Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - A Conversation with Dr. Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay welcome Dr. Yusef Salaam, motivational speaker, author and member of the Exonerated Five to discuss life after his wrongful conviction at the age of 15, and growing to become better, not bitter, in the face of injustice. Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay  Guest: Dr. Yusef Salaam  Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yes, we have a very, very special episode of higher learning today where we're going to be joined by a man who's seen firsthand what the American cultural system can do to you. His name is Yusuf Salam. He is one of the five boys that was unfairly prosecuted and then convicted of a crime they did not commit in Central Park, New York. You guys know them as the Central Park Five. they prefer to be called the Exonerated Five. And he has a new book coming out about many things, but one of them is about how you walk around, having been wronged by the system,

but you turn that bitterness into betterness. This was an incredibly powerful talk, and we're happy to have Yusuf Salam. Here's the interview, Rachel and I did. We are delighted to have somebody very special joining us today. someone whose life experience and learned experience are just simply sensational and really worth everybody diving into and knowing about so much of this brother's life and what he's overcome and what he's become speak directly to some of the things that we talk about

on this very podcast. The man's name is Dr. Youssef Salam and he is a prison reform activist, motivational speaker, and a justice seeker. He has got a brand new book that came out this year. It's called Better Not Bitter, Living on Purpose in Pursuit of Racial Justice. The book came out earlier this year.

Now, when you see the word better not bitter, you guys might think, hey, why does it start that way? Because if there was anyone in the world who would have a complete past to be bitter, it would be this gentleman. in case you didn't know, at 15 years old in 1989, Dr. Salam was tried and convicted in the now infamous Central Park Jogger case. Of course, he was later exonerated along with four other black and brown boys of what went on there. They came to be known as the Central Park Five then.

I like to call them the Exonerated Five now. So a lot of what you've gone through and done in your life, I would imagine, is a result of living through that experience. So just we'll start there since it's one of the more notorious happenings in terms of criminal justice, really in American history. What did going through all of that at 15 years old and coming out to be who you are, tell you about yourself and tell you about American society? So it told me that we are resilient as a people. It told me that the society that we know of or that we imagine America to be is really, for a lot of people who look like me, it is the American nightmare. But in this nightmare that we find ourselves in, we also can find life.

We also can find ways to move forward and also to push the culture forward, to push the community forward, and most importantly, to push yourself forward. You, the title of your book, Better Not Bitter, something that I struggle with quite a bit, to be honest with you. And knowing, you know, like for those of you who have, who don't know, please read up on it. If you haven't seen the film, watch it. But knowing what, what you've gone through and then seeing where we are today as a society. And it's tough. It's tough to turn on the news. It's tough to read the news. It really is a struggle. How can we be better and not bitter? You know, it's the reality, I believe, that Nelson Mandela was trying to get at when he said to be angry and bitter is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die.

It absolutely affects you the most. It absolutely harms you the most, right? We have to be what I always refer to, Dr. Maya Angel would say that you should be angry. Anger changes. Anger allows you to stand up for yourself and change the condition. that you may find yourself in. She said, you should be angry, but you must not be bitter. And then she said, bitterness is like a cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. Then she teaches us the alchemy. So use that anger. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it. It's not something that you come to just like that. It happens overnight. You figure it out. You got the epiphany. and you're better for it.

But the truth of the matter is that it takes time for you to grow through the experience as opposed to just go through an experience. When you go through an experience, you might curse God out. You might say, why me? But everybody wants the diamonds in life. And a diamond cannot be made unless pressure and more pressure, and then the diamond is cut to prove that it's a diamond. And that's what life I think.

Life is about, for those of us that rise to the challenge, it's about us understanding that life is trying to create the survivors that are the most fittest, the ones who are able to point the way, the ones who are able to turn up their light in the world of darkness. Because right now it seems like we're in a situation where it's two steps forward, one step back. We've been playing this tango in what I call the divided states of America. Right. We want to be united. We want to be able to appear united. We want us as a people to finally become one. And when we look at the origin stories of where this country came from, we realized that we were not born out of peace and justice. We were born out of violent, terrifying struggle, oppression, the people who were imported to this country and made to, work for free from can't see sun up to can't see sun down. And here we are now on the heels of that being told in many ways to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. And like Dr. King said, that's one of the most cruelest things to say to a bootless man. But the beautiful thing about it is that we have the opportunity to look at the things that we have gone through

and realize that when we rise to the occasion, we find that we actually grew through something. We're better for what happened to us. We're more resilient. We are the diamonds. So over your left shoulder, I see something that says bring back the death penalty. Does that happen to be a framing of the insert that Donald Trump took out in the New York Times? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I have that here in my office just as a reminder because I had to be interested. to what America was introduced to quite recently. And even by quite recently, I'm talking about even as far as, you know, the, the terrorism that happened at the Capitol. This ad, I have to remind people, it wasn't created two weeks after we had gone to trial. We live in a country that says you're innocent until proven guilty. but yet people looked at the color of our skin and judged us by that color and not the content of our character. They created, you know, Donald Trump created this ad, paid $85,000 for it, put it in New York City's newspapers two weeks after we were accused. And what was it saying?

It was saying that we want what happened to Emmett Till to happen to them. it was the most terrifying whisper in the darkest enclaves of society because they published our names, phone numbers, and addresses in New York City's newspapers. And folks have to remember, we were 14, 15, and 16-year-old children. And this is what we were met with. You know, Donald Trump taking out this ad, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, and really seizing on the fears of the public to make people believe that black and brown was a crime.

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Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on. summer. Visit weathertech.com today. So let me ask you something. That happens in 1989.

Donald Trump then goes through a sort of an image rebranding to where in the early parts of the 2000s, he was fairly well-liked. You know, even in the late 90s, fairly well-liked. You saw politicians from both sides at events for him. You also saw him on television as, you know, the apprentice guy, one of the biggest stars on television. During this time, it would have been around the time that you had just gotten out of jail, that you had just gotten out of prison. What was it like for you to watch a guy who you knew harbored these types of emotions rise up through American, not. just through a man he was already rich but rise up through the american american pop culture and then go on to become the president after you know uh that he had wanted you dead just two weeks and before you had

had your day in court what was it like to watch down trump become who he became it was it was very difficult and that's that's not even using the right words right um when i was younger my mother would always tell me to use your words and i'm trying to figure out what's the right description to give you in the viewing audience and listening audience so that they can understand. You know, for me, on the one hand, I had come home from prison and I'm 6'3, right? Back then I had a flat top.

I came home from prison, no longer had a flat top, but I was still 6'3. And to be very honest about my existence, I was hiding in plain sight. I didn't want folks to know who I was. I didn't want to be recognized. And that was a very difficult thing because here I am this tall and walking around the neighborhoods. Some people are saying, that guy looks familiar, you know.

Now it's a blessing and it's an honor to stand up. Even when we were fighting for justice and we were adopting the moniker that was placed on us, the Central Park Five, and calling ourselves that. It was an honor because we stood up in defiance of everything the system wanted us to do. The system wanted us to cower. The system wanted us to be afraid. But what is fear? It is false evidence appearing real.

And once we stood up and realized that we were able to conquer our fear, yes, it was a quite disturbing thing to see a person like Donald Trump rise up the ladder of success, becoming the American dream, right? I mean, think about it. Hip-hop artists. One of my favorite hip-hop artist, Nas, I remember he rapped about being rich and famous like Donald Trump and Marla Maple back then, you know? And it's that whole idea that in the black and brown community, he was accepted and he was respected as a person that we could all attain that same level of success. What we didn't realize was that we have this skin color that America. America always says, you're innocent until proven guilty. But for black and brown bodies, we're always seen as the crime.

We're always seen as guilty having to prove ourselves innocent. And so it's terribly tremendously difficult to have seen that. But then at the same time, too, you almost appreciate later on in life being able to be introduced to that kind of madness. so that it doesn't take you out of your mind. So it allows you to still move forward, allows you to at least have some type of opportunity that you create for yourself and say, I'm going to do this in spite of this.

I'm not going to allow for that to define me. I'm going to define for my own self, just like my mother said. You know, I never forget. I talk about this in my book, Better Not Bitter. My mother said, she said, they need you to participate in whatever it is that they're trying to do. Do not participate, she said. Refuse. And so my life, I think, at a very young age, has also always been a refusal

to accept the definition that the system gives all of us. That is anything less than being born on purpose and being born with the purpose. Like, we have to know that. You know, You know, you talk about, I mean, this happened in 1989. I was four years old. And when they see us came out, it's, you know, some of us may have been familiar with what happened, but we really didn't know. And I'm curious for you what it was like being back in the spotlight again when this came out, when they see us came out, reliving that story, but then having a new generation

respond to it. What has that been like for you? I tell you, it's been one of the most powerful. experiences ever. We were introduced to the public again in a more positive way with the documentary that Ken Burns produced with his daughter and her husband, right? Yeah. That was one of the most powerful things because for us, he gave us the ability to get our voices back. We were the narrators. He narrates all of his films, but he gave us the opportunity to tell our story for ourselves. And folks who got a chance to see us, who went to theaters and watched the film for that two

hour period. They, it was almost as if we were watching people get religion for the first time. They were, they were listening and watching a Raymond Santana at 14 years old talk about his false confession and then reading his false confession and then looking up midway and asking what 14 year old boy talks like this. Right. I mean, his false confession read something like at approximately 1900 hours, me and a group of my colleagues began to walk south.

Yeah. People in 1989 believe that it was a slam dunk. They were like, wow, they got the false confessions. They should have said they got the false confessions. Those who have been, unfortunately, ran over by the Spike Wars of Justice understood what was at stake. But to be able to be in the spotlight in a space of, like, we're infamous, to then be back in the spotlight and be. welcomed that cycle social dynamic that every single person needs to be welcomed back into society to be hugged back by people who are telling you that we want

you when we need you here was a blessing and it made it more easier for the success the global success might I add of when they see us because we had already been introduced to being in front of people to being in the public's eye, but to see the response and the outpouring of love and appreciation from the world was powerful. It's still powerful. I'm still receiving people's responses through social media saying, I just saw your film.

God bless you, brothers. I mean, that's a beautiful thing to still be in that space, to have books like my memoir, right people know the story but they don't know the full story of every single one of us they know they've been acquainted with it and in some depths they've been acquainted especially because of the case but we're also human beings that had lives that we lived prior to that and then even after that that we're still living now right so we're going through a time right now where we're doing our best on social media and in real life to reckon the real and actual truth of sexual assault and violence against women over the that that has gone on since the dawn of patriarchy,

right? Since men have tried to, since men have dominated anyone, they've tried to specifically dominate women. When someone is accused of a crime of a certain nature, a sexual crime against a woman. And people are arguing for the innocence of that man. You'll hear you guys' name brought up. You'll hear, hey, Bill Cosby, they're trying to get Bill Cosby the same thing they did to the exonerated five, the Central Park Five. Hey, they're trying to get this person, Harvey Weinstein. They're trying to get whomever or smear somebody's name, just like they did the Central Park five. Or, you know, sometimes they bring up Emmett Till or other people like that who were clearly not guilty of these crimes that they were accused of.

When you hear your story being injected into that conversation, into that discourse, or people saying, hey, this is the same thing they did to this guy, just like they did to the Central Park Five, the Exonerated Five, what do you think of that? How does it make you feel? And what do you think about the conversation surrounding a sexual violence, sexual assault, and rape? How do you feel about it given the fact that you were unjustly and wrongly accused and then exonerated of that very crime? I got to tell you, first of all, we're talking about justice.

We're talking about people's rights and people's honor, right? I come from a faith that says that you have to give people their rights. You have to uphold the value and the honor in people. And unfortunately, we live in a society and really we live in a world where the value, value system has been placed in the gutter, right? It's like it's better to be, like social media has done a tremendous thing to people's psyche. You post a photo and you sit there and you wait. And you hope that people like your photo. And the more people like your photo, the better you feel about yourself. And so in this unnaturalness, right? It's the same thing like prison. Prison was such an unnatural

space that we made normal, we had to then begin to unravel and turn back all of the unnaturalness that we found to be normal and realized that it was not normal. The rest of the world is normal, right? In the space of oppression, and I'm going to use it from that grand perspective, and the victims of oppression. You know, I can only use my case as the greatest example for me. Because when I think about the Central Park Jogger case, I think about all of the individuals, including my mother and my sister and my family, my brother, who were out there in the street saying that these guys didn't do this. We know our children. We know our family members. We know our brothers, right? And what they were saying essentially was that there should have been some iota.

of something that would have said, oh, yeah, yeah, that person is capable of X. With the Central Park Jagger case, they rushed to judge us so quickly. And I'm answering it this way to answer the greater question of what you're asking me. They rushed to judge us so quickly that the real perpetrator was left to commit more crime. we want like when I when I hear the conversation that is happening now especially after George Floyd after Brianna-Teller and countless others the list is continuing to grow and grow and grow after that what I find is that people have been really describing what they want to live in and that thing that they want to live in is a system of true freedom justice and equality we definitely don't have that today. We live in a duality when it comes to America. That same duality that Dr. James Baldwin said to be African-American is to be African without conscious and American without privilege. He said to be relatively conscious in America is to be in a state of rage all the time. And it's like,

why is that? Because you know the truth. And yet you can't do anything about it. And so the conversation has taken on the shape in the language of defunding and the language of abolition. But what does that really mean, at least for me, what I've found it to mean is that we don't want to live in a state of lawlessness. We don't want to live in a state where we don't have a system. We need to make sure that we demolish what is and build a system of inclusiveness with the bricks of the system that was. because we can truly become a family that represents the kaleidoscope of the human family. That's what we need.

But when we look at cases, right, of egregious acts, we rely on a justice system to be fair. And unfortunately, the justice system has never been fair. And if they have been fair, then we would be so much better as a people. I'll never forget. You know, Michael Moore created a film some time ago called Where to Embate Next? And in the film, he was talking about some of the prisons that are around the world. And for the people who immigrated to this country, who we recognize that this is a young nation, and we look at the systems that we are underneath.

We are in a very punitive criminal justice system, a system I call the criminal system of injustice. justice. We are not in a system that is balanced. We are in a system that through the 13th Amendment allows for slavery to continue by another name. And then Section 2 says that the government will have the power to enforce that through appropriate legislation. And then when we look at, like, the big names that we just talked about, the Bill Cosby's, the Harvey Weinstein, all of these big names that we just talked about, I always focus in on the no-name people. And I always focus in on the no-name people, the people who had their voices turned down. Because quite often in our community, the ones who lack the capital or the ones who go to prison, that's where we're at. And that's the real question

and challenge that we have to try to figure out. Because we will always be uneasy. We will always be in a state of, really for lack of a better description, war. And we will be the victims of that war. Mm-hmm. You, okay, in 1989, the system failed you and the other four involved with that case. And here we are in 2021, and as you just named other people that have been failed by the system and countless others, as you stated as well. You've dedicated your life to criminal justice reform, among other things you've dedicated

your life to. How, when you look at what's happening with the government, when you look at Congress's response or the lack thereof, I should say, how do you continue to have faith that things can change when they didn't work in 1989 and here we are in 2021 and they're still not working? How do you keep going? And I guess this is more so for not just a question for myself, but speaking to our audience. Like how do you have the faith and the perseverance that things can change? You know, I was watching. I watch series and things like that.

COVID-19 has caused us to more so be binge watchers as opposed to just wanting to watch normal TV. True. Very true. And it's so funny because I was watching, I was watching the book of Canaan or I think Power 3 or something. Whatever, shout up 50. I'm watching. I'm watching too. Yeah.

And what I found is that you can really find wisdom and nuggets, right? We as a people, when we look at what we did back in the days, and we find that we took lemons that life gave us and made lemonade, right? Sometimes it wasn't the most righteous thing that we did, but the wisdom in those times is what drives me, right? And so what I wrote down was this statement that I saw. And it said, we guide by vision, not by sight. We have to live in a world of what has become known as Afrofuturism,

where we look into the future and project everything that we want and say, if only, and then we work our way back to the current conditions that we find ourselves in, writing down what we did along the way so that we can have a blueprint of how we can make it so. Yes, we live in a world where we have tremendous despair. Will we see true justice, freedom, and equality in our lifetimes? Probably not. But it's about moving the needle. By the mere fact that you were born with this color skin,

you have to know that you were born automatically fighting on the right side. Because the whole world has said, I can't breathe. The whole world has said, hands up, don't shoot. Right? The whole world, their attention now, those who used to be the children, of former slave owners and the children of former slaves have locked arm in arm, hoping, praying, marching for a better future. And my contention is this, that as we live our lives the best we can, right, we have to live in such a way that we know that what we do matters. And so as we are

passing the baton of our own DNA back to the generations to come in that dioxiribonucleic acid is all of the things that will break the generational curses that we find ourselves in. And so we have to live in a way that says they want us to turn our light down. God gave us light to turn it up. They want us to be silent. God gave us a voice to be the voice of the voiceless. What happens when you turn up the light that you have, that your personal light that you have? First of all, it attracts other people to you and there is shoes all of the darkness around you.

There has to be hope because if there's no hope, there is no future. The man is Dr. Youssef Salam. The book is Better, Living on Purpose in Pursuit of Racial Justice. came out this year. You need to go get it. But more than anything, you need to learn from this brother and learn from somebody who actually has experienced some of the things that we are seeking to mute and not just experience them, but overcome them and shine brighter through them.

We are so happy to have had you today on higher learning, bro. It was amazing to meet you and amazing to talk to you, man. Yes. My pleasure. And thank you for having me on your show. Can't wait to do part two, three, and four. Absolutely, my man. We live in this world and, you know, we have to, one of the greatest things about it is that we have to be able to give a voice to those stories and issues that have been pushed to the margins of life because we find ourselves there.

We find our families there, right? And we hurt for them. We want them to be able to be out of that condition, you know, even a little bit because it's so much better, right? It's so much better. And we have to do everything we can. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right, brother.

All right. Thank you for joining us today, Doc. Thank you so much. All right, my man. My pleasure. All right, bye-bye.