Hollywood Reporter: After all this evidence and being exonerated, Donald Trump is still insisting you are guilty; explain what that does to your psyche.
Yusef Salaam: You know, it is definitely very upsetting. But as Nelson Mandela said, "When you are angry and you are bitter that can metastasize into something else." [Anger] really doesn’t do anything toward the object of your displeasure, but it does bring a lot towards you in terms of bringing you down, and bringing your energy down. I look at the positive in it, to be able to really look at the Central Park Jogger case as a pivotal moment and that pivotal moment being that we want America to be great. But in the America that we live in today, a lot of black and brown people are being murdered. A lot of people are being sent to jail for crimes that they didn’t commit. And that brings us full circle.
HR: Trump is the only person still saying you may have done it, right?
YS: He’s going off of reports that the police department produced back in 1989 and 1990. And when you look at the reports you get a false impression. I was the only one that didn’t make a written or videotaped confession. But when you look at the other confessions, these things that they called "confessions" were found to be false; you find out that none of them matched anything that the others were saying. Now he’s patting himself on the back. He’s now calling himself the "law-and-order president."
* * *
HR: You now work as a motivational speaker. What is life like for you now, in spite of Donald Trump's campaign against you?
YS: My life has definitely gotten a lot better. One of the things that I think has benefited me is that my family continued to support me and continued to stand behind me. Some of the Central Park Five, their families turned their backs on them. When we settled with the city, one of the first things that Trump said was this was "the heist of the century." He said, "Now these guys are going to be rich rapists." But at the same time, he has the absolute opportunity and ability to have all of these factual pieces of the puzzle presented to him, to evaluate them and make a proper decision. But he continues to go down this wrong road.
HR: Because he can’t ever say he was wrong.
YS: Exactly.
HR: You recently said the right thing for him to do is take out another full-page ad apologizing to the five of you. But then you laughed at the suggestion.
YS: Yeah, I mean, it’s one of those things that, if he did that, that would be amazing; that would show his humanity. But I’m not holding my breath. I highly doubt that Donald Trump is going take a full-page ad calling for the apology, and apologizing to us. And I equally highly doubt that he would do it in private as well. He will never apologize to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment