Better, Not Bitter

by Yusef Salaam

  We’ve now been together for thirteen years.

  Healing is such a shape-shifting thing. It happens in stages. The intimate relationships I’ve had were all part of the process. The relationship with my wife gave me the impetus to begin unpacking my trauma via storytelling. She believed in me, and her belief helped me to know I was okay. I’d certainly shared my story on stages since my release, but they were one-off, niche opportunities. I’ll never forget the day I woke up, sat up in the bed, and said, “I don’t want to go to work no more.” Her faith in me was so absolute that she simply responded, “Well, don’t go to work.” Then she asked, “What do you want to do?”

  Sanovia and me.

  “I think I want to pursue this motivational speaking thing full-time.”

  Her response: “Well, let’s do it. Let’s figure it out.”

  That changed everything on the inside of me. It drove me. She listened to my heart and responded accordingly. This opened the door to every opportunity I’ve experienced since then.

  There will never be a moment when you say, “Okay, fine, that was good. I’m finished. All healed.” No, tomorrow you might need to talk about it again, to heal a little more. Be okay with the time it takes. There’s no need to rush it. What’s for you is for you.

  That early conversation with my soon-to-be wife about being unjustly convicted opened up that process for me. I learned that my story has value. That I can inspire people who are also doing everything in their power to not participate in the false narrative they’ve been given. It took awhile to go from saying “Thank God I survived that” to “I’m part of something greater. I’m a part of the civil and human rights movements.” But it was the support I’d received that ignited that shift.

  Find yourself someone—several someones, if possible—who sees you. Whether it’s a mother telling you to not participate in your own destruction, a spouse who stands with you in the fight, friends who accept you with their arms always open, having a solid, supportive village of truth-tellers and nurturers makes all the difference in the world.

  In Georgia (from right to left): Me, our family friend John Beckett; my mom; John’s daughter, Kara; and our children in the middle. In the middle row, far left, is Korey’s mom, Dolores Wise, and next to her, in the sunglasses and hat, is Sanovia.

  NINE

  The Expendability of a People

  They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.

  JAMES BALDWIN

  Hopeful for tomorrow, and looking toward the future.

  DUE DILIGENCE IS A PRIVILEGE afforded to only a few. During the trial and immediately afterward, the media took up where the justice system left off. They treated us in a way that told the world we were expendable. They didn’t fact-check. They spewed whatever lies would drive the next day’s story, and people believed them. Some of this narrative-building began during the trial, when our words were distorted. The law, in my experience, is rarely about the truth. It’s about who tells the best story. And in the case of race, the truth sounds inconceivable in the minds of people who haven’t experienced oppression because of the color of their skin.

  I was on the witness stand and the prosecutor, Elizabeth Lederer, asked, “Why did you go to the park?”

  I replied, “Well, I thought it was going to be fun. I always go to the park.”

  This shouldn’t have been considered surprising or odd. Many studies have shown that access to green space in metro areas is reflective of broader class and racial divides. Due to limited access to parks and other green space in our neighborhood—a direct correlation to the white supremacy inherent in urban planning—the park made for a natural hangout spot for us. So the truth was that Black kids from uptown enjoyed hanging out with our friends at the park. But that truth was unbelievable to those who chose an alternative story: Any group of Black boys hanging out anywhere must be up to no good. So while I was thinking, Of course they understand that teenagers can chill at the park without getting into trouble, they were framing my recreation as nefarious and playing into existing stereotypes.

  I imagine that the DA, having heard me say that I went to the park to have fun, thought to herself, I got him. When she asked her follow-up question, I still had no idea that I was trapped.

  “Well, was it fun?”

  “No.”

  And then she asked, “Well, did you have a basketball?”

  At that point, I was baffled. What does having a basketball have to do with me being at the park?

  “Did you have gym shoes or sneakers on? Why would you think this is going to be fun?” she continued.

  I was terribly confused. Wasn’t it clear? Because Central Park was our backyard. It was where we went to hang out. Where we went to experience nature and green space that wasn’t available to us in our neighborhoods. To experience normalcy.

  But this is nonsensical to those creating the story.

  Black boys didn’t go to Central Park to just hang out. And if they did, they’d have on sneakers and shorts, not Timberland boots. (Clearly, she’d never been to a street game in a Black neighborhood.) They’d certainly have a basketball, because don’t all Black boys play basketball?

  When I finally figured out what she was trying to do, it was like an epiphany, and I was so frustrated with myself. They were most definitely playing chess, and I wasn’t even playing checkers. There was a complete imbalance of knowledge and experience, not to mention power.

  They’d already predetermined the outcome. And when I say they, I don’t mean just Lederer or anyone else in that courthouse. I’m talking about the systems of white supremacy and white male dominance. Oppression is the tangible expression of that. That’s what oppression really looks like. There are people who believe that being a person of color means that you are automatically guilty, and the onus is on you to have enough receipts to prove yourself innocent.

  While nowadays we have more opportunities to put the truth on blast, and we can use platforms like social media as tools to make our case, what we’re still doing is appealing to America to see our humanity. We are still jumping through hoops to get crumbs from a table filled with bread. We’re still having to say, “Hold up! Look at this videotape.” The facts don’t matter. The words and testimonies don’t matter. We have to have this inordinate amount of proof for things that white people do with impunity.

  Rayshard Brooks drank too much and fell asleep in the drive-through of a Wendy’s. In his inebriated state, Rayshard questioned the police officers who awakened him. I can imagine him thinking, I don’t want to go against the law, but I also don’t want to lose my life. The police could easily have walked him right across the street to his house. To his mama’s house. To his grandma’s house. They could have said, “Look, you are not fit to be out right now. We’re going to walk you home. Matter of fact, we’re going to call an ambulance for you, all right?” They could have not said, “Breathe into this breathalyzer.” But instead, those officers chose to handcuff him. I can imagine Rayshard’s fear. I can imagine him wanting to get away. The narrative about him could have been that this guy needs help, and right now we’ll get him to bed.

  That would have aligned with the same compassion shown Dylann Roof, a man who shot up a church in Charleston and killed nine innocent people. After being taken into custody, he was brought Burger King for dinner because even domestic terrorists need to eat.

  So even with more resources, we are still trying to prove our humanity by appealing to people who don’t see us as truly human. We keep hoping that the system is fair. It is not. And it will be judged for that. There are too many people who have built their lives on the backs of Black bodies. And there will be a reckoning, spiritual or otherwise, for that.

  Right now, there are people who are sitting in a jail cell and have not been arraigned. They have not been calle
d up to be judged for whatever it is they have been accused of. What do they have except hope? There’s a verse in the Qur’an that says, “On the Day of Resurrection he will be of those arraigned?” (28:61). Well, I know what that’s like. I know what finally getting my chance to tell my story before the judge means. But I also see this as an indictment for those who are enactors and enablers of the systems of injustice in this country. They, too, will stand before the judge one day. Until then, we must figure out ways to conquer these inequities in this earthly realm without continually having to prove our inherent worth as human beings.

  This challenge is why I believe that many of us have decided on an all-or-nothing approach to justice. There is no “right way” to protest. Because the oppressors have determined there are no right ways. They have told us how and what they will accept, and yet even peaceful protesters can be met with tear gas. Marches and yelling are labeled as riots. Even taking a knee during the national anthem is enough to destroy a career. They mind us organizing. They mind us quieting ourselves and realizing the depths of what’s at stake. They mind us arming ourselves in line with the very Second Amendment they try to keep for themselves.

  Perhaps ancestors like Margaret Garner got it right. Garner was an enslaved African who was both vilified and lionized for killing her daughter rather than have her returned to slavery. The acclaimed writer Toni Morrison based the story of Sethe on Garner in Beloved. Underlying the horror of such acts is the same principle that many Americans celebrate in the founding fathers: Give me liberty or give me death. There is no more capitulation to a system that doesn’t care. Our humanity keeps us hoping, and that does good for our souls. But the reality is entirely different. And the bending and contorting we do often means that we find out too late that the game is rigged and our stories have been stolen.

  I wrote about this in one of my rap songs:

  Back in the days

  I had a kingdom that was great.

  Then you tried to come and take my moms on a date.

  She didn’t want to go so you dragged her down slow.

  My pops would have bust you in the head but he didn’t know.

  Overwhelmed by the promise of the better life west.

  Didn’t know the promise excluded him and the rest.

  He didn’t smell the rat until it was too late,

  the ones who refused hung in nooses

  while the rest was chained.

  But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

  Stop the missing link is what you seek.

  Don’t blink.

  Now you see.

  Blink again and I’m gone like the wind.

  Inshallah, I’ll return four centuries from then.

  This is my worry for Black youth today. Too many of us don’t realize just how expendable we are. We’re trapped in this cycle of wanting freedom but believing the lies told to us about who we inherently are. Some of us believe that jail is a rite of passage, and some simply see no other option. Too many young Black men, in essence, choose isolation and containment, a kind of death, rather than persisting in a world that denies them freedom anyway.

  Maybe this is why so many in Black communities celebrate survival so much. Choosing to survive, to keep living, no matter what that looks like, makes the containment feel like an obstacle we’ve overcome. Many people come up to me and say they are so glad I survived. And I’m certainly grateful. There’s something to be said about having survived these systems with my mental faculties still intact. But the truth is, not everyone shares my survival story, and so I ask: Where is their victory?

  I’ve talked to many exonerees, and their emotional and mental struggles continue even after being freed. In that way, the Exonerated Five are fortunate. We get to tell our story. For those of us who choose to, we get to tell our story over and over and over again, and the power in giving our stories air means we get to heal over and over and over again. But many who were formerly incarcerated or recently exonerated—dare I say most—do not have that opportunity. Working with the Innocence Project has shown me this. Too many men and women who live with the grief from this particular experience don’t have the opportunity to heal in the ways that I have been afforded. Most of the people who are home and free through the Innocence Project were found innocent because of the organization’s relentless work. We were unable to benefit from that kind of advocacy. We came home through parole. We came home to the negativity that comes with being labeled as the scum of the earth. We came home wanting to hide. We made do with scrounging for any crumbs we could get, not making any noise. But when it came time for us to fight, we came together like a Voltron of brotherhood. We leaned on each other, and with the exoneration an astronomical change happened. We were now celebrated.

  There’s a photo of my mother with a sign that says “Yusef is innocent.” She has the biggest, brightest, and most beautiful smile. My sister and a few friends are standing next to her. But my mother had always been and continued to be very skeptical when there was talk of our exoneration. She understood that the system was not going to give us our roses.

  By 1999, I’d moved to Georgia. In my mind, New York represented evil. The city had caused me, my family, and our community so much pain. But meetings were happening. My mom held gatherings in the community center in her building to discuss the possibilities of our exoneration. Probably even more so than my mother, I was skeptical of the chance to be exonerated when Reyes was brought forth as the suspect. The system had already mishandled this case in such a bad way that, in my mind, I thought they were just going to cover themselves by saying he was the sixth man. I just knew we were going to have to live our lives with this indelible scar.

  The media devoured us in 1989; more than four hundred articles had been written, ripping our lives apart. We were in the eye of the storm of public opinion and speculation, a storm that we weren’t supposed to survive. In 1997 I came home to a world that still saw us as beasts that should be lynched. But in 2002, when we were finally exonerated, the general response was the equivalent of “My bad.” My mother said it best. “It was such a whisper, I wonder if the rats in New York City even heard it.” They screamed about our guilt and whispered about our innocence.

  I was so angry about this. And even more than angry, I felt let down. I wanted all of my life back. I wanted people on the street to not say, “That’s the guy from the Central Park Five,” but “That’s the guy who was wrongly accused.” The response that we now receive today is what I wanted and needed back then.

  Things shifted with the Ken Burns documentary. Ken, according to his words, actually believed that we had committed the crime. “We all believed it,” he said. It wasn’t until his daughter, Sarah, who was graduating from college, wrote a thesis paper on criminal justice and bumped into Raymond Santana that his opinion began to change. She began to write the story that became the book The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding and ultimately the Central Park Five documentary she made with her father.

  One night in Connecticut, at the end of a screening for Ken Burns’s documentary, we’d just finished the Q&A, and I prepared to move on to the next part of the evening. Then I saw a silver-haired, elderly man making his way down the aisle. He was coming directly toward me.

  My first instinct was to be wary. Many people have long-held beliefs about us; many felt challenged by our truth. It was hard to tell who was who. When the man got to me, he extended his hand to shake mine. He was gentle, even comforting, but there was also an urgency to his grasp. It was one of those moments when the handshake went on for a touch too long. Just as I thought I should pull away, he spoke:

  “You don’t understand. I came here because I was trying to understand why my good friend Ken Burns was making a film about rapists.”

  I was stunned. My breath caught in my chest. But then I could see the remorse in his eyes and he went on.

  “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know.” His grip and handshake made
sense now.

  I thanked him.

  I thanked him for his words because there were too many people who would not have apologized. They would not have had the courage to come up to me, shake my hand, and reveal what they had believed. I appreciated him for sharing not only this fact but, more important, his ownership of this realization that his previously held beliefs were wrong and harmful. It was such a heartening and powerful way to end an already wonderful night.

  At the screening in Connecticut where the silver-haired man came up to me. (Courtesy of Mark F. Conrad)

  I innately understand why people who have been found innocent through organizations like the Innocence Project, and are happy to be home, are still devastated in some ways. They haven’t been fully restored back into society. These accusations and convictions upend whole families, and it ripples down to devour entire communities. Pulling at the fibers that are Black and Brown families is bound to leave gaping holes in the fabric of the communities where they live.

  And I can imagine that those who have been freed might have felt like, “This has been happening all around. These men are five of hundreds of thousands. Where is our spotlight? What about us?” And they are right. Our story isn’t new. It’s the story of Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart, wrongly convicted in 1983 in the Georgetown Starter jacket murder and exonerated thirty-six years later. It’s the story of Ronnie Long, wrongly convicted in 1976 of robbing and raping a white woman in North Carolina by an all-white jury and exonerated forty-four years later, and too many others.