← The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
DeRay Mckesson Talks to David Remnick About Protest and Politics
00:12:28
DeRay Mckesson Talks to David Remnick About Protest and Politics
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- [00:00]
A
As summer draws to a close and the kids go back to school, I know I'm going to want to keep in touch with my kids at a price I can afford. Back to school Shopping can be a hassle, but your phone plan shouldn't be. That's why I made the switch to Mint Mobile. For a limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. So while other parents are sweating overage charges, I have a little bit more room in my budget for cool back to school threads. Say bye bye to your overpriced wireless plan's jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. Dish overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com newyorker that's that's mintmobile.com New Yorker upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, New Yorker editor David Remnick talks to DeRay Mckesson, a prominent member of Black Lives Matter. Mckesson announced earlier this month that he's running for mayor of Baltimore.
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B
One of the people who's trying to bring change to Baltimore and to policing is the activist DeRay McKesson. McKesson is one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter, and during the unrest that followed Freddie Gray's death, he was extremely visible in Baltimore and nationally through his social media presence. Now he's looking to take his activism and turn it into political power. McKesson just recently announced that he's going to run for mayor of Baltimore, which came as a huge surprise to people in the movement and in the city. Deray McKesson joins me now from Baltimore. So Deray, the way I'd like to start this conversation is by pointing out you're making a huge leap. You're moving from the world of activism to the world of electoral politics and so many activists before you, whether in the Civil rights movement or feminist movement, gay rights movement, have talked about and been tempted by moving from one thing to the other, but usually resist the temptation for one reason or another. Why have you decided to run for mayor of Baltimore?
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C
Yeah. So remember that, you know, we challenge this notion of from protest to politics and want to offer an understanding that protest is actually one of the most political acts in this America. That challenging the government to be the best it can be is fundamentally a political act. I think about sort of formal leadership roles is one where we think about how to change systems and structures from the inside in protest. We are pushing those systems and structures from the outside. And it is not an either or, it's like a both and, but specifically about Baltimore. I waited, I held out because of the belief that someone was gonna step forward with a plan and a platform that would really push the city and sort of challenge it. And that didn't happen. So I stepped up to offer a vision and a plan that I thought honored the promise and possibility of the city.
- [03:28]
B
So let's begin with your own Baltimore roots. What were your circumstances?
- [03:34]
C
You know, my father raised us both. My parents are gigantics. They both are now recovered. My father raised us since we were. Since I was 3. I have a sister who is a year and a half older, you know, and I think about so much of. So much of what informs my own perspective of hope and possibility is because I'm the child of addicts. But also I grew up in a rich community of recovery. I've seen people at their most broken and vulnerable commit and change their lives. And seeing people recover, especially in my own family, has been a transformational experience in the city. So when I think about the other things I've done, I've done a lot of youth development and that sort of programming. So when I was a teenager, I led Baltimore's only youth led grant making organization that gave out money to youth led community projects across the city. I read for most of the major funders. As a young person, I was appointed by the governor to the Maryland After School Opportunity Fund Board. And I was the only young person that did that. And then I was a youth organizer in kids.
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B
How did you do it? Your parents were both addicts and you became you. You were able to do all this as a young kid. Where did the wherewithal come from?
- [04:42]
C
Yeah, I think that my father, you know, he, you know, he loved us and he was really thoughtful about making sure that we were in spaces where people could push us in ways that he might not have Been able to.
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B
Was he able to work?
- [04:54]
C
He was, yep. So he worked. He was like a stock boy when I was a little kid. And then he went on to be a part owner of a bigger business and now he works for one of those subsidiaries. You know, that's why I taught, right? I taught because adults cared about me who did not have to, and they pushed me to be the best self that I didn't know existed at the time.
- [05:15]
B
And then at the age of, I guess, 17 or so, you leapt out of this Baltimore and went to, of all places, Bowdoin College in Maine. Why Bowdoin and what did that do for you? It's hardly the most diverse place that you could have ended up as a teenager, as a college student.
- [05:35]
C
It's a much more diverse place now. You know, Bowdoin was a magical experience for me. I think about Bowdoin so often as a place where I fell in love with my mind. Such a small school. I experienced education in ways that I had never known before. Like I had never written a 20 page paper before I went to Bowdoin. I didn't know. You know, I think about one class with Professor Kitsch. We got a page of single space type feedback on every paper we sent in. That was like how he gave us feedback. And I thought that was normal. Like, I just thought that that was what college was. And it was only upon leaving that I realized that I had a deeply personal academic experience that really pushed me to think and exposed me to a range of ideas that I had no clue existed. So Bowdoin will always be a magical place in my life that left saying, I want to make this world a place that kids deserve, right? That like it honors their lives. Which is why I became a teacher. You were involved in Teach for America? Yep. So I taught in East New York, Brooklyn, via the Teach for America program. But in a New York City public school.
- [06:37]
B
Now you're focused now on Baltimore. And Baltimore is a mess. The collapse of manufacturing and shipping industries has been a disaster. There's an estimated 16,000 vacant buildings in the city. The murder rate has shot up in the last year. 24% of Baltimore's population is living below the poverty line. Why is the condition so bad in Baltimore?
- [07:03]
C
I mean, part of that's why I'm running, right? This idea that the traditional pathways to politics and the politicians who follow them just have not gotten us to the kind of transformational change we need. So you think about safety, for instance, is that most people think about safety as a matter of the police. And what we know to be true is that safety is much more expansive than policing. If I asked you to close your eyes and imagine where you feel the most safe, you would likely not say to me, deray, oh, a room full of police. You would say, a place where like, there's family and, you know, I am fed and there's, you know, a shelter. And like, that's how we have to start thinking about safety. So when we center the police in terms of safety, it leads to these sort of outcomes. The response to crime or trauma doesn't necessarily only have to be the police. It could be social work. Like, we can think about crime in much more nuanced ways and so much of this is preventative. How do we disincentivize the choices people make that have adverse outcomes? But so much of it is like, how do we actually make a strategy around this stuff?
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B
Well, let's get to the platform. You've got the requirement that police undergo at least as many hours of training and de escalation and crisis intervention as they spend learning how to use their firearms. You've got the use of smart guns, mandatory anti racism training for the cops.
- [08:22]
C
Yeah. So those are the things that people I think know the most about. You know, also there's a portion there about redistributing part of the police budget to invest in educational opportunities and employment. Right. That we can't. What we know is that we can't arrest our way out of crime. That that actually doesn't work. We might actually be able to employ our way out of crime. So how about we reinvest or invest differently in creating jobs for people?
- [08:47]
B
How are you going to create jobs in Baltimore?
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C
So I think part of it is how do we sort of invite more businesses to the city and just think about development differently? So what if we think about transforming some vacant properties into spaces like wework like incubators for startups, food startups or tech startups. I think there's a way to do that. I think that a different commitment to small businesses, you think about what does it mean to live in communities where the only place that you can spend money legally is a corner store.
- [09:19]
B
But how does gentrification fit into that?
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C
When people think about gentrification, they often think about housing units and not necessarily the development plan, but that is actually a different side of it. So what I'm saying is that let us have the development plan, actually focus on anchor institutions and build around those because we know that they exist. So not just the Hopkins, but the Coppins and the Morgans and be really intentional about that.
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B
Sooner or later in a campaign debate or a reporter's gonna come up to you deray and say the following. What a lot of people want out of their mayor is they want the snow shoveled. They want the murder rate to go down. They want very, very practical things. How do you answer that? You're 30 years old and your political background's been in movement politics and in teaching. How do you answer that question? Those really blunt, practical questions that you're inevitably gonna get.
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C
Yeah. I would direct them to the website. Is that I agree. Right. I'm running because I know that people's lives can be better. And I'm offering a plan to get us there. That you're right. People are focused on what it means to be in a city that's safe, their access to healthcare and healthy food, that those things are fundamental and real. And I agree. So you'll see that the platform definitely has a perspective and approach section at the top of all of them. So when I think about safety, again, a core belief of mine is that the safety of our communities is not predicated on the presence of police, but safety is much more expansive. And then you'll see what the plans call for. Right. That officers shouldn't be able to strike, members of their hearing board or definitely not a whole panel. That the police union conduct should be fair and just. That they shouldn't have 10 days not to make a statement, and that's in the state officer bill of Rights, that those things are real. And when I think about schools, I'm also honest about the fact that the mayor's City hall doesn't manage the school system. So the things I'm offering are, what we can do is think about expanding, not just expanding pre K, but making sure that every kid in the city has access to preschool services, like services before schooling. And we can do that with a coordinated effort between Head Start and pre K. We can do that. What if we thought about coordinating with after school and wraparound programs around some deep literacy training, but making it a citywide strategy and also thinking about adult literacy, you know, to be in a city where there's so many people without high school diplomas and adult illiteracy is high, that has an impact on the economy and the jobs that people take. And we can definitely target those sort of things with GED prep and just a real literacy strategy at the city level that brings together partners beyond the classroom. But the classroom is obviously a central role. And remember that the school system doesn't have a robust adult basic education program. It's not a part of their purview at this point. But there's an opportunity to do that at the city level, bringing in the college and university partners as well.
- [12:13]
B
You've seen in New York that Mayor de Blasio has had major problems with his police department. He was criticized for his handling of the death of Eric Garner and for acknowledging in a press conference that he'd spoken with his son about how to deal with the police. He was very blunt about it, very moving about it, and a lot of police were upset about this. If de Blasio in New York has had trouble managing his police department, should Mayor McKesson expect, I don't know, total insurrection from a Baltimore police department after you're elected?
- [12:44]
C
No. You know, I would not go into this role expecting insurrection. Do I think there might be challenges? Yes. Do I think we can work through them? Yes. I want to believe that the police also want to live in a city where there isn't much crime. Right. They want to work in a city that is safe and that they are willing to partner with agencies and other departments to think about how their role is a part of a continuum as opposed to the only component of a safety strategy. And I want to believe those things, and I'm willing to engage in the process to get us there.
- [13:25]
B
Deray, thank you very much. I really enjoyed it. It's great to talk to you.
- [13:29]
C
Thank you. You as well.
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A
That was David Remnick talking with Deray McKesson. America is changing, and so is the world.
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B
But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
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A
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
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Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story.
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A
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
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B
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
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C
From. PRX.