Over three decades ago, when Donald Trump still had as much chance of becoming President of the United States as most of us have, he launched his career as a spokesperson for "law and order" with a full-page ad in The New York Times. The ad piggybacked on a tragedy in Manhattan involving an assault on a jogger in Central Park, for which five young Black men were accused of, and ultimately convicted for, a crime they did not commit. They were ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence, but not before serving time; when they were released, they sued for and received damages from New York City.
At the time of the attack, however, the City was going through a horrendous crime wave, one that was severe enough to raise questions not just about its safety, but also its ability to function as a unit of government. Trump being Trump, and perhaps even at that point having some nascent idea about a career in politics, he saw an opportunity for publicity and public acclaim.
And he pounced.
With the above-referenced Times ad, headlined in doomsday type as follows: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" It went on in even worse fashion, building up to in the verbal violence that is his stock-in-trade: "CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!"
In fact, that is precisely the moment when civil liberties become as precious as possible. Civil liberties exist to ensure justice for all, because justice for some is no justice at all. Justice for some is what makes crime "easier" to control when the victim belongs to a politically favored group, and the accused belong to an unfavored one. Justice for some is what allows the system to run like clockwork to produce a popular outcome, but one with no connection to fairness or the truth.
Perhaps worst of all for the "law and order" advocates, justice for some stands solely on its ability to remain in power, an accomplishment no government, no empire, no leader or leaders have ever been able to maintain indefinitely. And when power changes hands, the new leaders, often risen from the ranks of the former oppressed, have no clear reason to stand for something other than justice for some.
Sometimes, though, we all get lucky. Sometimes, a member of the oppressed has the character to rise above the oppression. Sometimes, justice delayed really isn't justice denied, and the victims of systemic injustice get a second chance, one to which they respond not with revenge, but with the heart and soul of reformers. Sometimes, when they get a second chance, we all get a chance to see justice for all.
That seems to be the case with Yusef Salaam, a member of the group of Black men who made up the accused cohort that became immortalized in tabloid print and and airwave coverage as the "Central Park Five." Salaam, now well into middle age and running for a seat on the City Council, saw an opportunity to turn the tables on his one-time accuser when Trump was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney's office for falsifying business records in connection with his hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.
And he did so brilliantly.
He used social media to publish an ad of his own, one that mimicked the format and some of the tone that Trump used in his ad, to publish a very different response to the the ex-President's legal jeopardy. Instead of asking for Trump's execution, as well as a suspension of his civil liberties to speed his way toward that destination, Salaam merely asked for the system to work as the Constitution designed it to work--and that Trump, regardless of the outcome, accept the justice it produces with the same grace and resilience that Salaam and his friends accepted their unjust punishment and their exoneration.
Trump, of course, will never do that. Even in the event that he is exonerated, he will spend the rest of his life whining about the unfairness of his having to face justice at all, that all of his conduct (even the illegal conduct) was "perfect," and that he will spend the rest of his life seeking revenge against the system he has already done so much to poison. He will also continue to fundraise off of the experience, in a desperate attempt to salvage whatever might be left of his political career, to say nothing of whatever might be left of his debt-ridden business empire. Worst of all, he will never lack for an army of suckers to help him fundraise, because it's easier for them to simply believe in Trump than it is to face their own shortcomings and fix their lives.
Frankly, though they would rather die than admit it, the members of that army could take a lesson from Salaam's ad, as well as Salaam's life.
He and the other members of the "Exonerated Five" had to face far worse than many of Trump's very white, largely male supporters have had to face in their lives. They had their reputations and then-future prospects destroyed in the most public way possible. They had to spend time in prison. They were force to fight for their freedom and the restoration of their reputations. And they were forced to do all of this fighting against a system that, in so many ways, has historically been and still is wired against them because of the color of their skin.
And, as Salaam's ad illustrates, they prevailed.
Racism is a sinkhole that is easy to jump into, and difficult to get out of. The Exonerated Five did not jump into that sinkhole. The MAGAhats have spend most if not all of their lives wallowing in it, again, because it's easier to believe in white identity politics than it is to face the truth about one's individual circumstances and fight back
Trump and his family have lived their entire lives in that sinkhole, profiting mightily off of it. But karma has finally caught up with them, just as it threatens to do the same for other people who would rather die that face the fact that we are, however slowly and haltingly, moving toward a world in which how we look will no longer automatically punch a ticket to how we live.
You don't like what karma is doing for Trump? You'd better take a harder look at what you believe and why you believe it. And then consider how much more someone like Yusef Salaam can teach you.
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