My Thoughts: On DeRay entering the mayoral race
While he is not the savior many are proclaiming him as, he does have the chance to improve Baltimore’s broken politics.
Wednesday night, the news broke that DeRay Mckesson, noted #BlackLivesMatter activist, had filed (10 minutes before the deadline!) to run for mayor of Baltimore. Immediately my Twitter feed exploded with enthusiastic emojis, Beyoncé GIFs, and tweets from activists and people around the nation and the world proclaiming their happiness (“IT’S LIT!!” “🔥🔥🔥”). This was met with skepticism from some Baltimoreans, including activist Kwame Rose, who said he “[does] not believe that [DeRay] has been invested enough in Baltimore” to be mayor, and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle CEO Adam Jackson, who opined that Mckesson was “poverty pimping” and “concerned with his name and his brand of whackivism.” Anecdotally, most people here seem to be conflicted about this. I’m in that camp, and this article is my personal feelings about the candidacy, the potential in it, and my concerns.
First of all, let’s get something out of the way: if you aren’t in Baltimore, don’t pretend like your voice on what we “need” matters. Full stop.
Your timeline celebrating DeRay’s run does not mean he would be best for Baltimore. Your opinion from another state (or another country) is worthless. If your voter registration card does not read BALTIMORE CITY, take a seat, put on a seatbelt, and kindly drive back to your own lane.
Sample acceptable tweet: “I am a tremendous admirer of DeRay and I wish him the best as he seeks elected office.”
This is what we aren’t going to do:
Please and thank you.
The good
What I think many people are missing in their vigorous condemnation of DeRay is the potential of what he could add to the upcoming mayoral forums, debates, and the overall discourse surrounding Baltimore establishment politics. The most recent mayoral forum at Impact Hub featured frequent platitudes and little fire. As Paul Gardner put it on Twitter last night, this mayoral race is boring. When Baltimore Democrats run for mayor, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing elected officials that are part of the problem pretending they can solve it, people claiming there is no problem with the Baltimore Police Department, a former mayor who stole gift cards. And some, I assume, are good people.
Which brings us to DeRay. A 30-year-old former teacher who has 300,000 Twitter followers, who jokes around with Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah. An activist who helped craft a platform to combat police brutality and met with several presidential candidates to push it. What better way to put important issues of systemic racism and our broken police department which divide and hamper Baltimore on the map than to run for mayor himself? He is positioned to demand actual answers and real solutions from politicians used to making empty or half-hearted promises. And even if he doesn’t win, he has the potential (should he choose to use it) to shift the stale political atmosphere that is suffocating and neglecting far too many Baltimoreans. Let’s hope he will.
What if he does win? By virtue of the tremendous power given to the Baltimore executive, he would have an enormous chance to directly implement the change he calls for. Would he continue to rely on the long list of outside activists that Wesley Lowery writes have been helping him (first) make the decision on whether to run and (then) prepare for the race or would he also consult with the grassroots and community organizations who’ve been doing work here in Baltimore for years and decades? Should he be elected, this is a chance not simply to shift the conversation, but to fundamentally disrupt the Baltimore political paradigm and how it has ignored the duty of dismantling systemic racism in favor of meaningless unity campaigns such as #OneBaltimore.
We shall see.
The bad
The most common critique I’ve seen from Baltimore activists is the absence of DeRay doing real work in the streets building community power à la LBS. In short:
Where you been????
And this needs to be part of this conversation. Is it too much to ask for those vying to hold our city’s highest office stay in it and work in its communities for a few years before declaring themselves fit to run it?
Understand me here: This is NOT an criticism of the work DeRay does do in elevating the deadly problems of state violence and institutionalized racism nationally and globally. Anyone who has the ears of Twitter’s CEO, presidential candidates, legislators, and other major influencers (yes, I realize some of these relationships could be the subject of a whole other debate) and talks about these issues should be commended. That doesn’t mean they should be mayor.
Another concern: outside money. I am discomfited by the tens of thousands of dollars pouring into a mayoral race from non-Baltimoreans. The marketing of this local race to a national audience though a Twitter feed with a 300,000–person following, interviews with countless news outlets, and a nationally-targeted crowd funding effort is both disturbing and bemusing. It’s impersonal to Baltimore voters for DeRay to essentially ‘All Lives Matter’ this election. He should be concentrating on connecting with the Baltimore residents who, like Sheila Dixon, do not know him (black lives in this analogy), not oddly ecstatic New Yorkers and Missourians. I’ll be interested to see how much of his funds are from the city, and how many are not.
Well, there you have it. My brief-ish impressions on the candidate everyone is talking about. I’m cautiously optimistic for what’s to come for our city. When I leave Baltimore for college in August, I hope it’ll be left in capable hands.
We deserve it.
Did I leave anything out? Want to weigh in? Feel free to respond.
About the author: I’m David Pontious, a 17-year-old senior at Baltimore City College and core member of City Bloc, a political grassroots collective of students against social injustice in Baltimore. I am currently applying to colleges with the hope of majoring in political science, public policy, international relations, or some combination of those.
I’m on Twitter: @DavidPontious.