Yusef Salaam was a teenager when he was arrested and forced to confess being a part of the brutal rape and beating of a woman in Central Park, New York City. He and four other teens were tried both in the media and in court and sent away to prison. It was in 2002, through DNA, that these once young men were all exonerated of the nightmare that stole their formative years from them. It took over a decade before New York would agree to pay them $41 million for the injustice done to them. Two days ago, Salaam wrote an op ed in the The Washington Post about his feelings surrounding his experiences and his relationship to Donald Trump.
During our trial, it seemed like every New Yorker had an opinion. But no one took it further than Trump. He called for blood in the most public way possible. Trump used his money to take out full-page ads in all of the city’s major newspapers, urging the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York. I don’t know why the future Republican nominee bought those ads, but it seems part and parcel with his racist attitudes.
At the time, our families tried to shield us from what was going on in the media, but we still found out about Trump’s ads. My initial thought was, “Who is this guy?” I was terrified that I might be executed for a crime I didn’t commit.
He is talking about this ad. And the reason Salaam is writing about Donald Trump again is because Trump is such a piece of garbage he’s still trying to defend his bad judgement by insisting they are still guilty. Salaam knows what it is like to be a young man without a voice and he knows what it is like to be hated for something you didn’t do and Donald Trump’s insistence, against science and fact, throws him back into that frightening arena.
When I heard Trump’s latest proclamation, it was the worst feeling in the world. I couldn’t breathe. Starting when I was 15, my life was not my own. For years, I had no control over what happened to me. Being in the spotlight makes me wary and self-conscious again. I am overwhelmed with fear that an overzealous Trump supporter might take matters into his or her hands.
Salaam talks about the fear he feels with his family when he is out in public. The paranoia that has crept back into his life because of Donald Trump. Salaam knows he is not the only person “smeared” by Donald Trump’s lies and hatred.
Black people across America know that because of the color of our skin, we are guilty before proven innocent. As a result, sometimes we lose the best years of our lives. Sometimes we lose our actual lives. We must not let this man ascend to the highest office in the land — a man who has proved that he lets neither facts nor humanity lead his steps.
Vote blue.
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