Kelaa, sä voit kohta opiskella alaa, joka oikeasti kiinnostaa, neljä kampusta, Helsinki SPO-vantaa ja tutkintojoka antaa sulle hyvän startin työelämään. Yhteisaku Suomen suurinpaan ammattikorkeakouluun on käynnissä nyt hae metropolia Pistefi. Radkaisu on metropolia. Onko uusi kotiokiikarissa? Hae asunto lainaa mutkattumasti S-pankista paikkakotisohvaltasi. Ava asmabilijat ei lainaa hakemus, S-pankki Suomen mutkattomin pankki. "I'm a common person who was unfortunately, run over by the spike was of justice. I was one of those who was in pain." "And like I've always said, those who have been close to the pain have to have a seat at the table." "Because when I didn't think that I should have a seat at the table, I was on the table, I was on the menu. They were deciding my life for me. And so the great part about this process for me now is to galvanize us as a people in a way. To remind us that regardless of whether government comes in and does right by you, you have to organize yourself." Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me, your host Chris Hayes. One of the great things about democracy when it's functioning or the way that it should function and often is sort of honored in the breach is that, you know, we don't have, you know, there's no lords and commoners, right? There's no inherited title. There's no sense that there's some division between people about who can and can't be an elected representative, who can represent people and who can't. Now, in reality, what ends up happening is that the path to being an elected representative ends up being very well-trought and there are institutions of kind of, you know, elite formation that tends to overproduce people that then go on to be politicians and people in power. Yale Law School comes to mind as one of them. But there's a whole bunch of those institutions. And again, there's nothing wrong with, you know, elite institutions of higher learning, like they exist in many different societies. But one of the things that I, I think a good idea for a real representative democracy is to have people from different backgrounds who have actual lived connections to different ways of being in the world across all kinds of different lines of difference, whether that's race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, or just like life experiences, right? Like you want people who have different life experiences in positions where they're the ones debating the matters of the day, making laws, setting policy so that they can draw on those life experiences. And we've had people on the show, a variety of folks who've come on the show for the podcast, who have come from all sorts of different and interesting life experiences. We had representative Ilhan Omar on the program. We'd represented Cory Bush. Those two come to mind as people who have interesting backgrounds, also true of Max Rose, who we had on the program. And I, I think it's just an encouraging sign and it's something that's, I think, happened more and more in democratic, small, democratic politics and also in politics within the Democratic Party. People coming to being elected representatives from different life experiences and backgrounds. So today's guest has a very particular story in that regard. He recently won a primary in the city of New York to be the democratic nominee in the fall, which almost all but guarantees an election, to represent a district in Harlem, legendary neighborhood in Northern Manhattan. It's been quite a road to get there. His name, you may recognize as use of Salam and he is one of the men who were teenagers when they were falsely accused and convicted of a brutal assault and rape and called the Central Park Five. They were later exonerated. They've been the subject of documentaries and books and use of Salam wrote his own book called Better Not Bitter Living On Purpose and Pursuit of Racial Justice. And has gone on to be a sort of neighborhood activist and thought leader and now is likely going to enter the New York City Council to be an elected representative in the city of New York. And I thought it would be fantastic to get a chance to talk to him so he used to Salam welcome to the program. Oh, listen, thank you. Thank you for having me. I am definitely honored to be here with you. Well, if it's okay with you, I just want to sort of walk through your trajectory and I want to start before this turning point of this awful thing that was done to you about what your childhood was like in New York City. Absolutely. You know, my childhood was I think just like a lot of other people's childhood, you know, not aware of any other thing other than life, you know, wanting to register skateboard, climb trees, you know, run into park. You know, those types of things were something that were very common to everyone's childhood. My childhood was the same. Where'd you live? What neighborhood are you living? Yeah, I lived in Harlem. I was born and raised in Harlem. You know, grew up here and spent almost all of my life here except for the time that I was locked in prison for a crime. I didn't commit, of course. And also the time that I, you know, moved into Georgia just for actually I was there for less time than when I was in prison. But you know, my childhood was like, you know, wanting to do all the things that young people did. I mean, we watched people ride skateboards and wanted to figure out how to do the tricks. And of course, I became very, very good at riding skateboards. You know, I went to school to learn about jewelry at a young age, FIT. And I started learning how to make jewelry and, you know, started high school at 12 years old. And the high school that I went to was like, what are you high school for music and art? And of course, you know, then a few years later, this happens to me and it's like all that I knew, all that I had been expecting life to be was shattered. And we were run over about a spike was of justice. The LaGuardia is a famous high school here in New York City for kids that show, you know, talent in visual arts, music, performance. Sounds like you were sort of an artsy kid, a skater kid. Like, how would you describe yourself as a child? What was your friend circle like? What was your family life like? That was exactly that's the best way to describe me. You know, it's interesting because people nowadays they say, you know, I always knew there was something different about you. You know, I was the child who was always, you know, using language in a way that I thought made sense. You know, I didn't like to use streetslang as much, you know. Well, when I did, I used it and kind of married it and merged it into the language that I knew was a better way to say it. I was the child that was always tinkering with electronics wanting to know, you know, how to fix things. You know, I was definitely a child that was curious about the rest of the world. One of the things that was unique about my home is that we had world books in my home. We learned about Greece and art. We learned about, you know, Egypt and we learned about, you know, Asia. Of course, we learned about Africa as well. We had all of these, so to speak, the melting part of the human family right there at our fingertips. Were your parents from New York? Well, my mother was born and raised for a short period of her life in Birmingham, Alabama. And then she moved to New York as a teenager and raised her, you know, she was raised here and lived here. And she's still here with us. My father, his family is from Barbados and he was born in Chicago. He was a gifted photographer. He passed away in 2015. But, you know, he and my mother, they raised us for a short period of time down in Savannah, Georgia. And then we came back to New York and lived in a Bronx for a little while and, you know, Brooklyn, back to Manhattan. And we've been here ever since. Can you tell me what your first encounter with the police was like as a kid growing up in New York? Well, it's interesting because my first encounter with police officers in general was that they would be walking around our neighborhoods. And we would see them and they were appearing to be friendly. And we would say hi to the officers walking around our neighborhood. Officers knew our names and they knew the neighborhood. And it's interesting because when I think about that type of policing, it kind of informs me on how policing should exist in our communities now. People should know the police officers. The police officers should know the community. It would be great if they came from the communities that they served. And I'm not talking about the district in particular, but just in general, like if police officers came from New York City and they police the New York City, it would give us a better opportunity to experience the type of policing I think that we all deserve. When I first was arrested, that particular encounter was very, very unique, very different. I remember walking out of the building with my hands up. And I know I was under arrest, but the officers told me to put my hands down. And the only reason why I put my hands up was because in my mind, that's what I saw on TV. And so I was kind of not even a pseudo expert at these kinds of things. But you know, you hear about things that go on and police activity in the community. And of course, now here it was, I was being led downtown, but in my mind, I thought, I'm going to tell the cops what I saw. I didn't do anything wrong. I'll be home before my mother gets back. And of course, my life was forever altered. How old were you? I was 15 years old. Yeah. So you were 15 years old? Did they come up to the apartment you lived in? Did they roll up on you on the street? No, yeah. They came up to my apartment. As a matter of fact, I heard that the police was looking for me. And what I imagine is that, you know, some of the folks that had gotten picked up earlier, probably said, hey, there was a tall guy in the park with us with a flat top. Now, it wasn't uncommon for flat tops to be the hairstyle for most young boys. That's right. But of course, I had a flat top that had designs in it. And you know, my outfit that night, I remember, it was what appeared to be white in the Central Park lights. But it was a sky blue.
outfit that had artwork all over the pants. So I had a sky blue jacket on sky blue pants with artwork all over the pants. And I heard the police officers were looking for me. And when I heard that I said, "Man, okay, I'm gonna go to the cops and tell them what I saw and I'll be home before my mom gets back." I ended up coming home seven years later. Cory Wise was with me and he wasn't even a suspect. And he said, "Hey, man, I'm gonna go down with you just so that I can have your back." And he ends up spending twice a day on a time. That's the last. You were in custody from that moment. So I did get out on bail. I did go to Spofford detention center. And while I was in Spofford a few months later, I did get out on bail and I stayed out on bail until we were convicted. I was one of the fortunate ones out of the five that got a chance to return home. But life was completely altered at that particular point in time. I couldn't go back to school. I couldn't do things that normal children did. My life was like getting up in the morning, putting on a suit and a tie going down the court as if it was a job and coming back home and taking my suit and tie off. When you heard the cops, how did you understand what chain of events had led the cops to coming and looking for you? So in my mind, those of us who became known as the Central Park Five, we didn't know each other. We actually met each other in prison. It's one of the craziest parts of this, by the way. The fact that the social network didn't even, and this is always struck with me about this case, but it's like they didn't even get a group of people that were like friends, right? Even at the most basic level, it didn't hang together. It didn't make sense. Yeah. So being in Central Park just so that you know, it wasn't uncommon for young people to be in Central Park. It was literally our backyard. It was the place that we went to to enjoy the park. Our part of the park was very different than downtown, of course, in Midtown. It wasn't strawberry fields. We had dead fish floating in the lake. The boat house that is there now is a very different looking boat house than was back in 1989. It was algae all over the lake. It wasn't kept up well. I remember when we entered the park, I was all the way in the back of this group and I saw them kind of hoisting around with people. My mind, I'm like, oh, this isn't serious. This isn't too serious. I can kind of hang out and enjoy the night. And of course, it went from hoisting around with people to throwing rocks at cars. And that should have been my signal, oh, time to go. But in our state, and I was a witness to other things that happened. I remember there was a group of people who were later arrested because they were identified. They never became known as the Central Park Five, but they had beat up a bomb. What we thought it was a bomb, they beat up this homeless guy as he was walking from the east side of the park to the west side of the park. And I remember the strangest thing, like I looked over to my, I think it was to my right. And it was this guy that was a part of the group. I didn't know who he was because I didn't know the group. But he was sitting down eating food. And it was just weird. Like you're eating this guy was eating food. Like where did he get the food from? He's eating food in the Central Park. And it's like this, like kind of scene going on. And I'm like hey, where did you get that food from? And he's like, oh, I took it from the bomb. And it was the most disgusting thing I could ever imagine. Because of course, if this was a homeless person, this person got their food from a trash can or they got their food from the ground or something like that. And here's a young boy eating the food. Of course, we left from that area and went further down to the park. And I remember being around the reservoir and seeing a few people get assaulted, those individuals that assaulted them, they also went to prison. They never became known as the Central Park five. It's interesting because every single person that assaulted someone in Central Park, when the people who were assaulted came and they sat in the witness stand. And it were asked while the Central Park five, as we were known back then, they were asked, do you see the person of persons who did this to you? They looked around the room and said it wasn't any of these guys. Long behold, later on, there was a group of guys who actually were identified. These are the guys who did it. They went to jail, but they penned the whole thing on the five of us. It was a five-year and just just to give a quick scan for folks that aren't familiar with this, the crime that was committed to the act of violence that was committed to the people who may know of is a woman who was jogging. She was a white woman. She was raped and badly beaten by a number of assailants. But in that same night, there had been a bunch of other assaults in the park. There was all this coverage of what was called like wilding at the time, right? That basically this group of kids got together with bad intent and they had marauded through the park. So that was the tenor of the coverage at the time and the reason that it hit this high peak was like this very narratively compelling, though really dubious conception of almost like zombies invading, right? It has this very gross racialized subtext. It's like all these black kids are coming from the north side of the park and they're vading down through the white areas of the city and beating up people as they go and assaulting people as they go. And we have to find these kids who are out of control. They're super predators. This was the tenor of the coverage at the time about what had transpired in the park and the sort of search for the assailants, right? That you then ended up getting identified. The police decide that you are one of the people that did this. Well, no. So I don't know if they thought that I was one of the people who did this per se. I think that would happen and I can only assume this because of course they never told us how this actually, how they actually got all of your names of the people. But you know, when I watch CSI and CIS, any of those TV shows, we all become kind of like these subtle experts. They, somebody gets arrested and Lombiho, who got arrested was Ramesh Santana and Kevin Richardson. They were the first of the group that got arrested that night and they get arrested and they don't know each other. And of course, you know, it begins what happened in the park who did what this thing, you know, everything. They basically began to break them down using the re-technique and they were successful because when it came to when they found the jogger, they literally had a photograph of each of them. Ramesh Santana and Kevin Richardson. And while they were interrogating Ramesh Santana, they showed Ramesh Santana, Kevin Richardson's photograph. Kevin Richardson had a scar across his face that was put there because the officer when he arrested him, tackled him and swung his helmet across his face. And so the scar was there on his face. He said, "Do you know this guy?" And of course, Ramesh Santana said, "I don't know that guy." We didn't know each other. He said, "This guy is in the other interrogation room." And he's saying that you did this. We know he did it. Look at that mark on his face. That came from the jogger. This is what they told Ramesh Santana. And Ramesh Santana immediately said, "What? I didn't do it. He did it." And then it was like, "Well, what did he do?" I don't know. And so when you think about how these things kind of play out, of course, later on, it's like, "Well, who else was in the park?" Because in their mind, when they found the jogger, when they found this woman, she had lost three faults of her blood. She was not expected to survive. As a matter of fact, I remember when the media began to label her as a miracle child, or a miracle because she survived this awful cry. Of course, she survived. And she had no memory of the attack. She has complete amnesia. I think even now, she probably, I remember they were saying that she ran an marathon recently. And she still kind of had this uneasiness about her steps. This was a horrible thing that was done to her. And when they looked at us as the culprits, it didn't matter that Ramesh Santana or Kevin Richardson didn't have a drop of blood on them. They didn't even have dirt on them. No mud, no dirt, no nothing from the crime scene. And yet this woman was battered, being enraped, and left for dead. And they looked at us and said, "We did it." They took our clothes. I remember the next day when they were looking for me, my nickname used to be cane because I looked like Big Daddy Cain. People knew that I liked wrapping and stuff like that. And so I can only imagine. They said, "Who was in the park?" "Oh, there was this tall guy." Hey, I was like six, two, six, three since I was 12 years old. So I kind of stood out. There was a tall guy, a white outfit on, a light outfit on. Right. I can only imagine. That's one of the reasons why it's interesting when you lay out this whole case. Even though they said, even Trump, he said, "Well, they had to be guilty of something." Because it's the notion that when America wraps his arms around black bodies, we are guilty. And the system has to, or we have to prove ourselves innocent, right? And so in this particular case, the fact that the system had us in a country where we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, they looked at us and said, "These guys did it. Here I am. I had a completely sky blue outfit on artwork all over my pants." And every single person, aside from the jogger who had no memory, came into the courtroom and said, "It wasn't these guys. These guys didn't do this to me." But when the guys who did it were identified and went to prison, they never became known as the guy. So the narrative, unfortunately, wasn't fluid enough to at least say, we're arresting Ramesh and Tana Keverich's and Cory Wise and Trump and Ukrainian use of salam for raping the jogger, but not assaulting anyone else in the park. They kind of wrapped it all together and said, "They were wilding together. This was us." I mean, I remember. How old are you? I'm 49. This is 34 years ago. All right. Yeah. Right. So you're 49 and 44. So I'm five years younger, but I remember it. I mean, it's one of those first big stories. And I remember the wilding stories. And I remember they got them. And it was these people that were the ones that
that marauded through the park on that night and it was this frenzy of mob mentality, frenzy violence. What's wrong with our youth kind of thing? And it was all you. - I gotta tell you, Chris, one of the most interesting conversations that I had that night, I remember one of the guys who actually was identified as assaulting, he was identified by people who were assaulted. I remember the only crime that I committed that night, if it was a crime at all, was I hopped the turnstile at 95th Street. And when I hopped the turnstile, he was there with me. And I remember I said to him, I said, man, you were going crazy on those folks. What happened? Why were you beating them up like that? And he said to me, I was jumped in the Bronx by some white guys. This was payback. This is what he said to me. And I was like, wow, the pain, the hurt, the desire for revenge. And it didn't matter who it was, I think for him, it just mattered that he got somebody who looked like they could have been involved in beating him up. More of our conversation after this quick break. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Why is this happening? How to stop dictators? You have to make it clear to people who are in positions of influence, not just in government, but also maybe even in your local community, that democracy is at stake and what we do plays a role in the outcome. That's the only way that you get people to actually take action. That's this week on Why is this happening? Search for Why is this happening? We're every listening right now and follow. There's so much of a story to tell. And obviously people should check out the amazing "Pay the Dovernae." Documentary about this. And there's other places to get the sort of full story of how this all went so terribly wrong, right? How you end up, but you end up convicted. And you get sent up state, right? Tell me about, I mean, what it's like to be in prison knowing that you didn't do the thing you've been convicted of. But that doesn't really matter from the day to day because you're just another prisoner like everyone else. So it doesn't matter if you know in your heart that you didn't do it, you gotta figure out how you're gonna survive and be and what kind of person you're gonna be in that environment. You know, and the challenging part of course is that you're in prison for one of the most heinous crimes that you can go to prison for. And they have their own way of dealing with that kind of atrocity. If you can imagine I went to a maximum a security facility for juvenile's. Cory went to Rikers Island. From Rikers Island, Cory went to Attica, right? He was 16. He had just turned 16. And so the juxtaposition of where I was, even though it was a place where I had to learn how to survive, I had to figure that out very, very quickly. It wasn't adult prison. And so here I am in the prison and I'm having to defend myself. I'm having to figure out how to walk in the yard and be safe at all times. And I never forget there was an officer that came up to me once, maybe about six months into my prison bed. And he says, who are you? And I said, I'm yourself Salam, one of the guys that accused of raping the Central Park jogger, but I didn't do it. And he said to me, I know that. He said, I've been watching you and you're not supposed to be here. Again, he asked me, who are you? And I realized that he didn't say, hey, what's your name? He said, who are you? Like, almost like who, what, where, why, how? That kind of probing of me. The type of probing that elders in our community do to youngsters when they try to spark a type of thought in their mind. And I realized that I didn't know exactly who I was. So it was almost like I was in the movie, wanted where the guy says, I don't know who I am. It was like that moment. I was like, I really don't know who I am. Well, you were someone, but I mean, you're a high school student and you have your interest in your into electronics or you're into music and you're into skateboarding and you're into the stuff and your kid, the neighborhood. And then you're incarcerated at what age 16? Yeah, I mean, here at 15 and then convicted at 16. But the thing about that is that I wrote another book with my co-author, Ibiza Boy. And we explore what happens to a young person when they go to prison. And of course, it's called Punching the Air. And the young man is named Amal. And interestingly, we kind of put it Easter egg in his name because they placed Amal in prison. And Amal means hope. They placed hope in prison. And it was in there where we're giving the character consciousness, a super consciousness, similar to a thought that I would have, right? Because the book was supposed to be my story. But I was really telling the story about the Kalatso. Right, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember in the story, we say, when he got convicted, he forgot his classes that he had to go to, the books that he had to read and write. And he had to remember his prison number. He had to remember the rules of prison. So everything that he knew before, that was no more. He's never going to be going back to that life. And this was me. I would never go back to the life of innocence. I am now a person who has peered under the cover. And now I am going to understand the experience of being an America from the inside out, being in the belly of the beast. And surviving that is where the biggest challenge lies. Because even though you know you're innocent, you also have to wrestle with this thought. Well, maybe I should just become a criminal. Maybe I should turn into the monster that they want me to be. You know, and you have to almost appear that you are. So you have to turn on all of those switches that allow you to survive. But when you come home from prison, you have to turn them all off. Because prison is abnormal. And it's an abnormal reality that's made normal. But when you come home from prison, you have to turn this system that you've learned to navigate off so that you can go back to the normal society. That's why we call it the system. We call it outside the world, like writing letters to the world. That's what we call it in there. Yeah, I mean, I've interviewed a lot of people through the years as a journalist who have been incarcerated. And one of the things that always struck me is this sort of tension between two facts. One is that the institution is so wavy in what it does to people's behavior. And there's certain kinds of norms and ways of the, there's the threat of physical violence is very present often. Not, you know, it doesn't happen all the time, but it's sort of a presence in the place. There are codes. There are groups of people that you sort of, you can't undo unilaterally, right? There's all these ways that your behavior is sort of imposed and co-worse by the institution. And yet the same thing, another thing that always strikes me when I talk to people who have been incarcerated is, they always just talk about like, you know, it's like any group of people, a huge diversity of people, like summer funny, summer not, summer nice, summer not, summer shy, summer outspoken, some like it's, you know, there's all of the fabric of humanity inside an incarcerated place, even if everyone has to abide by these certain institutional norms that make you behave maybe differently than you would outside. Yeah, I mean, everything that you experience in the outside world happens in the prison. Right. So what I'm part about is that even when folks figure out how to navigate that space, you know, you may do things that you won't normally do. Like I, I don't smoke cigarettes, but cigarettes was a bartering tool. So, you know, when you needed to purchase things from people, you bought a pack of cigarettes and now you had an opportunity to kind of use that as money and leverage. Similarly, like trying to navigate the fact that you have to purchase things like toothpaste and soap, it was more expensive in prison to buy these things than it was to buy it in the free world, you know? Which is really an atrocity because when you think about the fact that, you know, prisoners are paid at the tops, like the top level of pay, and I was in the top level at one point in time, I worked in the garment industry in a Clinton correctional facility, and we were getting 50 cents an hour, I think it was my top pay. And we still had to buy toothpaste that cost more in prison, like if you bought co-gate or any more, any of that stuff, it was more to buy a tool with toothpaste in prison than it cost outside here in the real world. It was almost like you penalized twice. - How did you come to answer that question that that man asked you about, who are you over the course of the seven, I think it was seven years, so you weren't cursing at the anonymous again. - Over the course of seven years, particularly because it's the most, it's argued with the most formative years any of us have, right? I mean, that 15 to 22, 16 to 23, like you go from, you really go from kind of child to grown up, you figure out who you are, you were doing it in this very, very difficult in particular circumstance. - Absolutely. You know, one of the things that was really and still impacts me to this day is I was born with faith. You know, I was born into a Muslim household, but it wasn't like I was born into a rigid Muslim household. I was born into almost like a secular kind of rigid, but more secular space, you know, learning almost when I was a child to coexist with the rest of humanity, not being a dogmatic, so to speak, in your approach to life. And so now I'm in prison and I'm reading scriptures for the first time, I'm actually picking up the Bible and reading the whole Bible for the first time, picking up the Quran and reading the whole Quran for the first time. And fuck it.
For me, it was like this aha moment. I'm being asked who am I? I'm studying these scriptures. And then at the same time, I'm realizing when I asked my mother on visit, take my, what does not? What does my name mean? And I remember when I was growing up, asking my mother this same question. And she said, "Yousef means boy born with hair on his head." And that's not necessarily the meaning. But of course your parents kind of give you this kind of beautiful essence of what it could be. And I found out that Yusef actually is, it comes from the Hebrew, which means God will increase our he, which is God in large. And I found out that my parents named me seven days after I was born. And so my parents named me after this prophet Joseph in the Bible and in the Quran, who went to prison for a crime he didn't commit, that crime was rape. And he ends up coming out of prison and becoming one of the greatest statesmen in the history of Egypt. And of course that inspired me. But as I'm reading all of these things and finding out my name, like the meaning of my name, not only is my first name, then I'm named that for a prophet. I'm named after a prophet with my second name. So my second name, my first middle name is Idris, which is the Arabic equivalent to the prophet Enoch. And Enoch is known to be the first educator. And then my second middle name is Faadul, which has the word "justice" in it, with "justice." And my last name of course is "peace." Right? And so when you put it all together, it's this beautiful sentence that's uncovered, which is God will increase the teacher with justice and peace. And I'm learning this like six months into my prison bed. And I'm blown away by it. I'm looking at this like, "Man, my mother told me, my grandmother told me, my eldest told me, God doesn't place more than you than you can bear." And here it is, I'm going through a terrible situation and I'm praying often. And my grandmother is telling me, "Be still and listen. Cast down your bucket." And I started reading deeply and things changed in prison for me. You know, most of the times you would have to participate in the programs of the day. And a lot of times, depending on who was on the shift, the officers said, "Hey, if you want to stay in your cell and read, go ahead." And I would stay in my cell and I would read and I would draw and I would just be participating in the great experiment, I would say, of trying to mentally escape. I didn't find out until later on that wherever your mind goes, your body follows. I was getting my nourishment from this space, but different from what other people were getting their nourishment from. You know, I wasn't counting on me getting three course meals and three course meals. Three meals and not three course meals. No, definitely not. Oh my goodness. Chris, it reminds me of this moment where I was inside of the mess hall once with a buck then, you know, I saw Kevin Richardson. And I would see Kevin and he was on the same unit that I was on. But whenever I saw him, I would raise my milk carton and I would say, "Hey, Kev, to the good life." And people used to look at me. I was the guy who got my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I would cut it in half. Maybe I would cut it in fours and I would eat the quarters. You know, I didn't appear as a normal prisoner, you know, just kind of, you put your hand in front of you and just stuff as much food down as you possibly can because you don't want anybody else to grab your meal. I had a certain sense of dignity about myself, even in prison. Where do you think that came from? I think that came from my upbringing. You know, I think that came from my mother and my father instilling that in me. You know, I think about that now and I think about how, you know, when you are in positions in life where you have to struggle to survive, it's almost like you're in war. You know, you do things that you won't normally do. You know, you might, unfortunately, as a parent, you might buy your meal and eat your meal before you come home because your children won't have a meal and you don't want to be seen as eating something in front of them. You know, worst situation that you could ever have because of course in our communities, there's so much poverty that people are making choices. Real life decisions on whether they can provide a meal for their family or pay the rent. And that has never changed. Literally, it's going up. It's like the inflation. The cost of living is going up and up and up and up and up and living wage is not going anywhere. In terms of, so you have this, you have a kind of bookish curiosity you're reading. You have a faith that is keeping you kind of more. Do you have this, the upbringing and I think the love of your family who you're in contact with. Tell me the day that you were, can you remember the day and the means by which you were told that you were going to get out? My goodness. I was released just so that you know because of my condition of release date. I came home from prison because I had good behavior and I had done all of the time without making any infractions. And so that day when it was coming, you know, in prison, they call it getting short and when you're getting short, you've really become almost hypersensitive to everything that you do. You don't want to be seen as giving away all of your goods because people may have enjoyed you being there. You enjoyed your company and sometimes when people enjoy your company, they do things to keep you there. You know, you might find out that you are in a fight all of a sudden and now you assault as someone and now you have more time, you know. And so you're very, very cautious on how you're going to exit. And I remember when my condition of release date came and I was very nervous, you know, for weeks before that, I was so nervous. You know, I'm giving away my black and white TV, I'm giving away goodies that I had, different books that I kept. And then when the day came, I remember leaving, like walking out of the prison into the arms of my family and feeling like it was a dream, feeling like they're going to wake up, they're like, I'm going to wake up from this and somebody's going to say, hey, sorry, we made a terrible mistake. You're not going home. You still got more years to do because at that point, I had done so much time. You know, I had done almost half of the time that I had lived, you know, 15 years old, seven years. It's like, it was a difficult thing to kind of jump over. You're out at 23, I guess, right? Yeah. So now you've, you know, you do have your whole life ahead of you in some ways, right? At this point, you're a young man, but you've also been institutionalized and incarcerated for these formative years. You've been wrongly accused and convicted and your name is still not clear in the public at this point. Like, how did you, what did you tell yourself about what, how did you even conceive of what your life was going to be? Like what, like, okay, what do I do now? Like how do you think through that? What did you tell yourself? Yeah. I think that is the most interesting part of the story because it's one thing that survived prison, but it's another thing to figure out how to survive life because you don't have the same experience that another 23 year old has. No. In some ways, you've seen things they haven't, but they've also seen a lot of things you haven't. This is true. This is absolutely true. And so that those two polarizations is like, when people see you though, they see you and they, they assume that you have the same experience that they do, you know, if you're in the same community that they come from, they're looking at you and they're like, you know, this looks like a normal person. No one would know. I remember there was this moment where I was on 125th Street. I was at the Lexington Avenue train station and I was standing in line and I was kind of trying to figure out how are people using the machine to get a card to go through the turnstile. I'm not going to, of course, yes. It was totally, it was totally, it was simply talking. So I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, Rip Van Winkle. Yeah, exactly. It's crazy. I'm like, what are they doing? Right? And so I'm kind of watching and I'm in line and I had enough sense to know that this was the line to get your card. And I'm watching them trying to figure out how they're doing this and all of a sudden, it felt like my space was invaded. There was someone right there on my back in my, the back of my hair, like there, here's on my neck stood up. And I was like, I'm trying to move. I know I'm free, but I'm trying to move in such a way to kind of maybe bump into the person a little bit to make them realize that they're too close. They didn't move. And I kept going, I felt more and more and more nervous. And then all of a sudden, I turned around and I said, look, man, I just came home and the guy backed up. And it was almost like that statement alone was a method to let people know I was in prison. And you know, in prison, if you get this close to somebody, that means that that person that you're close to is in great danger. And either they're going to harm you or you're going to harm them. And in their mind, it's not going to be them. It's going to be you. Right? And so this guy kind of backed up, oh, I'm sorry, I'm my bad. I didn't realize. And then of course, I got to the machine and figured out, put the money in and sometimes you got to figure out how to put the money in. It's like you can't put it in backwards or upside down. Put it in a certain way. And then I got the card and of course, you're trying to figure out how to swipe through the turn style and now that didn't work. Okay, let me do it a little slower that it worked. Of course, I thought you find the happy medium. The rhythm.
I'm having you figure it out now because of course now you can use your phone and if you don't have a metro card you can at least double tap and kind of use that reader and go through even on the buses. We'll be right back after we take this quick break. Hey everyone it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast Why is this happening? You have to make it clear to people who are in positions of influence not just in government but also maybe even in your local community that democracy is at stake and what we do plays a role in the outcome. So what did you tell yourself about what you were going to be? Like when people say, all right what are you going to do? What do you want to be when you grow up? That question right? What is your, it's like you're asking yourself that at 23 but it's also like you just got to survive. You got to figure out how to live in the world at the same time. And you want to and that's the thing. That's the, that's the biggest desire. You don't want to hand out. You want to be able to stand on your own. You want to be treated just like all other 23 year olds will treat it right. And so for me I was trying to figure out how do I survive? How do I get a job? How do I do what it is that I need to do in order to keep moving forward? It's like, projectile, keep moving forward. And that was the mantra. But at the same time as well I was listening to back then we had, they still had audio tapes and CDs right? And so I was listening to Les Brown and Sigzigler, you know. I was listening to all of the top motivational speakers. And instead of listening to music, I would listen to them. And even now, you know, Les Brown said to me, I actually got a chance to meet Les Brown and studied under him. And Les Brown said to me, you know, we can turn our cars into universities. We can turn our commute into a university. You know, a lot of times people don't realize that if you have time to spare, in that moment you can listen to an audio book, you can listen to a motivational speech, you can do things that will supercharge you. And for me, I was always on this like supercharged level of, I can do it. I can conquer anything. I was like, you know, go and tell yourself in a mirror like, and these are the same techniques that I would tell young people when I became a motivational speaker. Finding these nuggets I would say of how, like how do you become better and not bitter? I read what Nelson Mandela said who said, you know, being angry and bitter is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die. But then it's like, but how? But how do you do it? Right? And of course I had to digest, I had to taste the words and I had to digest the words. And then I came across a statement from Dr. Maya Angelou. And when I read her statement, I knew that this was it. Dr. Maya Angelou said, you should be angry, but you must not be bitter. Bitterness is like a cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of his displeasure. And then the next thing she says I realize is she's teaching us alchemy. She says use that anger. You dance it. You march it. You do it. She said you do everything about it. And then she said you talk it. Never stop talking it. When she said that and I read that every single chance I got, I started telling people my story. Now mind you, this is a few years later, I did not do this when I first came home from prison. It was not popular to be like, hey, I'm one of the central partners. Yeah. When you know back then. Yeah. All those moments where I started to stand and tell my story, there were other people in the audience that thanked me that told me that they too had gone to prison for crimes. They didn't commit that we were part of this sacred circle of injustice. And at least we had each other to lean on. And I think that that to me became a guiding force in my life because it wasn't until I really started speaking on stages where it was more than 10 people in front of me. Now I'm like, it's 100 people. It's 500 people. It's a thousand people. It's a, it's 5000 people. You know, I realized that what was happening was that I was being re-enbraced by society. Like the psychosocial effect of you realizing that you matter causes you to dig deep inside of yourself and to give the best of yourself. And then society does the same thing because if society is wrapping their arms around you, saying that you matter, like it's just like now running for city council as I walked around the neighborhood, people thanked me. You know, in my mind, I knew that I had a platform, but in their mind, because some of them told me this, they said, you could have done anything. You could have literally been a private citizen, but you came back to help. You're using your platform to change. So the question is why politics? Like why, you know, a lot of politicians, we talk about, that's a very profound point about society re-embracing you and I can understand how meaningful. I mean, I can't subjectively, I didn't have the experience you had, but as you describe, I can imagine how meaningful that would be, to be re-embraced by a society that had essentially pegged you as the worst of the worst, right? Is it redeemable as a kind of conjuring of our worst fears and the worst sort of racist, you know, tropes? Why do you want, why do you want to be so many of the New York City Council? Like why politics? Well, I got to tell you. So politics, one day, and this is like really the guys on it's true, the first time I thought about politics, I was in prison and I was reading the story of Joseph in the Bible in the Quran and I was like, wait, is it possible? Then I was like, nah, that's not going to happen. You know, I'm not the prophet, you know, this is not prophecy, this is not, you know, and later on, I remember being on stage with Rema Santana. And Rema Santana made this statement that I never forgot and I always attributed to him. I said, you know, Rema Santana said, occupy all spaces. They want us to occupy jail cells, but we want you to occupy college dorm rooms. And then even more than that, as I begin to ponder what was possible, when we were found innocent in 2002, we started marching the streets together. We would text each other and say, hey, listen, okay, it's time to meet. Gloves back on. And we would literally get out there and we would march up Linux Avenue up Malcolm X boulevard. Justice for the Central Park five is what the call was was the cry was. But while we were marching, I kept saying to myself, we're never going to get any success. You know, I kind of had doubts and those doubts weren't little. They were big doubts. They were, they were mountains in front of me. And we had to figure out how to move those mountains. And what happened was that we turned around one day and there were huge crowds of people behind us chanting the same thing. And it was there and then that I realized who's in the halls of power to hear us. We're here marching in the streets for justice, for change. But nobody's there hearing us. And it wasn't until Mayor de Blasio came into office and he guaranteed while he was running, he was one of the many that guaranteed if you elect me, I will fix and solve the Central Park five's dilemma. They should be compensated. Twelve years had gone by. And so, you know, in my mind, we had we had been marching for 12 years and then we were compensated and then it happened. And I was like, wow, there's really light at the end of the tunnel. Now mind you, my initial light at the end of the tunnel was coming out of prison. And then it was like, no, there's more. This journey is not over. You just had a tangible example of 12 years of work to basically say like we are owed compensation for what we went through and what the city essentially in the New York City Police Department put us through. And it took 12 years, but then it happened and it happened through the work of organizing mobilization and then electoral politics. Exactly. And so for me, that's where really hit the ground. You know, I started saying to myself, man, you know, what if I, what if I was in office? Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't let this happen, you know? And then it still was a thought. I mean, we're talking about 2013, 2014. 2014 was when we were compensated. And surely thereafter, I was like, man, I need to, I need a reset. I need to go on vacation. And unfortunately, that vacation was me uprooting my whole family and moving down to Georgia. And so from 2015 until 2019 was when we finally made the move back, but all along, I was coming back in fourth to New York. My mother was still here. My brother and my sister are still here. Friends of mine are still here. And I always knew where to go. I always knew everything about New York City. And I remember having a conversation with my manager who's also my cousin, Frank Harris. And I was telling him, I said, man, you know, I'm trying to figure out what's next because I'm it. I'm a motivational speaking trail and people love me and I've been traveling around the world. I mean, I've been everywhere. This is great. But I was like, what's next? And he said, you know what? You'll be great in politics. And he wasn't the first person that said that to me, right? But when he said it, I was like,
Wow, then of course I got a chance to speak to Keith Wright and Keith Wright said you should go into politics You're like on modern day Nelson Mandela. You are hero I was like man, so of course I had multiple conversations with my team and I remember my cousin kind of Sealing the deal for me. They said look you said you can go into politics anywhere, but anywhere other than New York Is off Broadway Very New York thing to say. That's a very Very New York thing to say. Yeah, I mean, but here's the thing about it right like you know the adulation of crowds And I think there's lots of people that go into politics for that reason right but then they get the root awakening Like I feel this away a lot of times when I interviewed a lot of politicians And I always want to say I want to say that's anyone that runs her mayor particularly I want to be like you know that if you're doing this because you want people to like you like you're gonna be disappointed because people are going to hate like That's the job as much as anything like do not I tell this to people and I could sense it in people because I know I have that part of me Badly to a fault right I want people like me. I want them to think highly of me as part of what's driven me to get to do what I'm doing right but it's like There's a lot of work involved and there's a lot of compromise and there's a lot of like the you know constituent services on sanitation I'm like I guess I'm asking you like are you ready for that like are you ready for that part of it? So the thing is this right I've kind of reached a certain level of success and in that level of success Realizing my spiritual Awareness is such where I feel uneasy just doing that There's a certain righteousness that has to be put back into politics Because in our community we created terms like politics we created terms like technology And I think when I look at what even what I experienced as part of the political process right we just heard that the rent control board Raise the percentages up But the living wage hasn't gone up and guess what I remember I have very real experiences now As a person who was on the inside looking out I should say on the outside looking in at that particular point Because the inside looking out was prison the outside looking in was now me Being free living life and trying to make it But coming home one day and as an eviction notice on my door because I couldn't afford the rent Right I was getting fired from jobs once they found out that I was you step salon one of the Central Park five And so it was that reality that made me realize that those experiences They're guiding me yeah, even in this political process right going back to Central Park It was challenging like Central Park is the scene of the crime Mm-hmm and for all intents and purposes New York City is almost like the scene of the crime But being here and being welcome being given a second chance right Figuratively and literally, you know people voting for me why people aren't voting for me because You know they know that I'm a politician that this is politics is usual They're voting for me because I represent something different. I represent hope I represent change You know, I've been telling people that I'm not looking at this the same way I don't first of all I can't because I didn't study politics that way I was in the political science, you know, I'm a common person who was Unfortunately, what about a spike was of justice? I was one of those who was in pain And like I've always said those who have been close to the pain have to have a seat at the table because when I didn't Think that I should have a seat at the table. I was on the table. I was on the menu They were deciding my life for me And so the great part about this process for me now is to galvanize us as a people in a way To remind us that regardless of whether Government comes in and does right by you you have to organize yourself Even in your own home Men have to stand up to be men women have to stand up to be women We have to lead our families. We have to teach our families. I was getting a second education When I came home from public school as a child my mother didn't just leave me too Just the public school system No, I had to read books in in in at home. I had to read the dictionary and look up words and You know, I remember when I started using big words around my grandmother. She was like where'd you learn that word? And it felt good for me to be in that space of being able to say Not only am I using the word correctly, but I said it right You know and that to me is what moves the needle I know that this is a labor where people will hate you But I think the hate comes when people think that you're a miracle maker Right when people know that you are going to try That you're not going to promise people the moon and deliver them the mud But you're going to try and trying is incremental We're not necessarily fighting to Completely change the whole system with my candidacy that's not gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, it's talking about two years to four years at most and then You know if they if they say while we like this guy we want to hire him for more terms Then that happens that way But it's about doing the real work of the politics of governance You said salam will be the democratic nominee for the city council in district nine in Harlem in New York City in Manhattan He's one of the exonerated central park five and author of better not bitter living on purpose in pursuit of racial justice You said thank you so much for joining us. Oh listen. This has been a pleasure Once again, great. Thanks to you saslam. You know if you want to learn more about the central park five There's been a lot written about it. There's a documentary called central park five There's a dramatized series called when they see us so all of that is pretty remarkable stuff and I would recommend you check it out We want to hear your feedback so email us at with
[email protected] tweet us with a hashtag with pod or Thread us are we on threads yet? I don't think we are but I'm on threads at chrisel hay's same handle. I'm also on blue sky There's too much posting happening. There's too many places we need to consolidate but for now those are all the different places Why is this happening is presented by msnbc and evc news. It's produced by donny hollowway and bred in omilia engineered by bob mallery and features music by eddy Cooper You can see more of our work including links to things we mentioned here by going to mvcnews.com/why is this happening? Hey everyone it's chris haze this week on my podcast why is this happening? You have to make it clear to people who are in positions of influence not just in government but also maybe even in your local community that democracy is at stake and what we do plays a role in the outcome That's the only way that you get people to actually take action.
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