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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.
DeRay Mckesson -
I think that Silicon Valley and technology can play a huge role in redefining what community looks like and how people come together and what authentic relationships look like, but that is not only their burden.
DeRay Mckesson
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My father and mother deeply loved me and my sister.
DeRay Mckesson -
I think people are uncomfortable talking about the racist history of this country and what we need to do to undo the impact of racism.
DeRay Mckesson -
So many of us don't know what we want; we just know we don't want what we have. We spend 99% of the time talking about how bad it is, but only 1% of the time talking about how we can do something about it.
DeRay Mckesson -
The student newspapers are as important to me as the 'New York Times.'
DeRay Mckesson -
Activism in the street is truth-telling, and organizing is talking to people for a specific goal.
DeRay Mckesson -
I think that I, because of student government and because of working in Baltimore, knew how to be creative with very little resources.
DeRay Mckesson
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It will always be important that people continue to push on the system from the outside. It will also be important that people make the changes that we know are necessary on the inside.
DeRay Mckesson -
Asking people for money is really different than asking people for their support.
DeRay Mckesson -
I'm not ashamed to be gay.
DeRay Mckesson -
I am often asked what it is like to be on the 'front line.' But I do not use the term 'front line' to describe us, the protesters. Because everywhere in America, wherever we are, our blackness puts us in close proximity to police violence.
DeRay Mckesson -
If Trump is president, I think that his administration will do real structural damage that will take years or decades for us to undo.
DeRay Mckesson -
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.
DeRay Mckesson
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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.
DeRay Mckesson -
Being mayor is about offering a vision for the city, putting the right people in the right place, and executing that vision.
DeRay Mckesson -
When Trump says, 'Make America great again,' he is referencing an era when people were singled out and harmed because of their race and religious beliefs, and when violent enforcement of Jim Crow masqueraded as the will of the people.
DeRay Mckesson -
I am not naive enough to believe that voting is the only way to bring about transformational change, just as I know that protest alone is not the sole solution to the challenges we face.
DeRay Mckesson -
It is one thing to talk about fundraising and another to do it as a candidate, and I have learned so much about how much money it costs to run a campaign and what it means to raise money.
DeRay Mckesson -
Trump wants to take us back to a time when people like him could abuse others with little to no consequence, when people like him could exploit the labor of others to build vast amounts of wealth, when people like him could create public policy that specifically benefited them while suppressing the rights and social mobility of others.
DeRay Mckesson
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I grew up in a world of Officer Friendly. It was just the image I had.
DeRay Mckesson -
Music helps shape the way people think about the world and act in the world.
DeRay Mckesson -
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.
DeRay Mckesson -
If City Hall started projecting swastikas, no one would say 'You know what? Free speech.' People would say that is wrong.
DeRay Mckesson