Bonus: The Central Park Five
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussion of sexual violence.
On the occasion of the lecture by Dr. Yusef Salaam of The Exonerated Five at Northampton Community College's Annual Humanities Keynote on April 15, we reviewed The Central Park Five, the 2012 documentary by Ken Burns, David McMahon, and Sarah Burns.
Also check out:
Conviction and exoneration (PBS)
Is "Do the Right Thing" as vital and important as ever?
Credits
Hip Hop Movie Club is produced by your HHMCs JB, BooGie, and DynoWright. Theme music by BooGie.
And remember:
Don't hate...exonerate!
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Transcript
Welcome to Hip Hop Movie Club, the show that harmonizes the rhythm of hip hop with the
magic of movies.
2
:But today we got a bonus episode.
3
:We're discussing the PBS documentary about the Central Park Five.
4
:We're three old heads who put their old heads together to vibe on these films for you.
5
:I'm Dyno Wright, podcaster, filmmaker, longtime hip hop fan, and the institutional
protectionism still be protectioning.
6
:Hmm.
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:I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, long time hip hop fan.
8
:And the quote that stuck with me from this documentary is, we're not very good people.
9
:I'm Boogie, a DJ, long time hip hop fan.
10
:And this story touched me so much while I was in middle school growing up.
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:It was everywhere.
12
:I mean, because I live right outside of New York, so you couldn't go anywhere without
hearing about this story.
13
:This episode will answer the question, how has this travesty of justice impacted the five
men?
14
:Central Park Five is a documentary of five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem, New
ite jogger in Central Park in:
15
:as their eventual exoneration after serving lengthy prison terms, directed by Ken Burns,
Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.
16
:And Dr.
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:Yusef Salaam, New York City Councilman and member of the Exonerated Five, will be the
keynote speaker for Northampton Community College's annual Humanities Program on April
18
:15th.
19
:We'll be there.
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:Shout out to Andrew McIntosh, DJ ARM 18.
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:Man.
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:Yep, he's putting on these great programs, impactful programs for Northampton Community
College in Bethlehem, PA.
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:All right, so we're just gonna this a little different.
24
:We're just gonna go off the cuff and just talk about the Central Park Five.
25
:We mentioned Travesty of Justice.
26
:Boogie, said it, you know, this was everywhere and it still resonates today.
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:Just, blatant racial profiling and injustice.
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:Yeah, just insane.
29
:So these kids were just so young and there was an agenda, obviously.
30
:And I think that's what they mentioned here is that they wanted to make a statement that
pinned this against some kids.
31
:And it was obviously much easier with what's going on in society, especially there in the
late eighties when New York was so divided, crime, crime running rampant crack epidemic,
32
:which was, you know,
33
:pointed at minorities, and there's all theories behind all that, but they're just pinning
this crime on these kids and literally coercing them to make these statements.
34
:It is mind boggling.
35
:Yeah, I mean, the one thing that, like I mentioned before we started recording is that
this documentary, it brought back a lot of feelings I had at the time.
36
:It was borderline triggering growing up outside of New York.
37
:And I spent a lot of time, if I mentioned over various episodes, I spent a lot of time, I
was born and raised in Newark, but I spent a lot of time in Jersey City, which
38
:geographically for those of our listeners,
39
:is right across the water from New York City.
40
:So you can see New York City, clear as day right across the water from Jersey City.
41
:So I spent a lot of time there as a youth with my family.
42
:a lot of stories hit New York.
43
:was hitting, Jersey City and Newark right away because we pick up New York City stations.
44
:So yeah, they mentioned some things in here.
45
:there was...
46
:They were laying out the background about what was going on at the time.
47
:as JB said, there was a lot of racial tension going on, a lot of crime.
48
:A couple of names I did hear in the montage of them talking about how crime written and
how racially tense the area was.
49
:mentioned Bernard Goetz, the quote unquote subway vigilante who
50
:shot and injured four black teenagers on a New York City subway in 1984.
51
:Don't want to get too much into it, but you can kind of guess what was going on at the
time and why they were shot.
52
:Another clip mentioned Yusef Hawkins.
53
:Chubb Rock mentions Yusef Hawkins in Treat 'em Right song, Never Forget Yusef Hawkins when
you're walking.
54
:Yusef Hawkins was murdered in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1989 he, his brother, and some of
their friends went to predominantly Italian neighborhood to inquire about a used car that
55
:was for sale.
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:There's a lot of theories about what happened and why they were targeted.
57
:I don't want to really get too much into that, but that...
58
:the racial divide between different sections throughout Manhattan.
59
:People think, yeah, New York is not the South.
60
:But understand at that time, there's clear defining lines in neighborhoods where races
were separated.
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:And as we mentioned, we talked a little bit about this do the right thing with Bed-Stuy
and his different areas and how racial tensions develop throughout that.
62
:Same thing, that's kind of the background that was laid out for do the right thing.
63
:And it's also laid out this documentary as well.
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:Unfortunately, as JB mentioned, five young men were targeted and they were basically
railroaded through the system.
65
:They didn't really know what was going like said, it was kind of triggering because I'm
looking at the whole situation and it's always on the news.
66
:It's constantly on the newspapers, on the front page, front page, front page.
67
:And I'm sitting here thinking like, man, these guys are not much older than me.
68
:I mean, I thought it was like, 12 going on 13 at the time.
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:And they're, know, 14, 15 and Korey was 16.
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:You know, it's like, wow, these guys are not much older than me.
71
:How could they do what was being said that they did?
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:How could they do that?
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:You know, so it's like kind of hard to watch.
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:And the testimony that they were forced to write, you know, there was graphic details in
there.
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:And I think one of the mentions like that's not how a 14, 15 year old typically talks.
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:And they even, mean, the crazy thing it said 30, 30 teenagers entered the park at the same
time.
77
:Right.
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:And chaos had ensued.
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:There was on top of the rape that did occur that these guys were not involved with.
80
:people were beating up like a homeless individual and other people were being attacked and
it was just a chaotic scene.
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:But, you know, and people scampering and they grab these kids, right?
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:And what's the common is like they're minorities.
83
:don't, know, how many of those kids, we don't even know how many of those kids look like
me, right?
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:So there's obviously such thing as like white privilege and you speak about it, but like
how many of them were, white and that.
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:were they questioned?
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:Were they coerced?
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:Who knows?
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:I don't know.
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:the makeup, but know, common denominator there is that, you know, Black or Latino kids
that were.
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:taken into custody and forced to write and sign.
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:And it was just ridiculous because the stories that they made up, everybody's pointing at
each other and because they were said, know, if you want to get out of here and they were
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:like literally interrogated for hours and upon hours at that age when you don't have that
level of maturity and you are granted an option to have an attorney, but you don't really
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:think straight.
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:right.
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:know, give me the more details or you're not going to get out of here right, right, And
all this stuff and sign it.
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:Obviously the stories didn't corroborate.
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:They were all different stories.
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:They couldn't describe what the woman was wearing.
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:And so there was obviously gaps in the story and the stories that were given.
100
:I think it was the journalist Jim Dwyer.
101
:Yeah, I liked that that journalist, he was telling it like it was like that actually had
an alibi.
102
:Like they
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:Maybe they were involved with some of the other acts of, mischief or violence or whatever,
right?
104
:And they weren't there because they were making up things.
105
:yeah, I saw from across the way, I saw this person do this and they were literally, they
knew the names of the other guys.
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:So they just started saying names.
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:This guy did this, this person held her down.
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:Yeah.
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:Yeah, the whole situation was really crazy.
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:Like you said, there was a whole group of kids walking through the park at the same time.
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:And gave accounts, when you see them mature telling what happened, recalling what
happened.
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:They were saying, they would describe with some of the stuff that they saw happen.
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:And I think it was when they got around to Yusef's SS he was like, you know,
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:The only crime I committed that night was I jumped over a turnstile.
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:know, who would have thought that jumping over a turnstile would get you six and a half
years.
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:You know, it's insane.
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:Right.
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:And what puts it even more into perspective is that the actual
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:The guy that actually committed the crime, the criminal was Matias Reyes.
120
:The fact that they didn't capture him, he actually went on to commit more more rapes while
these guys were imprisoned.
121
:And there were other rapes that were happening of people within the same culture.
122
:And it didn't get obviously nearly as press.
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:It was because this was a white woman, well-to-do.
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:She was like,
125
:either Wall Street broker or some professional like that.
126
:It got all these types of press, right?
127
:But there was more, you know, I don't like to talk about levels, but there was more
egregious rapes and that were going on.
128
:because they were like within the same culture, they weren't getting as much press.
129
:This became the lightning rod case.
130
:And then you have everybody chiming in, including, the current president, taking out the full page ad and all that stuff and, you know, wanting to.
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:invoke death penalty and in the, you know, support.
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:capital punishment and all that stuff, right?
133
:Which came up again in the most recent national conventions and he refused to admit that
he was wrong.
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:So, yeah.
135
:All right, exactly, right.
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:yeah.
137
:Right on brand.
138
:So...
139
:Even when it came to trial, it was like the jurors were too tired to even go on any
further.
140
:It was similar, the boys wanted to just get out of the interrogation.
141
:It's like the jurors just wanted to leave and they just came up with cockamamie stories.
142
:And that was the actual idea of cockamamie story that pointed to their guilt because we
were just so tired of the case.
143
:So.
144
:I mean, I do understand on one side how you have these testimonies of admissions of guilt,
but you could clearly see, as I said, that they were coerced and they didn't match up with
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:each other.
146
:Yeah.
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:and they were so young and then they were.
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:you know, didn't match up.
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:Yeah, it was really sad how those stories out of them.
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:Kevin's mother was there.
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:Kevin Richardson, his mother was there.
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:But she had a disability and they just, oh, you you go on home and we'll take care of
everything and we'll get your son home to you.
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:And then they look over to his sister, oh, you know.
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:You're of age, so you can stick behind.
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:And your mother was cooperating what we were doing.
156
:And we'll just make sure we'll take care of him so we can get him out of here as quickly
as possible and get him home.
157
:Raymond Santana's father, course, didn't, which is really sad, didn't have the luxury of
being able to call out of work and just assumed that his son would be okay because they
158
:said that they were going to release him.
159
:So he went to work, unfortunately.
160
:And then he comes back to see his son and they like move them to another room.
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:They moved them and everything.
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:He couldn't even see his son.
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:It's like this crazy.
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:And, they were denying them food.
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:They're denying them water.
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:You know, we mentioned we've been here for hours upon hours and they're like, you know,
just tell us what we want to hear so you can go home.
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:And Antron, for his father, his father's there with him.
168
:feeding his father the story of, he told his father, I didn't do it.
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:He told him, he's like, I don't lie to my father.
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:I told him I didn't do it.
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:And then they said, well, you know, if he just helped cooperate with us, you know, we'll
get him out of here.
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:So of course his father's like, well, you know, just come on, let's just hurry up so we
can get out of here.
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:Tell them what they want to hear.
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:And had, you know, the guys are all in separate rooms and they're like, well, you got to
tell us what happened because he's pointing a finger at you.
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:And then it's a little bug.
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:Well, if he's pointing a finger at me, well, I'm gonna point the finger back at him.
177
:And then everybody's not even saying that everybody's pointing a finger at one another and
the stories are not adding up.
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:As you couldn't even describe what she was wearing.
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:Simple details like that.
180
:then when they get to the trial, I mean, there's no DNA evidence.
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:That was a big one too, yeah, evidence.
182
:Yeah, there's DNA there, but nothing matched, right?
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:any of quote unquote perpetrators.
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:there's no matches for them.
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:It's insane.
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:I mean, all kinds of loopholes.
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:And they just kind of just kept full steam ahead.
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:Let's railroad this through.
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:because they already had already put them out as the suspects.
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:now,
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:They can't back down now because they don't want to ruin their careers and their images.
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:Just to set any cost.
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:Just to say any cause, yep.
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:Say.
195
:In the intro, Donna, right, you mentioned institutional protectionism.
196
:So even after they're exonerated, you see multiple articles in these tabloid papers and
papers like.
197
:they were exonerated, but maybe they shouldn't have been or and then the police were
trying to protect their name and they never admitted any wrongdoing.
198
:Yeah, we did.
199
:mean, meanwhile, these kids lost.
200
:valuable years of their lives being stuck in jail.
201
:Cory was in Rikers Island, which is literally the most notoriously nasty prison out there.
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:others were, you know, actually maximum security prisons.
203
:even when Raymond Santana came back, he came back and he's like, I'm, I totally was a
different person.
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:Like, I just couldn't look anybody in the eye because I'm always just checking my, my
whereabouts.
205
:And I feel like, you know, I've just like, you know, all jittery.
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:they were all traumatized.
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:Yeah, exactly.
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:It's like a form of PTSD, literally.
209
:And the impact is then you have this dark mark on your record that you can't get a job
easily.
210
:So these guys are struggling to get a job.
211
:There was one of the guys was about to get a job in the postal service and then it came up
that he had a prison sentence.
212
:So then he lost that opportunity.
213
:Even then you also
214
:registered as a sex offender.
215
:So how are you supposed to get a job now?
216
:And you were wrongly accused, but you still have those on your record.
217
:So I don't know at what point it became expunged from the record, but I mean, these guys
went through hell.
218
:Yeah.
219
:And know, Raymond Santana is trying to figure out how to make money because he's like, you
know, I had an appetite, I'm eating, I'm staying in the house and I'm not contributing.
220
:So, you he goes out and he starts hustling, starts selling drugs.
221
:And I mean, of course he got picked up because luck would have it.
222
:But because he had he already had a record.
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:Now he's a offender, so now he's got to serve more time.
224
:So he gets locked up and he's in jail.
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:Poor Antron just left the whole area.
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:He's like, I'm gone.
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:He went to Maryland.
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:He said, I can't even be around here anymore.
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:He just moved.
230
:Luckily, he was able to find a job down there, probably because he was out of the
spotlight.
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:was out of the area.
232
:mean, I'm pretty sure they heard of the case down there, but they didn't put two and two
together because he was so far removed.
233
:Had he tried somewhere closer to home, he probably would have got the same struggles that
everyone else did.
234
:But because he moved to Maryland, he was able to pick himself up and start working.
235
:And he's been working constantly ever since and was able to start a family as such.
236
:the other guys, they still going through the wringer a little bit.
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:I've seen
238
:interviews with Korey Wise and you can clearly see when he starts talking about what he
went through you can clearly see the the trauma in him and how he was affected because you
239
:know it's a known fact that you know rapists they get a hard time in prison it's a known
fact and even though he didn't do it he's labeled as it he's that's what he's there for so
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:so we know we had a hard time.
241
:He probably had the roughest time.
242
:I mean, I've watched a dramatization of it, of what he went through, but he was in
solitary confinement and all kinds of things.
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:And he had it really, really, really bad.
244
:feel sorry, like, you you mentioned, said, supposedly some of the best years, you know,
you're, teenager.
245
:You know, Santana mentioned, you we watched a lot of your MTV raps, you know, we listened
to this, we did that.
246
:I was coming into my own.
247
:Then it stopped, you know, out who you are as a person, what kind of man you're going to
be.
248
:And then it's taken away from you.
249
:You're not even given a choice.
250
:you become a survivor.
251
:That's, that's the mentality you have.
252
:And like your normal routine is completely thrown off.
253
:Things you normally do and take for granted.
254
:You can't do those any longer.
255
:You have a whole different routine on how you handle things, deal with people.
256
:missing out on proms, graduation, starting your career, like you said, and then formidable
financial years, you're building up a career usually, and you can never get that back.
257
:And then you have, again, those checkered past, you know, unfortunately.
258
:And Korey wise, his father passed away while he was in jail too.
259
:So the toll that it takes on your family on top of that, he said it was like cirrhosis of
liver.
260
:So I guess his father had a drinking problem, but maybe it became worse because his son's
in jail.
261
:Who knows, right?
262
:So couldn't have helped.
263
:Yeah, I think he mentioned that his father was probably coping, drinking to cope.
264
:Yeah.
265
:Right.
266
:So, yeah, just terrible, just terrible.
267
:And you know, the quote and I forget the name of the young man who was also just
excellent, who said, we're not very good people.
268
:I don't know if he was a lawyer or journalist.
269
:That was the historian.
270
:That was Craig Stephen Wilder.
271
:Yeah.
272
:Yeah.
273
:It's a terrible story
274
:Yeah, I think one of the, no, not the whole story.
275
:Yeah, I remember like there was one of the quotes that stuck out for me was Reverend
Calvin Butts.
276
:He's actually the, they didn't say who he was, but I'm very familiar with him.
277
:I've actually met him on a couple of occasions.
278
:He was the pastor of Apusinian Baptist Church, the historic African-American church in New
York for about.
279
:I think he was involved in that church for about 50 years until he passed away.
280
:He said the most endangered species in America was the young black man.
281
:And I was just like, yeah.
282
:Nah.
283
:I remember to poor Raymond's father, Raymond Senior, because felt the guilt because he was
the one that told Raymond to go to the park.
284
:He said, you know, the corn isn't...
285
:There's nothing good on the corner.
286
:Why don't you go hang out in the park?
287
:Man.
288
:Yeah.
289
:But the show will kind of character some of these guys have like you, Steph Salaam.
290
:And I think it was Kevin Richardson.
291
:They ended up getting their, they get a college degree because at that point the prisons
were, you know, affording, the inmates, the opportunity to get a college degree.
292
:they better themselves, which goes to show you the kind of character these guys had.
293
:If they were like hardened criminals that, you know, had wrong intentions, they probably
wouldn't have done that.
294
:I think Raymond Santana got his as well.
295
:And I know Antron said he started it, they discontinued program while he was in the
middle, so he never finished.
296
:Yeah.
297
:What are the odds that Matias Reyes would then, you know, intersect in prison with Korey
Wise and he had admitted it because you wouldn't think that someone that had committed
298
:multiple heinous crimes like Reyes did would have that kind of wherewithal or the change
of heart to have the empathy for Korey Wise because Korey was talking, you know, he's
299
:like, Matthias Reyes was saying, I actually
300
:he's serving time for something that I committed and, the actual documentary was well done
in terms of it started off with a confession statement.
301
:And then you're like, wait a second, who's this?
302
:And it comes back to that at the end.
303
:I mean, that was fortuitous because that led to the exoneration.
304
:mean, unfortunately it was many, many years too late, but at least they, they did find
the.
305
:Keltie party.
306
:Yeah.
307
:And it's crazy is that Matias Reyes and Korey Wise actually across one another in Rikers
and they actually had an altercation.
308
:So that was their second time coming across one another and he recognized them and he went
over and apologized to them.
309
:He's like, man, it's all right, whatever, man.
310
:And he's just, like you said, he went and confessed.
311
:I think he, and not only did he that he confessed, I think he kept pressing them about it
until they actually listened.
312
:because they were probably like, I think they brushed him off a couple of times.
313
:And I think he actually persisted on confessing before they finally actually looked into
it and found out that his DNA was in fact at the scene of the rape.
314
:It's like, wow, it's crazy.
315
:know, Korey served 11 and a half years, man.
316
:And that's because just about for the pure fact that he was older, he was 16 at the time
and others were charged as youth, but they still serve six and a half years.
317
:That's still a long time.
318
:I'll see that eight, yeah.
319
:Nope.
320
:the news and everything started first broke, was still, he was serving time for the drug
charge.
321
:Yep.
322
:which luckily for him got bumped down because now his previous record was wiped.
323
:So now he's a first time offender.
324
:Yeah.
325
:All right.
326
:for him, you know.
327
:Well, so these guys have evolved and now several of them are speaking out against
injustice, which is good to see that they're able to kind of make a bit of a career out of
328
:public appearances, talk about their experience in fighting against injustices such as
this.
329
:Yeah, both Korey and Kevin now do work for the Innocence Project.
330
:If you haven't heard of that, they work on similar cases of people wrongly accused of
crimes.
331
:Yeah.
332
:And I know Raymond has also donated some of his funds, because he has a clothing brand,
which reminds me, actually was gonna, I actually gotta go back and revisit his site, if he
333
:has up.
334
:He proceeds from his clothing brand to the Innocence Project as well.
335
:And I know Korey donated a large donation to the chapter in...
336
:I believe the chapter is in, it's in Colorado.
337
:It might be Denver, but I know it's in Colorado.
338
:And they ended up naming their chapter, chapter after him.
339
:Park Madison.
340
:I remember when he first dropped that clothing on a few years ago and I was like, oh man,
I gotta get something.
341
:And something came up and I never got it.
342
:Cause I wanted one of the shirts with their names on it.
343
:And there was another shirt that he had, I believe he had like a cherub on it.
344
:I was like, I wanna get some of that.
345
:Get some Park Madison swag.
346
:Yusef Salaam is now a member of the New York City Council representing District Nine.
347
:He was elected in November 7th, 2023.
348
:And also Raymond Santana has announced his candidacy for New York City's eighth district,
which represents East Harlem and the Bronx.
349
:there'll be neighboring, elected, there'll be neighboring councilmen for neighboring
districts.
350
:Yeah.
351
:That's incredible.
352
:Right.
353
:And I know the documentary left off with civil suit that they filed it actually did get
resolved.
354
:movie comes out in 2012.
355
:They filed civil suits in 2013 and the settlement comes out the year after that, which has
been reported as 41 million.
356
:And then they got additional money after that from the state.
357
:Yeah.
358
:Yes.
359
:Yep.
360
:like I said, this documentary is only some of the story.
361
:But Ken Burns said that he was hoping that if this film would help spur the city to settle
and they got the result.
362
:Looks like it did, yeah did.
363
:And his daughter also directed this film.
364
:She's written books about Central Park Five, so...
365
:other ways to tell a story.
366
:Right.
367
:Yeah, I was so glad to hear that the evidence came out that they didn't do it because I
remember, like I said, it was so triggering.
368
:there was one thing that I clearly remember where they kept the wilding, the wolf pack
roaming through the, was like, what the heck, like, really?
369
:It's like, these guys are like my age.
370
:Like, I'm not a pack of wolves.
371
:Like, what?
372
:Yeah.
373
:It's so hard to keep seeing word thrown around over and over and narrative repetitive,
just over and over and over again.
374
:It's like, our current in office the full page ad and then you see all the other people
talking about it, know, Koch and...
375
:this person and that person and all the people on the street are just basically a book at
them.
376
:then in the court of public opinion, they were guilty before the trial even started.
377
:Definitely.
378
:But, you know.
379
:cautionary tale, know all the facts before you make that decision.
380
:Yeah.
381
:Yeah.
382
:I'm wondering if like a case like this, I mean, there's travesties of justice all the
time, Travis.
383
:And in this day and age, the technology to capture DNA evidence has evolved, has improved.
384
:More people have, everybody has, a lot of people have a camera in their pockets in the
form of a cell phone.
385
:So there's more surveillance.
386
:So I'm wondering like if this would have happened in the past year, how would it be
different?
387
:You know, that's just.
388
:there's still institutional racism and abuses of power, so...
389
:case, would hope that there would be, I hope that there would be someone that may have
captured something in Central Park.
390
:Even though it's at night, the Central Park, you know, there's tons and dozens and dozens
of people and there's that many people.
391
:I mean, you have 30 teenagers going into there.
392
:At this point, a lot of people will be recording something or like, Hey, you know,
unfortunately people like to film when people get beat up or whatever.
393
:Yeah.
394
:Yeah.
395
:let's just say these guys were maybe involved with harassing someone or something like
that.
396
:Like, well, at this time, this is what we were doing.
397
:We were pushing around this guy.
398
:I was not, we were not raping this woman, you know?
399
:Exactly, that's my point.
400
:It's like, times today, exactly.
401
:that was the big issue because were trying to map it out.
402
:And they were like, well, they're saying that it happened over here, but clearly, if you
look at it, there's no way they could have been over here when they were over here with
403
:these guys.
404
:And it's like, what?
405
:But yeah, digital timestamps and cameras everywhere and technology, it's impossible for
them to be way over here when they're right here.
406
:I mean, we can clearly see it, but technology would support that.
407
:mean, the young woman that was raped, she was using a Walkman.
408
:Now she'd probably be using her phone, listening to music through AirPods or whatever.
409
:And maybe she has Find My iPhone or some sort of technology where it's like, okay, she was
literally right here.
410
:These boys were right here.
411
:Mm-hmm.
412
:Could be case closed.
413
:So.
414
:defense lawyers have more to work with.
415
:Yeah, absolutely.
416
:with these days.
417
:Yeah, this was 1989.
418
:well before cell phones were, yeah, it would be like a cinder block.
419
:Pretty much, pretty much.
420
:Yeah.
421
:Yeah.
422
:Yeah.
423
:Yeah, this story was also made into a four-part limited series for Netflix in 2019.
424
:That was a co-written and directed by Ava DuVernay called When They See Us.
425
:I highly recommend people to watch it, but I'll caution them that it's a very hard watch
if you choose to watch it.
426
:Even this documentary was intense.
427
:Two hours of this was pretty intense.
428
:Watch a four part series?
429
:I don't know man.
430
:Gotta
431
:series, man, it had me in tears.
432
:Like literally I'm bawling out.
433
:But yeah, I think it was relevant because I think a lot of people don't realize how easy
it is for something like this to occur.
434
:You look at it, how could that happen when all of the evidence, it happened?
435
:We look at all the time, people always say, how could this happen?
436
:We let it happen.
437
:That's how it happens.
438
:they have a clear agenda and they're focused on, you know, pushing something through.
439
:Like, you know, they had Mateus in custody while the trial was going on.
440
:And his DNA is in that file, you choose not to look at it.
441
:Like, he's a serial rapist.
442
:Like, why would you not even consider looking at it?
443
:Just off the fact that he's a serial rapist.
444
:Like, maybe there's a hunch that he could have done it.
445
:We don't think he did.
446
:We think these kids did it.
447
:But on a hunch, let's just look over here just to check and make sure nobody even looked.
448
:Or if they looked, they kept their mouth closed about it.
449
:No, the whole culture of them getting coerced confessions like this automatically doesn't
be conducive to, let's actually get the facts here.
450
:Let's make the facts line up.
451
:No, no.
452
:You hold up your hand to a locomotive.
453
:Exactly.
454
:I look forward to seeing what Dr.
455
:Salaam has to say.
456
:I've always wanted to hear him speak.
457
:I've seen him on interviews and different things of such, and he's a very well-spoken
person.
458
:the one thing that I got from learning about him, his faith is what got him through.
459
:prayed a lot, he read a lot.
460
:prayed a lot, read a lot.
461
:And that's what sustained him, even though it was hard, but that's what helped sustain
him.
462
:But I hope he probably talks a little bit about that when we get to see him speak.
463
:Yeah, looking forward to it.
464
:It comes out like, goes wild.
465
:Because I know that every now and then when one of them will make an appearance, sometimes
they'll bring one or two of the other ones with them.
466
:So I'm hoping.
467
:Yeah.
468
:I mean, they might not actually speak, but just to be there as a support.
469
:Yeah, that would be cool.
470
:Hip Hop Movie Clubs produced by your HHMC's JB, Boogie and Dino Wright Feat music by
Boogie.
471
:Join us on April 24th at the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas at SteelStacks in Bethlehem,
PA for a screening of Hustle and Flow in 4K starring Terrence Howard, Mane and Ludacris.
472
:Mane?
473
:Tickets at SteelStacks.org
474
:man.
475
:man.
476
:Man.
477
:I was not expecting that.
478
:I can't even hold it.
479
:man.
480
:thank God for the levity after a heavy topic.
481
:I know.
482
:Thanks for watching the Hip Hop Movie Club show.
483
:Ring the bell so you get notified when we post new content.
484
:It's the sound of a power up for us, so thank you.
485
:If you enjoyed this episode we have more where that came from.
486
:the thumbnail it's about to come on the screen.
487
:And remember, don't hate, exonerate, if not guilty.
488
:Of course, if not guilty, exonerate.
489
:Yes, absolutely.
490
:Yup, Justice, your mind and your conscience and your record, get it done.
