The ‘Exonerated Five’s’ Yusef Salaam on Memoir & Prison Reform — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:04welcome back
3. 0:06youssef salam was just 15 in 1989 when
4. 0:09he along with four other black and
5. 0:10latino kids were accused of the rape and
6. 0:12assault of a white woman trisha miley in
7. 0:14central park all five were wrongfully
8. 0:17convicted and served between five and
9. 0:18ten years in prison
10. 0:20the case is one of the most notorious in
11. 0:22new york city history and yusef
12. 0:24and the others became known as the
13. 0:25central park five now they're better
14. 0:27known as the exonerated five since his
15. 0:30release from prison yousef has become
16. 0:32active in the movement for prison reform
17. 0:34and has written two books
18. 0:35one is a critically acclaimed novel for
19. 0:37young adults called
20. 0:38punching for air about a teenager
21. 0:41wrongfully convicted and incarcerated
22. 0:43the other newly released is called
23. 0:45better not bitter
24. 0:46and is designed to inspire us about how
25. 0:48we can use our stories as tools for
26. 0:50racial justice
27. 0:52i'm honored to be joined tonight by
28. 0:54yousef salaam yusuf thank you so very
29. 0:56much for coming on tonight
30. 0:58my pleasure and thank you for having me
31. 1:01all right the title of your new book is
32. 1:03better not better and
33. 1:04in it you explain how you didn't allow
34. 1:07everything
35. 1:07you've lived through to change who you
36. 1:09are as a person that you've actually
37. 1:10become
38. 1:11a better person because of it i don't
39. 1:13think many people could
40. 1:14even imagine going through what you've
41. 1:16experienced but how did you survive it
42. 1:18and become the person that you are today
43. 1:22you know what i saw was the hand of god
44. 1:23and everything i knew that
45. 1:25man doesn't have anything more placed on
46. 1:27them they that they than they can bear
47. 1:29and looking at it with a spiritual eye
48. 1:32gave me the tremendous strength that i
49. 1:33needed
50. 1:34to be able to go through that particular
51. 1:36situation and rather than just go
52. 1:37through it
53. 1:38i knew that i was gonna grow through it
54. 1:43your last book it was a novel for young
55. 1:45adults and you were a child
56. 1:47when you were arrested wrongfully
57. 1:48convicted and sent to prison how
58. 1:50important is it for you
59. 1:51to continue to work with young people
60. 1:55well so through punching the air one of
61. 1:57the things that we were trying to do
62. 1:59was to really explain to young people
63. 2:01how important it is that they take
64. 2:02charge of their lives
65. 2:04that a lot of the things that they go
66. 2:05through sometimes people tell them that
67. 2:07they're crazy
68. 2:08the whole situation is that they're
69. 2:10being trained to believe
70. 2:12that they are not worth anything when
71. 2:14the truth of the matter is that they're
72. 2:15worth
73. 2:15everything and so punching the air is my
74. 2:17attempt with eb zaboy
75. 2:19to really explain that and espouse that
76. 2:21in a way that is meaningful to young
77. 2:23people
78. 2:24so that they can see themselves through
79. 2:26their through the characters that i
80. 2:27bring forth in this particular story
81. 2:29whereas with better not bitter we get
82. 2:31the opportunity to really like
83. 2:32really dive in in a really really
84. 2:34powerful way
85. 2:36to my story but not just tell my story
86. 2:38but tell it
87. 2:39in the landscape of america where we
88. 2:41have all of the atrocities that have
89. 2:43gone on
90. 2:44and what that looks like and what it
91. 2:46means for people to understand that this
92. 2:48is not
93. 2:50this was not um an anomaly this is
94. 2:52something that happens all the time
95. 2:54you know and so through my story you get
96. 2:56an opportunity to really see that that
97. 2:58you know we have to change the system
98. 3:00because we've been talking about
99. 3:02band-aid fixes we've been saying that
100. 3:04the system is you know broken the system
101. 3:06is perhaps moving
102. 3:07incorrectly but the fact of the matter
103. 3:09is that the system is actually alive and
104. 3:11sick
105. 3:12the system is not broken it's actually
106. 3:14moving exactly as it was designed in the
107. 3:17minds of the people who created it
108. 3:20well you've devoted your life since
109. 3:22leaving prison to changing that system
110. 3:24and it seems like the issues are just so
111. 3:27deep rooted and it must be hard not to
112. 3:29get discouraged how do you keep going in
113. 3:31the face of
114. 3:32what uh must often seem like an
115. 3:34insurmountable
116. 3:35obstacle you just have to keep your mind
117. 3:39on a future that is yet to come
118. 3:42we're playing tango we've been going two
119. 3:44steps forward one step back
120. 3:46sometimes three steps back one step
121. 3:48forward
122. 3:49but if you keep your eye on the hope
123. 3:51that you believe to come
124. 3:53if you know that you are your ancestors
125. 3:55wildest dreams
126. 3:56being better not bitter about the
127. 3:58situation allows you to transform
128. 4:00everything that you've been given in
129. 4:01life
130. 4:02and make lemons out of the lemonade that
131. 4:04you've been given it's just like the
132. 4:05great
133. 4:06great philosopher cardi b says knock me
134. 4:08down nine times i'll get up ten
135. 4:10it's about getting back up it's about
136. 4:12being resilient it's about
137. 4:14you wanting to be a diamond but you want
138. 4:16to you have to know
139. 4:18that in order for you to become a
140. 4:19diamond you have to have tremendous
141. 4:21pressure
142. 4:22placed upon you and then more pressure
143. 4:24added to that
144. 4:25and then you have to be cut life is
145. 4:27about chiseling you
146. 4:28and shaping you into the person that you
147. 4:31need to be
148. 4:32in these times and beyond so that we
149. 4:34could pass the baton of our dioxin
150. 4:36ribonucleic acid
151. 4:38back to our family who is coming so that
152. 4:41they will know
153. 4:42how to break these generational curses
154. 4:43that we seem to have heaped upon
155. 4:45us generational okay so you just read my
156. 4:49mind because the next question last week
157. 4:51on the show we had a discussion about
158. 4:53intergenerational trauma
159. 4:55and how we're constantly inundated with
160. 4:57images and videos of police violence
161. 4:59against black people
162. 5:00it's gotten to a point where i can't
163. 5:02even watch true crime shows or
164. 5:04documenting
165. 5:05documentaries it was especially hard
166. 5:07watching when they see us i've seen that
167. 5:09interrogation room scene play out
168. 5:11firsthand when i represent a juvenile so
169. 5:14you lived it but what what was it like
170. 5:16was it difficult watching yourself or
171. 5:18watching what happened to you in a
172. 5:19scripted series
173. 5:22it was actually quite liberating you
174. 5:23know me and four of my brothers were in
175. 5:26the room together with ava duvernay
176. 5:28and we entered the room with this
177. 5:30brotherhood that we knew we had this
178. 5:31shared bond
179. 5:32that we knew we had you know we created
180. 5:35but it wasn't until we saw when they see
181. 5:37us and we got the opportunity to see
182. 5:39all of our stories betrayed through all
183. 5:41of our eyes
184. 5:42and our minds and our hearts that we
185. 5:45emerged out of that room a sacred
186. 5:47brotherhood
187. 5:48we were crying when part one came on
188. 5:51we were crying through part two in part
189. 5:53three at the time
190. 5:55part four came on which told corey
191. 5:57wise's king corey wise's whole story
192. 6:00we were ugly crying yeah and we didn't
193. 6:03feel ashamed
194. 6:04at that it built us up a brand new
195. 6:06people
196. 6:07and it was a it was a magnificent thing
197. 6:09for us because
198. 6:10now we understand on a whole nother
199. 6:12level
200. 6:13why we went through what we went through
201. 6:15now we have these platforms when we can
202. 6:17really effectuate change
203. 6:19we're standing up and we're showing
204. 6:20other people that they can stand up
205. 6:22we're turning up our light and we're
206. 6:23telling others that they can turn up
207. 6:25their light to eradicate the darkness
208. 6:26that's around us
209. 6:27because that's what we need so
210. 6:29desperately in this time
211. 6:33all right activist author and one of the
212. 6:35exonerated five yousef salam
213. 6:37thank you so much for coming on tonight
214. 6:40my pleasure and thank you for having me
215. 6:42of course all right don't move more
216. 6:45making the case after this