Donald Trump lambasted the guilty verdict of his hush money trial this week from the same Manhattan courthouse that was the site of one of the most notorious examples of injustice in recent New York history that he had a part in.

As Donald Trump lambasted the guilty verdict of his hush money trial this week, he stood inside a Manhattan courthouse that was the site of one of the most notorious examples of injustice in recent New York history. And he had a part in that.

It’s the same courthouse where five Black and Latino youths were wrongly convicted 34 years ago in the beating and rape of a white female jogger. The former president famously took out a newspaper ad in New York City in the aftermath of the 1989 attack calling for the execution of the accused in a case that roiled racial tensions locally and that many point to as evidence of a criminal justice system prejudiced against defendants of color.

But on Friday, a day after making history as the first U.S. president convicted of felony crimes in a court of law, Trump blasted that same criminal justice system as corrupt and rigged against him.

Some Black Americans found irony in Trump railing against the injustice of his own conviction, in a courthouse where five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongly convicted in a case Trump supported so vociferously. The Central Park Five case was Trump’s first foray into tough-on-crime politics that preluded his full-throated populist political persona. To many, Trump employed dog whistles as well as overtly racist rhetoric in both chapters of his public life.

  • Flying Squid
    62•4 months ago

    Salaam and the other young men had their convictions vacated in 2002 after evidence linked another person to the crime. Trump in 2019 refused to apologize to the exonerated men.

    Oh he didn’t just refuse to apologize. As you will see if you click through, he did the exact same mealy-mouthed “both sides” thing he did after Charlottesville. And I am sure most black people know exactly what he meant when he said that if they heard it.

    • @disguy_ovahea
      30•4 months ago

      In case that’s still not enough discrimination, there’s always this gem:

      “Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against.”

      “The mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. It’s incredible,” he said.