I still remember when Donald Trump wanted five teenagers with mug shots dead. That was the Central Park Five case, and they were later exonerated.
I was a teenager living in New York at the time. And I despised Trump, because he to me signified the rich white guy in Manhattan who absolutely hated and despised me. Who hated and despised my cousins, my friends — everyone we knew.
People like Giuliani and Trump persecuted Black and brown people in New York
They called us “wildlings” just because we were in the park. They said we can’t be free to walk around in the street. They said Patrick Dorismond, after he was killed by an off-duty police officer, was “no altar boy.” He was literally an altar boy. Rudy Giuliani said that.
People like Giuliani and Trump persecuted Black and brown people in New York. It’s what they did for fun. It’s what they did for pleasure. They enjoyed it. They enjoyed lording over people who had nothing, who had no million-dollar lawyers, who couldn’t change lawyers at the drop of a hat, who couldn’t go out and make their case on Fox News or Newsmax, who had nothing.
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Donald Trump lorded his everything over them — and people who looked like them still put him in rap songs. It was an indignity to me that something I loved, a culture I loved, would lionize that.
And so to me, Trump’s mug shot is justice. The fact that Manhattan didn’t take his mug shot I thought was offensive. The feds essentially said, “We already know what he looks like. He was the president of the United States.” I found that offensive. Everyone else has to take them.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is a national hero. I respect Jack Smith and I respect all the other Trump prosecutors, but she’s the only one who said these wealthy, powerful, privileged men and women are just American citizens. And if they are accused of breaking the law, they will take that picture.
This is an excerpt from Thursday’s special coverage of Donald Trump’s surrender in Georgia. It has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Joy-Ann Reid
Joy-Ann Reid is host of “The ReidOut” at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. “The ReidOut” features one-on-one conversations with politicians and newsmakers while addressing provocative political issues both inside and outside of the beltway.