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" People like to act like we don't have a legacy of racism here. I think people get really uncomfortable with it. We know that we can't change it unless we address that. "

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" I was a teacher. I also worked at Harlem Children's Zone. I moved back to Baltimore and opened up an after-school, out-of-school program on the west side and then worked in two public school districts, in Baltimore and Minneapolis. "

DeRay Mckesson

Teacher

Two

" I think Twitter is an incredible platform. I want to see it succeed. "

" I actually get very little phone calls. I get way more tweets and texts. My phone rarely rings. "

" I've worked in two public school districts, Minneapolis and Baltimore, one as a senior leader. And while we might not always have agreed with the union, and we might have had deep differences, they came to the table. "

" As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am. "

" Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional. "

" The history of blackness is also a history of erasure. "

" I have a big following on Twitter, and Twitter has been invaluable for mobilizing and quickly sharing information. But I'm not really sure that people are learning deep content on Twitter. "

" I think hope is the belief that tomorrow can be better than today, and I don't lose hope. "

" Music helps shape the way people think about the world and act in the world. "

" I think of protest as confrontation and disruption, as the end of silence. "

" Twitter is half me trying to live in the world and half me processing and sharing the world. I share a lot, and some of that is to keep me honest. "

DeRay Mckesson

Honest

World

" A cacophony of whispers is also noise. There are many ways to be heard, and there are many ways to be visible. There are many ways to be seen. "

" Asking people for money is really different than asking people for their support. "

" Laws on hate speech and hate crimes do important work in a world that has been rooted in racism and bigotry since the inception of this country, which was not founded on ideals of justice. "

" You're not born woke. Something wakes you up. "

" Protest is political. It is as political as what our conception of America is. "

" If Trump is president, I think that his administration will do real structural damage that will take years or decades for us to undo. "

" Being mayor is about offering a vision for the city, putting the right people in the right place, and executing that vision. "

" The activism of marginalized people often comes with visibility and being heard. Which can lead people to believe that recognition and awareness is the actual end point. And it is not. "

" Bowdoin was the first place that I fell in love with. When I visited, I just had never been to a place with that many resources and that much access to information. That was stuff that you saw in movies. I didn't know that existed in real life. "

" I'm a black, gay man, and I should be able to live in a world where I'm able to live in the complexity of my identity in a way that is safe and secure, like everyone else. "

" If you close your eyes and think about where you feel the most safe, you're probably not going to tell me it's in a room full of police. You feel safe where you're around people that love you, when you have food and shelter, when you're being pushed to be your best self and learn. "

" When I think about protest, I worry so much that people think about it only as standing in the streets. And I say that as someone who has been standing in the streets of cities across the country - but at the root of it is this idea of telling the truth in public. "

" When I tweet, I'm mostly preaching to the choir. "

DeRay Mckesson

Mostly

Preaching

" I just couldn't believe that the police would fire tear gas into what had been a peaceful protest. I was running around, face burning, and nothing I saw looked like America to me. "

" If City Hall started projecting swastikas, no one would say 'You know what? Free speech.' People would say that is wrong. "

" What we choose to do today and tomorrow will shape our future and build our reality. "

" Some people are more interested in fighting than winning. "

" I'm not convinced that stealing an iPhone is a felony or stealing a bike is a felony. "