Interview with DeRay Mckesson
DeRay Mckesson is a civil rights activist focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity, and justice. Born and raised in Baltimore, he graduated from Bowdoin College. He has advocated for issues related to children, youth, and families since he was a teen. As a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement, and a co-founder of Campaign Zero, DeRay has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools and provide citizens and policymakers with commonsense policies that ensure equity. He has been praised by President Obama for his work as a community organizer. He has advised officials at all levels of government and internationally, and continues to provide capacity to activists, organizers, and influencers to make an impact.
Matilda Fletcher
What would be an example of including someone?
DeRay Mckesson
I think there are a lot of things, I think about when we talk about diversity, concerning women for instance. Some workplaces are male-dominated, and then they hire a lot of women, and all those women are in junior roles, have no leadership power, have no management power, aren’t listened to at meetings. That’s not inclusion. They might have done a good job with diversity, they hired more women than they had before, but if you’re only paying lip service to this, and women don’t have power or roles or management, then that's not inclusion.
With Black people, for instance, some companies will hire more Black people. If Black people don’t feel comfortable talking about the protests or can’t talk about George Floyd or can’t wear their hair the way they would normally wear it at home, whatever it looks like, that’s not inclusion. There are a lot of companies or businesses that do well on the diversity front. They do hire more people, but the company is not a welcoming place.
You know what it feels like when you walk into a classroom and you’re like, “This feels great, I like it here. The teacher’s great.” Then you go to classrooms and you’re like, “Get me out of here” -- the classrooms where you’re like, “I can’t wait for the bell to ring.” Those are often classrooms where inclusion isn’t present. You don’t feel safe and welcomed or like you can be your whole self for whatever reason.
Matilda Fletcher
What is an encounter you have had with racism? What did you say or do? When you had that experience what feelings did it bring up in you during and after the situation?
DeRay Mckesson
I used to teach, and I used to run an after-school program for middle grades, so fifth to eighth-graders. It was in the afternoon at night. I had my scholars from 3 pm. to 8 pm. imagine going to school all day and then you’re with me, I feed you dinner, give you a snack. I didn’t have to go to work until noon because the program didn’t start until 3. One morning I went to school early because I had to pick up something so I went to the building where we operated out of, really really early. I probably left my house at 6. I wasn’t speeding but I was in a white part of Baltimore--super white, the richest zip code in the city. I had to drive through this neighborhood to get to where the school was, which was not a rich neighborhood. This police officer pulls me over, and he is afraid of me. I’m wearing a hoodie, some blue shorts, and some flip-flops. I’m looking like I’m already young, but I’m looking like I’m a high schooler at that point because I rolled out of bed. I was like I need to go pick up this thing.
What I tell you is, he comes up to the car with his gun drawn. He is pointing his gun at me, he’s cursing, and he is like, “What the, get out,” and I’m like, “I didn’t even speed!” It was one of those wild things where I had to get him to calm down. Then he was like, “Oh cool, no ticket.” I’m like, “This was crazy!” But it was only because I was Black. He was afraid of me--like I was going to shoot him or something. I was like, “You’re a police officer, it’s the middle of the morning. I’m just trying to get to where I’m trying to get to.” But he came to my window with his gun drawn. I’ll never forget that.
Matilda Fletcher
Did that have a positive outcome in the end? Did that teach you something?
DeRay Mckesson
It taught me that, when you don’t hold the police accountable, the positive outcome is that I did not get shot. By the time the Ferguson protests started, I became an activist and a protestor, I had a personal fear this does happen. In Baltimore where this happened to me, I thought I was the only person it happened to. I didn’t hear stories of this, people weren’t talking about the police officers like this, there weren’t documentaries, It just wasn’t a thing. So when it happened to me, I was like, “Wow, like I can’t believe this happened to me.” I didn’t know this was happening all across the country. So by the time the protests started, I then was like, “Oh, I get it, I get it, this is wild.” [The Ferguson protests happened from August 9, 2014 to August 11, 2015 following the murder of Michael Brown Jr. by police.]
Matilda Fletcher
What would you do differently if you had the same encounter today?
DeRay Mckesson
No, I think even if that happened today, I would be chill. I think after the encounter, I would have made it a point to file a complaint and to sue the police for it. I would have been more intense after. I knew someone high up in [the] Baltimore government, whom I’ve known since I was a kid, and I called her and she was sort of like Just let it go. Like she wasn’t like, file a complaint and do this. She was like, “Just let it go. I was like, “What?” So now in hindsight, that was the wrong thing. I wouldn’t tell anyone to do that. Like if the police mess with you, I’d be like, “Let’s figure it out, Matilda Fletcher, let’s go, let’s file a complaint, let’s get a lawyer, let’s shut it down.” I wouldn’t tell you, “just suck it up.”
Matilda Fletcher
When did you get started as an activist? Do you have any advice for middle schoolers on how to become an activist? What is easier or harder today?
DeRay Mckesson
I think it is as easy as you want it to be. For me, I started when I was like your age, so I ran for student government when I was in 6th grade, which changed my life. I’ve been in student government from 6th grade to a senior in college. That was important to me. And then I became an activist in this way, in Ferguson where my brother got killed in 2015. That changed my life. My advice to you would be, you will do your best work around things you care about. Whether it’s the police, if it’s women’s issues, if it’s children and girls, if it’s the environment, whatever the thing is that you already care about, that’s where you will do your best work. You don’t have to be a police officer because your favorite person is a police officer. You have to do what you care about. If you do that, you’ll do well.
Secondly, no one has figured out the answers. You should ask a million questions, and you should dream. You should be like, “Well, what if we did this?” Let me tell you, I’m in rooms all day, with people who have a lot of power, and these are not the brightest people in America. Some people are smart, but some people--you’re like, how did you become the president of anything? How did you become the senator? You are smart enough to think about what your community should look like. You are smart enough to say, “Here’s what I think a great classroom is.” You are smart enough to say, “Here’s what I think a great teacher is.” You can do that. You don’t have to wait until you turn 18 to start to think about what a beautiful neighborhood looks like or what a safe community looks like or what a welcoming home looks like. You are actually smart and old enough to do that now.
Matilda Fletcher
What would you tell middle schoolers about racism? What would you have wanted to know [for] yourself about racism in middle school?
DeRay Mckesson
What I would have wanted to know is more about the history. I didn’t get an honest recounting of history. You’re growing up in a different time, you can Google everything, whereas we didn’t have that. We had encyclopedias, and that was slow and boring. Now there’s YouTube. I wish I had been able to guide my learning journey a little bit more, like you have the power to do. Even the fact that we can talk today. I couldn’t email anyone and say, “Hello, can you get on the phone?” That wasn’t a thing we could do. So I appreciate that you are taking advantage of all your resources. That’s why I was like, “Of course I will talk with you.” The fact that you even did it was bold, because a lot of people would never do it. If I was in middle school, I don’t know if I would do anything different. Student government changed my life. I’m happy with those choices I made. It taught me to be a leader, and it taught me to speak out, and it taught me to work with other people, all skills I use every day to allow me to do the work around the police work that I do. I’m pretty proud of those things.
Matilda Fletcher
How did you incorporate diversity and inclusion into teaching 6th-grade math?
DeRay Mckesson
I taught all Black kids in East New York, Brooklyn--super hard Brooklyn. I knew that I was a Black man teaching Black students. There are very few Black men teachers. There was not one who taught math; there were a lot of Black teachers who taught Social Studies, English, stuff like that. I knew that I was a role model. I loved my students. They’re old now; they’re like 22. But I love them, and my love was rooted in, “I know you can do this.”
I pushed them hard. When I taught 6th-grade math, I taught the entire year worth of curriculum in the first 3 months. Then we learned 7th-11th grade algebra from January to June, and they could do it. Part of the way I loved them was, I know you’re smart, I know you can do it, I know you don’t think you can do it, but part of my gift as a teacher, was to figure out a way to break it up. That was one of the ways I loved them. I was going to make sure that, when you leave this classroom, you were a boss. You could take these math skills, you could cut it and chop it and be like, back to this polynomial! You knew the difference between an expression and an equation, or a ratio. You knew how to find a chord. I wanted to make sure you were a boss when you left class, and that was important to me. When I think about diversity and inclusion, and the equity part of it, is also that people who look like me have all sorts of opportunities and all the resources, and I wanted my class to be a place where that was true.
Matilda Fletcher
What else do you want to tell middle schoolers?
DeRay Mckesson
Be as bold as Matilda Fletcher.
Originally published 02/12/2022
Photo from deray.com
Biography edited from deray.com.
