They called Yusef Salaam and the other boys now known as the Exonerated Five "super-predators." Yet Salaam is much more than those initial racist media reports made him out to be, and his book Better Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice is a testament to his leadership and service. An award-winning motivational speaker and bestselling author (Punching the Air, co-authored with Ibi Ziboi), Salaam, who spent nearly seven years in jail after he was wrongly convicted of rape and assault, has reimagined his pain as power in this memoir. Chronicling his childhood in 1980s Harlem through recent years as a formerly incarcerated activist, Salaam is intent on using his personal story as a launching pad for racial justice.
Better Not Bitter derives its impact from Salaam's straightforward and lucid writing. Though Salaam is candid about the injustices he faced, the tone of the book isn't grave. Rather, Salaam is able to convey hope and humor while illuminating the many ways violence thrives. As he writes in the book, "The way I move through the world and how I see myself have forever been altered by the levels of uncertainty I had to climb my way out of. But I returned to society and learned how to live on my own two feet."
The manifestation of years of silencing, Better Not Bitter is a wake-up call that urges readers to "dream again" and to recognize the ways in which they've been imprisoned--whether in a physical prison, or by racism, capitalism, health issues or other societal ills and injustices. --Gwen Aviles, freelance writer