Yusef Salaam & Korey Wise Speak On Life After 'Central Park Five', Injustice Systems + More

breakfast morning everybody is DJ envy Angela Yee Charlemagne the guy we are The Breakfast Club gotta special guest in the building yes sir now we always seen a central park they feel when they see his name on the Central Park five that's what I know and now he's too young man the story was based off your lives so yusuf solemn that I said I write Salaam Salaam and Korey wise welcome sir can I ask you our brothers a question do y'all feel seen yet I think's I think now is yeah we're on a different Plateau now you know the whole globe is responding in blogger again and wanting to understand what happened especially as relates to the hashtag this is America kind of thing you know what's been happening in black and brown communities has been has been crazy but then you see this film when they see us and it's like oh this happened to the formerly known as Central Park five right but this is what's happening to black and brown people all around the globe right and so America is this petri dish of of you know I call it the criminal system of injustice you know that's the best thing about social media and everything that's going on and creating movies and Netflix and all these these these outlets I grew up in it so I lived it in I experienced it being from Queens and we seen it and we've seen the effect of media and the ads that Donald Trump took out but then you forget about it like lost it for for I don't even know how many years when he is yes thirty years thirty years now the fact that it's back and now is it can be documented and something that we can look at all and see how did you just do judicial system really affects this and takes advantage of our you you think about how those ads at Donald Trump took out also harms the whole situation like that should have been illegal of him asking them to bring back the death penalty and you know he still hasn't wrong right not at all but you know what's crazy about that right this ad this ad was taken out two weeks after we were accused we weren't even we weren't we hadn't even gone to trial yet mmm and so they looked at us and said oh yeah Cory looks like a rapist Yusef looks like a rapist Antron Kevin Raymond you don't have same date bait what they look like right black a black man a black man a person with this skin color if they're accused they're not they're not accused they're actually the culprit and that's the biggest problem of the criminal justice system they look at people and automatically cache judgment this man took out eighty five thousand dollars of his own money to pay for these ads to run in New York City's newspapers that's a lot that was a lot of money then that's a lot of money not money a lot of folks don't have eighty five thousand dollars sitting in the bank you know and so for him to do that it gave a nod to everybody in darkest place of society to then think about what can we do to these guys Pat Buchanan started writing about quarry in the papers he said let's take the eldest one and hang him from a tree in Central Park now you look at the series and you realize quarry wasn't even one he wasn't even a suspect right and two he became the magic that freed us he went down there for the support he came down a few right you know I mean and that's such an honorable noble thing man I always have this guy's back that you anticipate could happen because before that you're not thinking okay I'm gonna go down and see what's going on and then I'm gonna end up somehow getting accused of something because I'm sure you knew he didn't do anything wrong also yeah so I'm sure that that was nothing that you would anticipate you think that the legal systems in place to actually protect you and then you get down there and they did everything that you're not supposed to do now are those practices still legal today where you can actually they starved you they family members away from you [ __ ] happens right now you know it's you know what's what what the real law is the real law is white supremacy white male dominance that's the only law that is recognized in America I said all the time all white men have been the parasites at his country did a problem with this country and he [ __ ] up law even now from the abortion bill that everything is cuz of old white men talk about it man that's what it is and that's a problem I see one of the beautiful most beautiful things about this is that we survive this he did almost 14 years Cori what did your parents say when you went down there and they said you had nothing to do with this but you coming down here for your friend what did your parents say at that time oh she even know that I was dead she just heard I was there same but about Tom for her to catch up to me I was already gone hmm an ally I get the feeling Cory that whenever you you know I'll even see you on TV and so I was like it's still hard for you to talk about this stuff to a degree but at the same time it becomes therapy to me you guys all watch it together for the first time right yeah no that was that was hot I was without without route or anatomic ribbing being there with us at the time because the loss of his mother yeah but that was one of the hardest things I think to watch because there was already the assumption there we already knew what everybody went through already I said you know what should my time was like this Cory's time probably was like that as well and then when we saw it and we got an opportunity to see Cory's portrayal in this in this awesome film when they see us it blew our mind right but he was in real hell we was in paradise hmm I mean that's how I described like we was in I was in maximum a security youth facilities he was in gladiator school everybody knows Rikers Island we're right to around the globe right I mean so pretty much as I find myself learning from the documentary up to now this would be well yeah we Idol but I was feeling from him and I was inside mm-hmm I've haven't been learning from the documentary documentary which one being in there I know now I understand what my son was coming from hmm and that's hard because it was like you know you you you said one day recently you said this right here was Donald Trump placing a bounty on our heads absolutely and all of the hell that he experienced all of the the fact that he had to fight for his life for real you see them saying um sure you say that you this is life after death for you yeah you say that that Corey died in prison you see them saying so the even the emergence of who Corey is now is like I've heard him say man he's fighting for the quarry that couldn't fight he's fighting for those quarries do you forgive everybody involved the woman to processes let's people say forgiving is the best therapy or things like that do you forgive as of lately when they showed the new the new 30 years later 20 20 did I find myself looking at all the players involved and even she didn't she didn't have nothing to do with the rest of it oh she I do just here but about braised potatoes and keep it moving but she stuck around for the rest talk about the victim herself and I found myself getting an extra from her know as far as the lawsuit and everything and some Supreme Court is she like well I felt at a the judge should've waited besides nothing to do with you you got your little money just has nothing to do with you already found out who my elated you my state of mind keep all for that don't know don't be don't get extra with that cuz our hands is not on your dining room table don't put yours on our or we get so when I'm hearing dad these people have so prejudiced man you just Falls I concern in the eye you just belong on welfare you stay on welfare mmm everyone's white kids I believe we should give them more so that's why I got from them so so long so every son from now you know as far as all the Knockouts was concerned I get it from the world's famous picture where Ali and I think sunny listeners on him and he was on the ground so that's what the movie is doing to the system there's knocking everybody out yeah yeah not in the mouth it's taking them out as I find myself learning the district attorney passed away before his hundredth birthday so I'm I was glad that he overturned it and took it to his grave with her mm-hmm because if he overturned it it been about another 30 40 more years for another District Attorney to overturn the case houses Wow how did it affect y'all personally that the judicial system is still flawed so many years after y'all wrongful conviction what I think to echo what Corey saying you know we're looking at a victim who's white who in her privilege bug in her victimhood there's still privilege you see them saying and so everything is pointed to the fact that we had nothing to do with it but yet her doctors are saying but your injuries are more consistent with a gang rape like the DNA deoxyribonucleic acid proved that we didn't do nothing we had nothing to do with this you know and so I felt like this this there's so much that we still have to do there's so many future generations that we have to affect we got to plant seeds in their minds and in their hearts so that they understand that they are the answers that we seek you know what I'm saying so we go around the country we go around the world and we speak we've done it as individuals we've done it collectively you don't I'm saying I started a company called Yusef speaks you know I serve I sell my merchandise which is like my poetry book I sell my hats I sell shirts I saw all kinds of things and I'm coming out with a lot more stuff I've created this right here this is what I call like the freedom medal you don't I'm saying the only thing that I need to change about this is even though it says cp5 I need to change it on the bottom to exonerate it five or and I want to marry those two because the reality is that I what they did to us as a people and continue to do is I our friend and teacher dr. Angela Davis she said we as a people have historical amnesia but the fact that the matter is that we've been socialized not to know they keep information from us that's right so that as we look at the landscape we say damn this is brand-new man they just started shooting people in the back know they've been doing in all communities for years this is America this is the criminal system of injustice is how things have been and so we have a long way to go but I feel like we're knocking it down like Cory said we got them on the roasts because the whole globe is beginning to respond to what's going on right merica they're responding to this case but this case is a microcosm of the macrocosm of cases just like it this is only the one maybe one of the most famous examples of cases just like this and for people who didn't know about it from you know the next generation that weren't alive and were inexperienced in this in New York when it happened the docu-series actually brought so much attention and you know people that had no idea what happened with that story people still thought because Donald Trump still won't say that you guys weren't guilty they thought that they like they just had no idea what the true story was behind it yeah so for yourself doing this docu-series for you guys and seeing it get nominated for what 16 16 16 I mean we gonna be at the Emmys on Sunday and seeing that it was like what the best the best docu-series the most-watched docu-series on Netflix yes ever seeing it break all those records right what does that mean to you man it was all a dream yeah I appear to be you know just a beautiful beautiful sight to see that are better people they they bond and they be getting of the order in the flood and join the fray and something new today and it just enjoying I'm just glad that uh be there what was the first thing you guys did when you when you guys got out mmm and they released you what was the first thing so you know we came out staggered right and by staggered I'm talking about a long stack right I came out seven years later he came out 14 years later my first day out I tried on all my old clothes I could still fit it I put on a triple fashion column it wasn't stabbed and my sister saw me she was like yo where that it looks good for don't wait I literally had the triple fat goose with the fur on the collar and I'm checking myself out in the mirror like man i'ma wear this you know to say and then I came across this right here I came across a box of letters that I had never seen before a lot of them had no return address but they were sent to us we all we all received this stuff but then I picked up one and as I'm reading it I realized my mother had received this type of stuff while we were first arrested and she had been dealing with the prison of what it's like to be in be free like be be a parent and have a loved one in prison right that was a hard thing this was this letter right here just to kind of give you an idea of my reality when I came home this letter says to use of Salaam this letters to let you know that your name has been placed on the list of enemies of society by the citizens army New York City branch you became you made a decision when you became one of the pack that decided that Central Park was your arena and decided to attack and violate honest citizens who happen to be in the park now this is the part that's a kicker so just remember that even 20 to 30 years from now some of us will never forget and maybe the one time that you don't check your back is the one time that somebody might just be there to say hello hmm and so you think about like where we are in in the country in the Donald Trump this is Donald Trump some yeah this is an America where herida resident yeah absolutely this isn't a ratio I mean at the end of the day people are people show sides they've always picked sides and we've been the ones that they've already said you know what we're expendable absolutely and on you a mutant animal with no conscience but that was this was sent to all of us McCrory what was the first thing that you did when you when you got on top so I thought a roof over my head mmm-hmm roof over my head and and and just pretty much from there just how to find me where's my mother and we're from there what's my brothers my brothers are my brothers part of town he couldn't deal with me the Scrambler he couldn't deal with you cuz you was still you still had at the jail mentality could've been or just he does not have he just not used to having having a kid around no I don't mean no but he's just you know I'm hearing but as I was hammering all the negative coming from him it was just building me up okay so me somehow I got you and I just does this this it was rough it was rough for me to get where I'm at today so pretty much why I'm at today you know just that's how me people feel it now it helped me not can't help you you took a lot of loss in prison to record you lost your sister and ain't a girlfriend right now they both died yeah did you ever get a chance to properly grieve either one of them no no no I guess my only way of my only way of grieving would be just watching a movie mmm that's wrong if I don't watch it like that so when I do watch it it becomes brand new to me and I'm gonna become brand new to me and maybe one look at my brother here just punch him in his shoulder I mean but that's real talk because at the end of the day his pain came from the decision that he made to come down to be my ace and all right but you know not understanding anything about the law a lot of times now if we see somebody being arrested or something like that we like yeah we know our rights right no we start talking to the cops but Miranda says you have the right to remain silent anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law if you fail to remain silent and so not even not even being wise enough to understand the the the the chess move that was being played on us you see them saying yeah and I and it's so crazy for me because I feel so I'm this is my brother and I'm indebted to him in a way that is indescribable right because not only did he make the decision to come down but when you see the when you see the series you've realized that people aren't built the way he was built right it's still his bill right they came to get him at one point he's in his cell and they said hey man get ready we're going to your parole hearing and he's like no I'm not going and like you're not going he said no if they don't want to hear my truth I don't want to waste my time like imagine if he would have said let me just say anything to get out of here the story never would have been told we just still had this cloud of suspicion over our heads he bumped into the real dude that did it you know I'm saying like I look at it from a more spiritual perspective that everybody that was supposed to be players in this was in the right position when you bumped into that do hmm what was your mentality then cuz it had to be I'm Achilles [ __ ] if you kill him you won't be able to first thing that's on your mind like you got me here it's two times that he ran into him no so that's the thing like first time when I run away when I came across when I came across Reyes I came across Reyes when I was sitting in the day room watching TV on the island he came through after he came nobody can't when I saw it is just talk he's beginning to talk about his rap sheet what he did so I'm looking at now I recognize a few other officers I was behind her and I'm like you know the thought came to me once how could he have something to do with this hair but that was it until before we fought in the dayroom about TV because I watch her about the Y's Video Music Box at the time ralphie game and he was looking for he was looking for the Spanish station and before let's do a scarf from hell Thank You various and uh shortly after that don't over shut that had caught up to him of State and Auburn I'm getting oak I'm getting no quarantine and Albarn is like Oh God it's like a it's like a 70s movie everything everything everything everything is in a yard so you got to go to yard to get what you gotta get and it's saying something you come to when you go to the yard you got about 20 about 20,000 people out there in the yard wait this don't know and when I was coming through my property I saw a is playing stickball and you know wasn't repetitive panting oh my boy he's having a good time and like I said I guess rumor got to him was the wisest in the area he's in the Builder so everybody's in program one day if I was in program anybody's coming out of program so point everybody's coming out of program so like it I got saved where anybody's coming out of program the whole the whole morning y'all look like the late afternoon late afternoon wrecked hominy in the yard so a bison you're about good 30 about click 30,000 of us in the yard so Reyes sees me on the basketball court he comes my way when he comes my way to go you guys I said wanna know Sammy I said mom pose recognized you from so Rikers Island no we had a fight over the TV and let there don't want to go there with you breathe I will go there with you ring it's 13 years late about so I'm like oh so he's just talking why you still got the scar on your face right I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna do this with you now so he's still talking to me kickin it with me he's going over my head but I'm catching it a little bit Oh yo you religious I said now I'm not neutral so you just come come to the chapel area I'd be down there I say okay one day so the door opened up sorry about time to glass they see each other when we see each other so it's time to go guys after the cell so you say about the next day I had went to breakfast it was a heavy gray cloud in the mess hall mi was looking a buddy was looking at each other but more so it's like 90 percent looking at me something grabbed my breakfast to get out of here I ain't trying to eat nope cuz everytime everywhere every every way I walked was somethin goin down fite something is always something someone bad and then my door opened up I had closed it ok that's what he doing when everybody get back from child close the bag don't open up you weren't doing it in the chaplains office huh so I felt like it felt like a movie like whoa no okay I don't think I want to go I already know the answer to that so my new next-door neighbor like Oh big home in Co take a walk down soon let's take a walk down and leave it solo Paris okay let's see you the blood kiss when went down there's my mom picked it out and she's just hysterical I remember so you know a guy who you ran that ran into you up there with you when he loved you so much he cleared your name I said huh he cleared your name okay and then I can say from there my mom's came up there with a few people from channel 7 that they had that phone conversation with mr. Reyes then they farm so moving ray is out but they didn't they didn't what they skeletons to be exposed by John seven so they moved them to move them to Clinton down the mall so we talked and and it was just good so how you want how you want to do that sir ready to come on whatever so I had to come home warm parole so I came home or parole it was good it was a beautiful feeling I gotta leave yeah I got a part of me but you know thank you guys okay and the reason I say thank you is because you opened up a conversation when Ava was here Ava Duvernay was here we opened up a conversation to help teach these you just teach kids what to do when they get pulled over what they need to say what they need to watch out for and what they need to be careful for and even the parents what they can do a lot of times that conversation has not had in our community you know we always want to give the middle finger we always try to talk ourselves out out of a situation but sometimes like you said it's being quiet is the best way to get ourselves some do you and thank you guys man thank you listens how did it was depiction of the story changed our life this far wow I think in a good way because she was able to take this story that all of the all of the negative players meaning like the system she was able to take the story and turn it inside out so that people can see the humanized version of us to understand what was really at stake that we didn't deserve that that we literally had a huge chunk of our lives taken away from us and a lot of us do and here we came back and we were able to survive somehow you know I didn't know the details either right and the details was the stuff that they didn't want you to know on purpose because they wanted people to think just like the jogger right they wanted everybody to think including the jogger that they had done their job right there case closed we saw this case yeah but they were so they were so invested with this case and here it is all of our families all of the people that was supporting us was like you got the wrong guys these guys didn't do it you had Kevin Richardson who was picked up that night with Raymond Santana no four wins I mean he had Kevin saying that she scratched him there's no forensic evidence underneath her fingernails like no skin from Kevin is underneath her fingernails there's no evidence that anybody was in the park near this woman but yeah you're painting this picture like you've got the right people and because they got stuck with that lie there could have been a young pregnant Latino woman who was his next victim she could have been alive today absolutely her unborn child could have been absolutely that's why I never understood I'm like wouldn't it benefit the community for you to actually go get the right person but this is America this is how the justice system always operates you know what I'm saying and if they do get the right person right the right person I mean if you happen to have a name like Dylan roof right and they come and get you you get some Birkin they take you to Burger King you know they catch you alive right and the crazy thing is he would have never confessed right if Reyes would have never said it was him you guys names might never have they would have never cleared and you got to think how many people are still in that situation who didn't commit a crime in jail and then it's not even just once you get out you have that record but people really believe that you are a rapist yeah it Reyes I just made a sneak out it is I out of my brain it Reyes resident had governor Pataki at that time his State of Mind was for his bro his parole board if these if these guy if this guy here or if this if this guy here don't comply with his programs the parole board was allowed to hit you passionate max I said huh so anybody that they had a serious case going on and they would be they had refused to a special program there the parole board just had a history passion max so so my time was not so big I came in in with father fits in so my time when I had been 15 a life yeah they've raised whenever this is the crazy part and then you got out with still on parole yeah even though I came home I came on parole but it was it was it was it was thinking about uh don't ankle brace wrong me and they said uh I think we did I think we did hear something north on the Ray is coming for four so normally we won't let the wall let's leave that alone for now no Valen will give you no bracelet just every two weeks this come true until we tell you not to come through no more wow I'm looking at all them letters man somebody's anyone to castrate you oh yeah yeah when did that ever stop that hate mail I think it changed I mean I think I feel like there's a lot more supporters now than there were back then even when we came home from prison it wasn't popular to be one of us we took that Central Park jogger brand and we rose to the occasion and was like yeah we're one of them you know I'm saying and so we took it and made it like a cape frost you know a superpower whereas there was a lot of folks who even to this day I'm telling people about Donald Trump and they're like nah he's not like that yeah eyes you your eyes are lying to you because we've seen all kind of other stuff that has been going on but this right here he did this and in here he says something like and this is this is kind of like after you read the bulk of it he says criminals must be told that there's civil liberties in one attack on our safety begins if through the Thirteenth Amendment they're looking at black and brown folks that clearly states that we can turn you back to a slave for the punishment and so if they're looking at brown black and brown folks as the criminal element and who is who is he talking about the our civil liberties is the constituents that don't look like absolutely what would you say to Linda Fierstein now if you had if you could say something to her for her to here suck a dick hmm [Laughter] oh I guess I would say basically take and for saving my life I don't know how my life would have turned out you know man what do you mean by it uh what do you mean by that wait you think she saved your life because she put me in the toilet in the best situation and at the same time when I'm me being a kid I don't know how my time with my life would I had talked to her about graduate from high school college work so she does know I guess she just she put she just put easy easy money in my pocket mmm but huh messing up yeah but she took away a lot a lot of your life we we we we were when I said when I spoke before and I said we were all placed in this case on purpose the beautiful thing about this is that for us to be survivors for us to realize that we have come back power that we we came back from sudden death you don't know saying you look at a person like Linda fasting and you've realized she Elizabeth lettera the officers that were involved the media that that wrote the story in a way that made sure that the public opinion was swayed to make sure we got convicted all of those people were working for evil yes without even realizing it like you here you are you're trying to get ahead in life like in a series on one of the attorneys comes to Linda ferrocene and says you know can you at least give them a fighting chance and she says this is not about law anymore this is about politics so they're talking about whether you live or die they're talking about building their careers off of our backs what I want people to understand is that look at where we are now 30 years later nobody would have ever thought that this truth would have came out and that everybody else that was involved not only are we trying to find out what went wrong with the Central Park jogger case but we're trying to figure out what other cases did they did they do this to as well that's the collateral effect of this you know well we appreciate you guys so much for coming through because that was an incredible series we're happy to have you here with us regardless of anything else that happened and I hope y'all win all the goddamn Emmys man man thank you for that stay away from white women about you I brought y'all some gifts too by the way I got some shirts and t-shirts and some hoodies and all that stuff for your I got my bag of tricks down here this is all good as a matter of fact I was talking about this the me changing the bottom of this to the exonerated five and this is the brand new shirts that I came out with so on the bottom of the shirts it actually says the exonerated father so this is this is my with my drawings don't get a large okay cool thank you Corian Yousef thank you for coming man and Duff we appreciate you having us thank you thank you it's The Breakfast Club [Music]

Channel: Breakfast Club Power 105.1 FM

Views: 1,643,264

Keywords: the breakfast club, breakfast club, power1051, celebrity news, radio, video, interview, angela yee, charlamagne tha god, dj envy, central park five, central park five bet awards, central park five breakfast club, korey wise interview, korey wise, yusef salaam confession, yusef salaam interview, yusef salaam central park 5, yusef salaam central park 5 interview, yusef salaam breakfast club, korey wise breakfast club, breakfast club interviews, breakfast club interviews 2019

Id: 45WYi6QY3zQ

Length: 34min 43sec (2083 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019