying on camera. We gotta pay attention. HE IS NOT LIKE US.
'Perilous': Detroit NAACP president calls out Trump's anti-Black
record.
In a bid to court Black voters, Donald Trump visited a Black church in Detroit on Saturday and argued that President Biden has "been the worst president for Black people." Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, joined The Sunday Show to call out Trump's hypocrisy and his anti-Black agenda.
Published June 16, 2024
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Sun 25 Aug, 2024 11:44 am
Members of exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ speak at DNC
Rev. Al Sharpton introduces four members of the now-exonerated “Central Park Five," who spoke on stage during the final night of the Democratic National Convention.
August 22, 2024
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Sun 25 Aug, 2024 11:58 am
The Central Park Five: A cautionary tale of injustice.
Wrongly convicted as teenagers for a crime that shocked New York City, the five men who came to be known as the "Central Park Five," who were exonerated by a jailhouse confession and DNA tests, are the subjects of a new Netflix miniseries. Correspondent Maurice DuBois talks with Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Kevin Richardson, and with Ava DuVernay, director of "When They See Us."