Yusef Salaam -- one of the wrongfully convicted Central Park Five -- says the country is living through the "American Nightmare" right now ... and, people advocating for Derek Chauvin's release is just the latest in a litany of issues.
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PeopleTranscript
00:00Today, people are calling for Derek Chauvin to be pardoned by President Trump.
00:07How does that make you feel?
00:09I mean, this is the American nightmare.
00:11We're literally right inside of the nightmare called America.
00:15We want the American dream.
00:16We want to be able to say, you know what?
00:19We fought for justice.
00:20We made sure that we put our blood, sweat, and tears forward, and here we have a president
00:26who is literally erasing all of the gains that we've made.
00:31The past 50 years or more are being erased, and we got to make sure that we keep our eyes
00:36on the prize.
00:37And what does that mean?
00:38That means that we have to focus on truth, justice, and equality, and make sure that
00:43we know that we count.
00:45This right here is an awful day for America, and by a day, I'm talking about a length of
00:51time.
00:52Not necessarily just a day, but this is an awful day for America, for us to be able to
00:57wake up every single day in a nightmare, not the dream.
01:01Many people are saying that he's calling for a race war.
01:04You know, what do you think will happen if this guy is pardoned?
01:07Can you see this being like another civil war?
01:10I want to caution our people.
01:13Do not take the bait.
01:16They are trying.
01:17What do you mean by that?
01:18They're trying to pull us out into the streets to fight with weaponry that we don't have.
01:24Because, see, you got to remember, when Muhammad Ali said, I can fight here, you're my opposer.
01:33Why am I going across the waters to fight a people who look like me, who are struggling,
01:39who are in need?
01:41If I wanted to fight, I could fight right here for my truth, freedom, and justice, and
01:45equality.
01:46And so the reality is that, right now, there's an effort to wipe us out, wholesale.
01:57There's a clear effort.
01:58We got to know that, one thing, we're inside of someone's plan.
02:03We have to have a plan.
02:05We got to make sure we control our emotions.
02:08We can't, because, see, what happens when you lose your mind, you go crazy.
02:15Newton's third law says, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
02:19Can you imagine the action that causes the reaction, and them turning the cameras on,
02:24when we are reacting to an action that they caused?
02:29The whole world would think we're crazy.
02:31But for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.