Offline with Jon Favreau - DeRay Mckesson on How Twitter Saved Black Lives

Episode Date: November 28, 2021

From the creation of #BlackLivesMatter to the first permanent ban, DeRay Mckesson has been at the center of some of Twitter’s highest highs and some of its lowest lows. He joins Jon to talk about how online activism has changed since the 2014 Ferguson protests, discuss how to win people over offline, and make the case that Twitter can be a tool for good.

You had this great tweet from 2015 that I still think about sometimes. You said, Twitter is home. Facebook is grandma's house. Snapchat is your best friend's house. Tumblr is the computer lab. Instagram is 24-7 prom. Do you think, you know, what, six years later? Do all those comparisons still apply?

And are there any new categories? I think Twitter to me is still home. I think Instagram is definitely 24-7 prom. It's like, why is this? Why? But it's prom with video now. So that is, there was no video back then. That's true. Facebook is definitely still grandma's house. Tumblr is non-existent. So that'd be different. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey, everyone. Our guest this week is my friend DeRay McKesson, a civil rights activist who also hosts Pod Save the People right here on Crooked Media. I will admit that so far there's been a bias in the show towards guests and discussions that focus on why the Internet, especially social media, are bad.

But because I really do believe that there are also positive aspects to these platforms, I wanted to talk to someone who hasn't just had good experiences online, but who's actually used social media to bring about real change. And DeRay was the first person I thought of. I first connected with him when he was running for mayor of Baltimore in 2016, but the world got to know him a few years earlier when he drove from his home in Minneapolis to Ferguson, Missouri, to protest against the police killing of Michael Brown. DeRay's decision to chronicle every moment of that early Black Lives Matter protest on Twitter earned him a huge following

on the platform and was the beginning of a broader movement to stop police violence that's been fueled in large part by social media. We talk about all of that in this episode, as well as how he thinks online activism has changed since Ferguson, why he still loves Twitter, even though he's also experienced the worst of it, the challenges with internal movement politics, and how we can all do a better job of persuading people who may not agree with everything we believe. As always, if you have questions, comments, or complaints about the show, feel free to email us at offline at crooked.com. Here's DeRay McKesson. Thanks for doing this, my friend. Honored to be here.

And it's great to be in a Crooked studio. Yeah. Haven't seen you in a while in person or here in LA in a long time. And I always tell people, people are like, how did you get hooked up with Crooked? And it's like, I cold emailed Jon Pabrow. Yeah. Back when you were running for mayor. Literally, I remember talking. I remember that I was like standing outside of a subway

when we spoke in Reed Street, Reed and Charles in Baltimore, super random. So we've been talking a lot on this series about all the bad that comes with the internet and social media. I want to chat with you because you've seen a lot of good come from these platforms, especially Twitter.

In your book, On the Other Side of Freedom, which everyone should read, fantastic book. You wrote that during the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Twitter saved our lives. For people who don't know the story, can you talk about how you ended up in Ferguson and what role Twitter played in those protests? So Mike Brown got killed by the Ferguson Police Department on August 9th, 2014. It led to a lot of people coming out on the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. I got there on the 16th. We were in the street for 400 days.

It led to one of the biggest protest movements of a generation, which we're all proud of in this moment. And you came from, you were in Minnesota at the time, right? And you just packed up and just drove to Ferguson. I was in Minneapolis. I was a senior director of human capital. I taught sixth grade math. And I remember being like, do my commitments live? When Mike Brown got killed, he was as old as my students would have been.

And I was like, the least I could do is go for the weekend. I'm like, I can go for a Saturday, Sunday. Like, if I can't do that for kids, then like, do I really care? I go, I get tear gassed the second I'm in St. Louis. That changed my life. But I had 800 followers on Twitter then. You know, it was like a very, like, I just was out on the street. I believed.

And I used to think of, I mean, I still do think of Twitter as, like, what it was like to talk to, like, your best friend. And I knew nobody in St. Louis. So I was processing, like, the wildest stuff that ever happened to me. And I had nobody to tell. And Twitter was, like like my person to tell. And I say in the book, like it saved our lives because, you know, people take 2020 really skewed people's conception of the protest because in 2020, it's like a million cameras and it's like all this stuff. In 2014, the police put a no fly zone over St. Louis. So there's no aerial footage

and it was illegal to stand still in 2014. It used to still for more than five seconds, you were arrested. It was like a, it was a wild place. And Twitter was the only thing, but this was before Instagram live, Facebook live.

Twitter was 180 characters, not 240. And the only video we had on Twitter, cause Periscope didn't exist then, was Vine. So it was like six seconds. Vine, RIP Vine.

RIP Vine. So literally I would take a video and then i'd run like away from the chaos and i'd hold it up to my ear and like try and find the best six seconds of audio and then we clip it and put it up and like that was what we did you know wow you you guys had initially been using the hashtag ferguson for sure yep but then made what would become a fairly historic decision to change it can you talk about that that? Yeah. So at first it was Mike Brown. It was like hashtag Mike Brown. And then people started trolling the hashtag. So I was like, that didn't help. And then it was

hashtag Ferguson. And then people started trolling it. And then two things happened. One is that the police were just killing a ton of people. So it was not only Mike Brown. It was Kajem got killed. And then the police killed 10 more people in St. Louis. It was no longer only about Mike Brown. Ferguson is like a pretty small place. It's in the county, but the police are killing in the whole area. So we needed a way to, to like have a hashtag that was more expansive. And some people had come down with, with like posters, essentially that said Black Lives Matter as like a, as a phrase. And people were like, okay, let's look hashtag. I remember being like, we're going to just change the hashtag because people were trolling Ferguson and people were trolling my ground. So we needed something

new to like throw the trolls off. So we, so we did that. And then it stuck, you know, but what was so wild about Twitter and all of this is that like, I had the same influence from probably like 3000 followers to a million in St. Louis. And I would say that was true of all of us who were there. We didn't know that people all across the world were watching us. Like we had no clue because there wasn't really a good feedback loop. We were just outside doing our thing. And it wasn't until the protests, that wave of the protests ended that I traveled. And I was like, oh my God, people know everything we've done. They've seen all of it. They like, you know, people like know us, you know what I mean? People

like the hashtag became like a thing because in St. Louis, it was a very different experience. I mean, you said that, you know, you arrived with 800 Twitter followers. You have a million today. There were obviously a lot of people on the ground in Ferguson tweeting and protesting. Have you ever thought about what it is about your Twitter feed that attracted so much attention and so many people? I think honestly, because I wasn't from St. Louis, I was like processing every single emotion. I'm like, this feels really wild. The airs did it. Like it was all this stuff because I had nobody to tell. And I think that that narration actually

just helped people like follow one story all the way through. That's interesting. So fast forward a couple years after Ferguson. Now you've got all these followers. You decide to run for mayor of Baltimore. What was it like being the only candidate in a crowded primary field with a few hundred thousand Twitter followers from all over the country and the world as you're trying to get like 20,000 votes in one city to win a primary. Yeah, it was, you know,

let me preface this by saying I'm super thankful and, you know, thankful for everything. It was so annoying because the night I announced the editorial board releases a statement saying DeRay has already won the primary of Beyonce. That's like the initial statement from the Baltimore Sun. Yeah.

And I'm like, God, it's not helpful. Not helpful. So that's like people's first. And I at that point, at that point, I had 300,000 followers. So the headline is like DeRay has more followers than registered voters. Also not helpful. I'm not leading with Twitter. You know, I'm like very much like I believe in this.

So I request a meeting with the editorial board because I'm like, I know the content, right? Like, you cannot like me for a host of things, but you will never say I don't know the content. I know the content. Right. So meet the editorial board. During that race, I was the only candidate who got a single, like, an editorial just focused on them during the race. And the headline is, DeRay McKesson is the real deal. And they are like, this is not a joke.

I'm like, thank you, guys. So not helpful, thank you, guys. Like, so not helpful that primary Beyonce thing. But it was hard because people expected fluff and like, you know, it was like, even now I read stuff

and people are like, Trey Dothan, just because he, it's like we, I announced with 80 days left to election day, which like somebody who works in, you know, that's crazy.

That's like an insane thing, right? That's not a lot of time. We knocked 30,000 doors. We did like, I don't know, that's crazy. That's like an insane thing, right? That's not a lot of time. We knocked 30,000 doors. We did like, I don't know, 20 house party events that like people in community organized like that we didn't organize. Like we did all this stuff, but people were like, well, DeRay just thought he was like on Twitter. You're like, no, if I had gone to another candidate forum, I would have lost my mind.

It was like, you've been to those. Did you have to change sort of your online habits like your tweeting habits because you're thinking all right i'm trying to focus on baltimore so i've got a tweet about baltimore and i'm not going to tweet as much about my national issues or um or stream of consciousness what's on my mind today or did you just were you just still yourself the whole time i think the single biggest thing is that i no longer fought people on the internet well that's that's probably a good good outcome i mean, I guess that was good. In hindsight, I very much, like I have very few regrets about the protests. Not fighting people was probably

my only regret. People took things to be true. They just weren't. But I was like, I'm a candidate and like nobody wants to see their candidate like fight people all day. So there was like a, you know, on election day. Some of the people that voted for Trump, I guess they like that. I know, like what was I, why What was I? Why did they know? But why did you give me that advice when I called you? Well, I'm an Obama person. So that's not fair. So where I come from, like on election day, the New York Times, New York Times dot com

on an election day for me, the marquee article was titled. It's still titled. If you Google it, it's still there. Doreen McKesson will not be the next mayor of Baltimore. So why is he running? That is the like on election day. So I'm like knocking doors and they're like saw the New York Times saying, I'm like, whew, what New York Times? Am I in the New York Times? Like, what do you say? Like not helpful. And their framing is like, he just did this to get known.

I'm like, well, clearly I'm already known enough if I'm in the front page article in the New York Times. Like this is, and people like, no matter what I said about the content, people wanted it to be like this internet thing. You're like, no matter what i said about the content people wanted it to be like this internet thing you're like no i really do know the content yeah it's hard to avoid the internet thing when you have when you go in with all those followers which is obviously like not a fault of your own right i mean one of the reasons that i did this show is because i feel like the platforms especially twitter have gotten worse during the Trump era, angrier, nastier, generally less fun. Have you experienced that at all? Or is that just me thinking that? I think in some ways I would say about race and justice, I remember that in 2014, 15,

if something happened, it took like people like me, people with like big platforms to be like, I think that was racist. And people were like, you're being dramatic. I'm like, I think that was like an obvious, this wasn't like nuances, like that was just racist. Right. Whereas like I look at 2020 and like, I rarely chime in on things, not because I don't care, but because like this, the, the group got smarter. Right.

Yeah. Interesting. Like not the like academics, not the hardcore organizers. Like most people are like, yeah, it was racist. You're like, yeah. You know? And like, I think that is actually like a really powerful thing. Yeah.

But then on the, on the, on the flip side, I mean, like you've been the target of all kinds of hate on twitter and i think what wasn't like the first person banned from twitter someone who uh was attacking you yeah first person ever permanently banned was banned for raising money to try and get me killed and then he was given a press pass by donald trump i mean that's wild that you go to ferguson and it's partly you using Twitter and Ferguson along with everyone else who is there that sort of starts the Black Lives Matter movement in the first place. And then on the flip side, you've also known sort of the hate that you get from Twitter where the where the first person actually banned was a person who

came after you. So, yeah, I've seen I've seen all of it. So you've seen the good and the bad on Twitter. You know, you've studied activism and movement building throughout history. You've been part of building a movement yourself. Like, what is it about using the Internet and social media to help build a movement that makes it easier than doing it offline? I think that the speed with which messages can travel is just like unparalleled. You know, we could, especially at that time, we could deliver content all across a community in one fell swoop. And it wasn't mediated by like what group you were part of, who you knew, like you could just plug in. That was actually really powerful. I think the second thing, and I definitely felt this in 2014, 15, I think that we're seeing the benefits of in

2021 is that people can learn in private. So there are a lot of things that like you never would have asked, you never would have said, but you can follow this thread around medication abortion or around that you would have, otherwise you just wouldn't have had access to it. That's a great point. I find that I do that all the time. Like, you know, I like to, part of my problem is that I'm on Twitter too much, I think, and it's, and it's addictive. But one of the reasons I think it's addictive, aside from just like the dopamine hits you get from finding out what's going on in the world, is I do, I go down these rabbit holes to learn stuff that I wouldn't have asked otherwise. And you get to do it in private. So like you can, you can have that wondering that's like,

I don't really know. Or somebody, you aren't going to tweet the question, but somebody already tweeted it. So like you can do that. Or what I do, you know, right now when I, when I say things on Twitter, it's not newsworthy. I can retweet things and make it a day. Like that's sort of my superpower on Twitter now. So like an amplify. Yeah. I'll find something that like, I'm curious about, I'll amplify and then it'll become a, and I'm like, wow, I never thought about that. Or like, you know, I'm obsessed with, did you see the Dallas Buyers Club? Yes. So there's a Naloxone Buyers Club.

So Naloxone is like opioids. Half of the doses of Naloxone in the United States are bought by the Naloxone Buyers Club. Oh, wow. Fascinating. Oh, my God. And I tweeted a question about something else, about Michael K. Williams died. I was trying to figure out what we do about fentanyl, da, da, da, da. Somebody's like, do you know the Buyers Club?

No. Deal with the Buyers Club people. Now I'm obsessed with them. But like, Ida. Somebody's like, do you know the Buyers Club? No. Deal with the Buyers Club people. Now I'm obsessed with them. But, like, I would have never known about the Naloxone Buyers Club. Right. That's a very Twitter thing. You know, we're trying to get death certificates amended to have a checkbox for died in custody. Oh, wow. So I tweet.

You might know an expert on death certificates. Yeah. One of the state medical examiners, like, is like, hey, ready to talk. You know, it's like that's only Twitter allows it to happen. Is there anything about using these platforms that makes movement building more difficult? What can I say in public? You know, the hard part about moving world, I think, is that some of it is very much high school. Right. So it's like I only want to sit with my friends.

Like the Internet becomes that, too. So you'll get a good idea that, you know, that is right, but it's not that person's idea. So they're tearing them down. What we didn't have to deal with in 2014 is the language of going viral wasn't a thing. We didn't have language for that. That's interesting. So what you find in 20, I mean, you know this, is that people will fight or say things only to go viral to get a thing. And people have figured out how to turn that into a thing. Yeah.

Whereas going viral in 2014 was like 100 retweets. Yeah, that's interesting. It was very like. People sort of know how to trigger. Yeah. The viral tweet. That wasn't like a thing. I don't ever remember being like, whew, I got to get 2,000.

Like the numbers didn't, they were just not an indicator. Whereas now it's like people are going for 10,000 retweets like 20 000 likes well and the algorithms push us there too right correct um well i'm curious about one dynamic which is like on one hand using these platforms to help build a movement means fewer gatekeepers less hierarchy more voices right so that's great on the other it seems like it'd be harder to shape a single message or a single narrative that can attract people who aren't already part of the movement. Have you found that? Like if you're one consequence of no hierarchy is you get a whole bunch of collective energy, but then you've got a whole bunch of different voices. And sometimes it's a muddled message. I don't know if it is no gatekeepers. I think the gatekeeping just looks different. I think that like what was so beautiful about Ferguson is that like, contrary to what people will say today, it's like the organizations did not leave. It was like people just came outside. Right. And like

people figured out how to organize themselves. And I wouldn't have called myself like an organizer per se before, but a lot of us wouldn't, you know, the first thing I ever did in Ferguson was make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a living room. And like, that was how a lot of us wouldn't. You know, the first thing I ever did in Ferguson was make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the living room. And like, that was how a lot of us sort of came up. And I think that what happens, you know, once that moment passes is that there's like a class of people who like, this is their quote, life's work, right? And it does become hierarchical. It does become sort of professionalized and they become the people that like, and I think people would say that I'm probably one of those people where like what they say has an outsized influence in the way people think, which is very different than like how this started. It started with like all of us in churches and basements

running from the police. So I think the gatekeeping is actually still there. I think that like voices rise. And what I want to believe in movement world is that we can figure out how to have all these ideas be in conflict with each other without us being in conflict, right? Yeah, that seems like a real challenge. I don't think that that happens. I think that online- I mean, it's human nature, right? Right. But I think that online,

people will say lip service around like, people did not love me last summer when we did 8 Can't Wait. People were pushing a whole lot of things. We did 8 Can't Wait, which is a campaign around use of force. And people, like real people, not like random people, like real people, not like

random people, people were like, this has already been done. Minneapolis already has all eight. And I'm like, we put the policies online with the ratings. Like Minneapolis literally only has four out of eight. Like this is why we did it. And people are saying in like the LA Times, New York Magazine, everybody's like real reporters are publishing stuff that is not true. Like it's, you can not like me, but it's factually wrong. Well, that's, and that was such an example of something that, like when it first started churning, I was like, oh, well, this is sort of like an online thing.

But then you realize that online things like this quickly become offline things because reporters, as you just mentioned, spend all their time on Twitter. So they see it. Yes. And they start reporting it. And then it goes to all the spend all their time on Twitter. So they see it. Yes. And they start reporting it. And then it goes to all the people who aren't on Twitter, but who are seeing those stories. And then it becomes this broader thing and it becomes like harder to control. It was hard and wild to live through, even like wonky things. So like,

we were calling for a ban on neck restraints, so chokeholds and strangleholds. A chokehold is your Adam's apple. A stranglehold is the muscles around your neck. It's called a carotid restraint. Right. Not the same thing. People, real people, like New York Magazine, LA Times, all the national publications, pushed pieces that said New York City banned chokeholds in 1993. Like, why is DeRay calling for something that already happened, right?

And I'm sitting up here as a content expert, and I'm like, well, if you read the policy, you would know that New York City did ban chokeholds in 1993. That is true. de Blasio in 2016 on the next page has a line that says everything banned on the previous page can be deemed unbanned by a committee of the police department, which we would say is not a ban. Right. But it's actually never banned carotid restraints. It's never.

So when Garner gets killed, the police union comes out and says, we didn't choke him. They're like, we used another restraint. We did not choke him, though, right? Yeah. So I'm like, if you read the policy, you know, that they did not ban all neck restraints, but the reporters don't know there's any chokeholds and strangles. They think a chokehold is, is the only thing used, but it was like wild to like watch people who are like real, right. Not like crazy people trying to go viral on the internet, but like real writers, right. Things that were factually incorrect was pretty wild to live through. Were you surprised how fast Defund the Police took off after George Floyd's murder in 2020?

Not surprised because I think that like any good slogan, like it does work, right? And I think that that did a lot of work. I think I was, it's been interesting to watch like the arc of it, you know. I was one of the big explainers of the concept at the very beginning and continue to help people explain it. It's been interesting to see like the life cycle of what people understand to be the campaign. Well, I was going to say like it seems like a very online related messaging challenge to me just looking at it from the outside. Like a lot of recent polling has shown that when you ask people if they want to defund the police or abolish the police or even spend less money on policing in their area, it's now very unpopular. And that's true across all races. But if you phrase the question in a way that talks about reallocating

funding to non-police first responder programs or community policing or mental health services or social services, it becomes very popular. And same when you ask about banning chokeholds or no-knock warrants or stop and frisk or a host of other reforms that would specifically hold police accountable. So it seems like there's all this support for a lot of really significant police reforms that are basically on the same path as defunding and yet what is in people's mind is defund the police because that was out there like how do you how do you handle that challenge let me just prep it and say like i that was not a strategy that i led but that's part of but that's what we're talking about with the online thing right it's like it i mean suddenly after 2020 it's not like a movement that starts and grows online can really control a slogan like

that right i think we can do a lot of things so what i what i always remind myself and other people is that i'm never going down over a slogan i don't care right i will fight you tooth and nail over an idea that's that makes but i'm you over a slogan. So like the idea is that we should not have people with guns respond to everything and that we should invest in the non-people with guns responding to things.

Easy idea. I think that's actually- Also very popular. You phrase it like that. Very popular. I'm like, do you need a person with a gun to respond to a missing taillight? No, like people,

and that's the idea. I'm ready to fight you all day about the idea, the phrase. And I say that because I think that part of our work as organizers is to create entrances and arm ramps for other people and not to be so arrogant to believe that the only way to enter is the way I enter. I can enter from defund, get rid of everybody. Like I can enter that way. My aunt can't. And my aunt doesn't care any less about black people because that's not the way she entered. That's

not the way she, right? So part of my work is to figure out like what gets her in the room because she can't do any good work with us if she's not in the room, right? That's like the way she, right? So part of my work is to figure out like what gets her in the room because she can't do any good work with us if she's not in the room, right? That's like the first thing. The second thing is I think that what really skewed people last summer is that people thought that people did not like the police. People liked the police. People still like the police. People liked them then. People like them now.

What is different today is that people like us more than they've ever liked us. So when you look at some of the polling, it's like people like the protesters and the police the same, which made people think that people like the police, people like us all, right? Which is like a very different thing. But when we poll people in any change, right? We're like chokeholds, move the money, fire them, police you. People are with us. Like even in the conservative places, people are actually with us, right? So I think you're right around the messaging. Some of it is like, how do we tell the story about public safety that makes it black and white in a way that my aunt and uncle and my father are like, absolutely. Right. Well, that's part of the challenge, I think, with Twitter too,

and all these social media platforms. Everything you say goes to everyone at once yeah and in politics and organizing you have some messages that are for um your own supporters you have some messages that are for people who are trying to join the movement you're trying to persuade to join the movement and you have some messages that are just for your own organizers that are private that you don't but i feel like on social media you kind of have to say something that is going to be acceptable to everyone. And I don't know that that's possible and to still build a movement. Like, yes.

And I don't think that we have modeled what it means to say, like, I believe that and I believe this too, you know? So people like dig their heels in. That would involve nuance. Yeah. And it's like, I remember with 8K and 8, people wanted me to like take it down.

And I'm like, we are right. There's not a moment where i thought i was wrong right yeah i get people's frustration i get people but i'm like this isn't wrong i get that you are asking for like a host of other things but but like we should be able to have a conversation about this idea that like no one strategy is the only like defund doesn't doesn't do all like even at the best of it is not the only strategy right well like i can't wait it's not like all of these have to live in concert we're sitting here a year and a couple months after those protests there was a big new york times piece i think just a couple weeks ago about how a lot of police departments in major cities are now getting their money back and their budgets i saw that piece and then i went to the Campaign Zero website, your organization, and looked at the

eight can't wait policies and like a ton of big cities since 2020 have adopted those eight policies, which again, you guys never said is going to like solve police violence, but it's going to make a difference. Do you find it harder to build support among activists and organizers for reforms that may be less sweeping than a defund or an abolition and yet still pragmatic and have a real effect. Yeah, I like the way you frame that because what I, my push would be this idea that like the strategies are in conflict, right? That like we should save people's lives today because you got to be here. Like I'm trying to build a world that you enjoy. So if you get killed, my larger goal is actually like a harder place because I want you to be here. So I get that banning solitary confinement is not the end of incarceration.

I get it. Right. Yeah. But should you be in a cage 20 hours a day? No. Like so I want both of those things to be true. I want to get rid of solitary confinement and I want to get rid of incarceration in general. Right. I want to make sure that you can't get choked to death. And I know that's not the end of police violence, but I also want you not to get choked to death. Right. Those are like those not in conflict. Should not be in conflict. And I think that there is something about the internet that like breeds this, like, we have to battle to the death about some stuff. And you're like, that's why I didn't fight back with AK. It was like, I'm not fighting

you. You are like, you know, a million think pieces about how this is a bad. It's like 40 years of research says that this actually works, but I'm not fighting you about this because like we are not actually real enemies. And like the movement, I'm not fighting you. Right. But we should. I'm happy to talk about it and stuff like that. The second thing is, you know, there was clearly a backlash to the phrase and strategy that was not helpful. And last summer was a reminder that we have to have more things for like lay people,

for a legislator, like to pick up and go do. Because there were a lot of people were like, I'm ready to go do the thing. And even people who were like, I agree with the budget. They're like, how do I cut it? And they didn't know. Right. And it's like, we got to figure out. Like I can go to my local city council meeting and yell once.

And then what do I do if they don't vote for it? Yeah, or what happens when the city council member calls you and says, how do I cut it? Like we need to make this easier for people, which is like no critique of anybody. That's just like a general organizer thing. And, you know, we can't predict when the next big national thing is going to happen. And like, we got to be ready. I think that the learning from last summer for everybody was like, be ready.

So the moment that anything happens where everybody is turning to do something, you have a thing to get them to do. You know what I mean? Well, one of the things you just said that I've been thinking about a lot is I've got to reach my aunt, right? And I do wonder if being online all the time

sort of makes us, or it gives us sort of the impression that everyone thinks like we do because we follow people who think like we do or we follow people who think the complete opposite of what we do. Right. So you have a good idea of what your opponents think. You have a really good idea of what people who think like you think. But you don't have a great idea of what like most people out in the world think if you're on Twitter all the time. And I think that leads you to think, okay, there's a bunch of racists who hate defund the police. And then we believe in defund the police and there's no one else in the middle. And I think that's a hard, I think you're right. I mean, cause you, you've been in organizing and you've been in politics. You've, you've had to try to, you know, win over voters, right? It's hard to persuade people and it takes a lot more work.

The aunt test is my test. It's a great test, yeah. Does my aunt get it? Does she agree? And if she doesn't, and like, you know, we're working on a campaign now. It's like, I can,

there's a way that I, like Rikers, you've heard of all the whores in Rikers. What's happening in Rikers, you should get somebody on the show about this. We're trying to find somebody too, is that the corrections union

is actually engaged in a sick out. So what you'll see on the news is that it says that there's understaffing. Rikers has about 5,000 people detained. There are almost 8,000 correction officers. It has the highest staffing ratio of any jail in the United States. 2,000 corrections officers called out sick on a Tuesday and still the highest staffing ratio in the United States, right? Not a shortage. But the corrections union is literally engaged in a sick out to create a crisis. They want people to be hurt, damaged, because their contract just expired. So that when they go to the negotiating table, they'll be able to say, it's so wild in there, you got to pay us more.

I think that is criminal. I think that's crazy, right? I know that if I call my aunt and say, do you know that they are letting people die so that they can bargain better? That's it. That's the whole, she don't need a picture.

She don't need a, that's the story. That's easy to understand. Easy, right? Yeah. She don't need a PowerPoint. She don't need the study. That's the message.

Right. And it's like, how do we like figure out, like how do we, how do I get my aunt, when I called my aunt originally about not funding the police department in Baltimore, she's like, you're great. Like she's like, no, right? we how do I get my aunt when I called my aunt originally about not funding the police department in Baltimore

she's like you're great like she's like no right but I'm like I think we wasted money she's like where we wasted you know like

once you go down the path you could probably have a pretty persuasive conversation but I gotta meet my aunt and I think that so much of Twitter sometimes is very like

did you read the theoretical essay about the da da da or is it like a snappy thing that is not what people sometimes who, you know, have to deal with the repercussions of all this theory are actually engaged in? There's another thing that happened in 2020, which is, you know, there was obviously a lot of well-meaning posting about racism and racial justice during the 2020 protests. There was the Black Square Day. There were, you know, a lot of brands got involved as they always do. How do you think about building a movement

that welcomes everyone who wants to participate, but asks for participation that goes deeper than just posting? Yeah, I think that, and this is like a task for organizers. I'm sympathetic because I think that nobody had ever anticipated this many people to want to do a thing. So you've never seen like a nonprofit that can absorb 20,000 volunteers. Like that's, you know, whether it's race or not, like that's hard. Right. I think the second thing is that like, we have to figure out how to turn key solution. Like that's what we try to do with They Can't Wait.

It's like, that's how we rated all of the city policies, because we knew that we didn't have the capacity to work with everybody, but we'll just make the policy public. So you can just go look at your individual policy and like stress your mayor out. And they did it. Like I'll, I have an email from a mayor back in June. She was like, please take my city off your website. I'm a small town mayor. I've gotten hundreds of emails. I get it. And I'm working on it. And we like, didn't take it down, but like, that was, it was like, yes, stress that woman out. You know what I mean? Like that is the purpose. And like, how can we turnkey more that?

What I'll tell you that shocked me is that most of the things that you know about, you would think that like the basics have been done and they haven't. So like,

solitary confinement. I thought that there was like a map of all the jails in the country and their policies on solitary confinement. There isn't, right? Like there are all these things

that are like low-hanging-ish fruit. And I think that part of what we have to do in organizing is like turnkey all the solutions so that anybody can look at that and be like, okay, I totally get it. And even things like we did a campaign on no-knock raids. Every single state that has a law limiting no-knock raids, we wrote, which we're proud of. But when we started, people were like, ban no-knock warrants. Banning no-knock warrants literally has no impact. It's not a thing. You don't need a no-knock warrant to do a no-knock raid. The police know that, which is why they don't care.

They're like, cool. Oh, wow. See, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. The short version is there's two types of warrants, a no-knock warrant and a knock and announce. A knock and announce is like, I'm knocking and I'm the police. You can actually knock and say you're the police at the same time, which feels like a no-knock, right? Yeah, of course.

So the way to eliminate is like super easy. We made this rubric. And it's like officers just have to wear uniforms when they execute search warrants. People agree. Like the law should require you to say you're a police officer. Agree. You shouldn't be able to use flashbang devices and throw them at people. You know, like at that level, people are like, I totally get it.

You know what I mean? It's like how do we turnkey those things around? Do you ever wonder what the civil rights movement would have been like if social media and Twitter had been around? Would we be remembering the same leaders? No, I think we'd be remembering more people. I think that we would see their fights a little more publicly. Like a part of me does, I do wish that we were able to have more philosophical, like internal debates in public because I think people would benefit from it. Like the, you know, cause there's like a camp that calls themselves abolition. There's a camp

that calls themselves sort of reform in the sense of like, we can fix the bad thing. Then they're the people that are like, I'm like a harm reduction person leading to abolition they're like i gotta keep you alive while we're fighting and this is our long-term goal yeah we're trying to get here right like both of those things are true so i'm not trying to fix the crazy but then gotta go yeah but i'm trying to make sure you like don't die in the process right right and like i think that that the philosophical differences are important for people to understand and And I worry that the internet makes it a conversation about like right and wrong. And it's like, no, no, no. We all believe in black people. We want people to be free. Like that's a real thing. You know what I mean? The way

we plan to get there might be a little different, but like we believe. Well, it is sort of the ability to argue without like just getting really angry at each other like like disagreeing without being disagreeable right or being like you know as much as people talk about critiquing hierarchy and patriarchy data the idea that like you own an issue that is hard like that is you actually participating in the very system that you want to undo right yeah you don't own this you're not the only organizer in this city, but there are a lot of people who are not only territorial, but are like, this is mine. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. And I say that it's like every single campaign we've led, we have defined the space. And still, we don't own it. Like, everybody who does policing work is derivative

of the thing that we did. And still people do things that we don't control. And we get it. Like, that is a part of what it means to put something in the world. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, like, you know, you were so you were a new activist, you know, at one point in Ferguson and there are plenty of new activists today. Like, how do you collaborate with some of the newer activists today who some you may agree with, some you may not? Like, how do you amplify their voices, help them out? Like, what does that look like? Yeah, I think philosophically, I'd say like, you know, one of the things that I remind myself,

even about how the protests began is like, you know, at the family potluck or at the community potluck, everybody brings something. And the only people who are annoyed and offended when you ask, what did you bring? Are the people who didn't bring anything, right? Everybody else is like, I brought the macaroni and cheese. Might not taste good, but they're like, I bought it, right? Or like the people who brought like paper towels. But everybody else can just tell you what they brought, right? And I think that part of what I'm reminded about the origin of the protest is this idea that like there was not one cook. There weren't two cooks. There weren't three. This is a potluck. Everybody brought something to the table. And I say that because the way we tell the story shapes the lesson we learn.

And the lesson from all of this is this idea that like, it took all of us to build this thing. It wasn't three, it wasn't one, it wasn't two, it was a potluck, right? The second thing about how we help people is that like, we acknowledge that we got to have enough food for everybody to eat. Right. And like, I will never be able to provide all, I cannot do it. Right. So we want to bring as many people into the fold as possible to like bring their dish and some are going to be better than others. Some people need to learn how to cook a little better. But like we know that like we need all of the food to eat. Do you know what I mean?

And let's also that's an empowering message, right? Because that makes people who are on the sidelines who haven't joined yet think, oh, I could be part of that. I can help. I can lend a hand. Come make something, right? Whether you're making like cookies or cupcakes or the casserole. Right. Like we actually need you.

And there's a way that people tell the story that says, this is my cookout. I created the space and I cooked all the food. And that is like the hierarchical way to think about organizing. There's another way that says like, this is a space that we all realize everybody had to eat. Right. And like some people weren't eating. So we all made something.

Right. Yeah. And like, so when people press me on the work, I'm never offended when you're like, what do you do? I can tell you the work that I do because I know what I brought to the cookout, right? Right. You had this great tweet from 2015 that I still think about sometimes. You said, Twitter is home.

Facebook is grandma's house. Snapchat is your best friend's house. Tumblr is the computer lab. Instagram is 24-7 prom. That was good. That was good. Do you think, you know, what, six years later? Do all those comparisons still apply?

And are there any new categories? I think Twitter is, I said it's your best friend's house. Twitter is home. Oh, Twitter is home. Snapchat, you said, is your best friend's house. Twitter is home. Yeah, Twitter to me is still home. I think Instagram is definitely 24-7 prom.

It's like, why is this? Why? But it's prom with video now. So that is, there was no video back then. That's true. Facebook is definitely still grandma's house. Tumblr is non-7 prom. It's like, why is this? Why? But it's prom with video now. So that is, there was no video back then. That's true. Facebook is definitely still grandma's house. Tumblr is non-existent.

So that'd be different. What was the other one? Oh, Snapchat. I don't really use Snapchat. Yeah. But I think stories are your best friend's house. Interesting. Stories.

Which of those platforms do you think will be most important for Gen Z's activism? I think that there is not a platform where content can travel as quick as Twitter. Yeah. I think that is... That's still the way to build. Yeah, I think that's the only...

I think that's where the ideas will begin. I think that Instagram has become a place where ideas can crystallize. The problem with Instagram is that you get no feedback. So like bad travels really far on Instagram. Right. With almost no feedback. So like bad, bad travels really far on Instagram. Right. With almost no feedback. Oh, that's interesting. Whereas Twitter, like you'll get ratioed

or like there's a, there's a way for the feedback. Like I'll see something. I'm like, oh, that was great. And then I'll read the replies and a hundred are like, that was a stupid. And you're like, okay, I didn't do it. Whereas Instagram, it's like you delete the, you know, you'll delete the comments

or you turn off like, so that the not good message actually can just fester in a way that like Twitter doesn't allow, which I actually think is like the beauty of of a Twitter that it the community self corrects for things that are harmful sometimes in a way that is important. One thing I worry that probably happens to a lot of young people today who spend a lot of time on Twitter or even on social media in general is you're is you're taking in like a daily fire hose of bad,

often traumatic news about all the problems in the world. And you're also, because this technology moves so fast and the news moves so fast now, you're sort of used to instant gratification, except there's no instant gratification when it comes to social and political change. And so there's this gap between sort of the bad news that you're experiencing every day because you're on Twitter all over the world and what you can do to change it. Or you get really frustrated that you can't change it. What do you say to young people who are just really frustrated with the world right now? Yeah, I get it. I will say Black Twitter is both the drama and the funny and the world is burning.

So Twitter, I'm like, that was funny. Like I see something like that was good. That was good. You got me. Like, did you see that Game of Thrones Halloween costume, the trash? No. She was like in a trash bag and it said last season of Game of Thrones. You're like, that was good. That was good so yeah so i think twitter is still it's still funny

and like still fun but to the young people who to anybody who's like i worked really hard i saw it i protest i voted and the world's still not great right i think i um what i say to myself is that we can win like i believe at the core i think that we can win. Like I believe at the core, I think that we can win. I think that we will only win if we continue to like that. No, the community is bigger than our biggest problem. I believe that. And the more and more we like help build community. I think that like, we will, we will do the thing that no idea that's ever changed the

world or every idea that's changed the world has always started in a kitchen, living room, porch, basement. Like that is how all the best things started when these are random you didn't the big idea did not get a million retweets the best idea did not start out as like the most popular thing you know it started out in some random like think about the things that you've thought up that like changed that they like came to you in the bathroom or the show yeah that's like they never start out as like the coolest thing you ever tweeted like that's not how it happens right and i think that the internet has thrown off like a younger set of people.

They think that like the viral thing is a big idea. And you're like, no, the best idea is always some random, it comes in a small pocket. It's in the middle of the night. Yeah. Or like with your friends in the basement, you're like, what can we do? You're like, and the third thing is,

and I say this, I'm proud of the work that I've done. But if we had all the answers, we'd be done, right? Right. So like, I'm super excited about the new people who are like, what if we do this? And I'm like, that's not my strategy, but I support you doing that, right? Like, if I can help, let me help. And I had to ask myself, especially last summer when it was dark, is what am I chasing? And, like, I'm chasing zero.

Like, I'm trying to get to a world where the police don't kill people and we move away from understanding people with guns is the best response to public safety. Yeah. And, like, that is what I'm chasing zero. Like I'm trying to get to a world where the police don't kill people and we move away from understanding people with guns is the best response to public safety. And like that is what I'm chasing. That is like my thing. I'm not chasing viral. I'm not chasing magazine spreads. I'm not chasing endorsements.

Like I'm chasing zero. And every day when I'm trying to think about like how do I spend my time, it's like does it get me closer to zero? And that's like that. That's good.

So keeping like a North Star. Yeah. Because like you are tempted to like go all over the place, right? And I'm like, okay, this gets me somewhere. It does not get me to zero. Do you know what I mean? That's good. And that's like my, yeah, it's like my, and just like a, why did I do this work?

Like, what did it mean? You know, people, I get a lot of critiques and people are like, but when I was, when I ran for mayor, I was probably the, literally the poorest I've ever been. And I remember my cell phone got cut off. I was a candidate. And I realized I can't pay the phone bill. So I text my dad and I'm like, hey, my father raised us. My mother left when I was three.

My father raised us. So I'm like, daddy, do you have any money? And he's like, yeah, I got you. He's like, meet me at the train station. Super random. So I meet him at the train station. He gives me cash. Also not helpful to pay my cell phone bill.

But thank you, daddy. I'm like, daddy. And I'll never forget, like two years later, I don't know why it came up. I think I was like, thank you for giving me the money. Or like, I got money and I like paid him back the $200. And he was like, he's like, I didn't want to tell you this, but I actually didn't have $200 that day. He's like, I borrowed $200 from my friend to give you $200 because I know you needed it. And it's like, there's a part of the internet that people think that everything is like some, you know, they think that like a million followers means you're like, I am

living in a basement. Do you know what I mean? And like, it's a good basement and I like the basement. And like, it's another set of people who helped raise me in Baltimore. But like the internet, like throws people off in terms of like what they think is real and not real. Yeah. Because you're not, a lot of times when you're interacting with people on the internet, you're not seeing a face. You're not meeting the person, you know, one-on-one. You don't know their life story. All you know is their tweets and their posts and whatever's in the bio. Yeah. Or if I post something that's not, not like rosy day, people are like, but you have a million followers. You should be happy. You're like, yeah, these are like random people on the internet. Do you know

what I mean? Like, this is not like a- I'm not measuring my worth with my follower count. And I don't get like, I don't get paid to tweet. You know, it's like, I'll never, this one tweet I still get grief for is like, during Pride, like Doritos had like rainbow Doritos. And I literally post the news article. Like, I don't interpret it,

but the news article is something like, rainbow Doritos are amazing. And people are like, you shill for Doritos. And I'm like, this is the article. Just sharing something funny. Everyone stand down. I'm like, leave me alone. Leave me alone.

That's a light joke. Where it's like, yeah. How have your online habits changed since you showed up in Ferguson in 2014? Or have they? I used to tweet a ton. I probably use Instagram more regularly about my personal life.

Twitter has become more work. Got it. Okay. Whereas like Twitter before, I'd be like, I can't buy my other sock. Twitter was like very like, whereas Instagram is a place I do that now, partly because I just don't want to fight with people about my life stuff anymore. Not worth it. Yeah, I'm like, I don't really need that.

Doesn't move the ball forward. So that's that. I probably get connected with more people on Twitter. That was always true, though. So like there's a company that does something in the world that I am trying to get their contracts ended in 100 cities. And I tweet about it not too long ago. And the CEO DMs me. He's like, can we talk?

And we talk for five minutes. I'm not swayed, but I'm like. Okay, you made your case. Yeah, but I'm like, but like only Twitter. Connect people like that. Like allows for that to happen, you made your case? Yeah, but only Twitter allows for that to happen. And there is something really cool about that that I think is special. I worry about the hunt for viral.

I worry about the performance of activism sometimes. Maybe I just didn't see it as much in 2014. I see it more today, you know, and I'm like, this is annoying. Um, but I do think the space is smarter. I like, I look at some of the things that like 16 year olds are tweeting. I'm like, that was the perfect or like Tik TOK. I look at Tik TOK and I'm like your analysis of this thing. Brilliant. I'm like nailed it. Like did it quicker, faster, tighter than most people could do, you know, which is actually like that was not 2014. 2014 was like 10 people being like, this is racist or sexist.

That's good. That's progress. Last question I'm asking all our guests. What's your favorite way to unplug and how often do you get to do it? Probably, you know, Ted Lasso is a great way to unplug okay big ted lasso fan and you're are you watching tv with your phone down or are you still phone and tv i'm fine i knew that i knew the answer to that when do i put the phone yeah when do you put the phone down i feel like you're probably with my friends i used to be i'm so much better now i used to like, I used to feel like a responsibility to like always be near the phone during the protests.

Like that was like a thing. Yeah, that makes sense. And I don't anymore. I'm like, I no longer work all day. Like I like work a solid like nine to six, seven in terms of meetings all day. And I have work to do afterwards. But like I used to always be on or like, you know, I did a very quick trip to L.A. for this thing the other day. And I remember there was a Thanksgiving where the police killed somebody like on thanksgiving i literally walk up

from the basement to have breakfast i get the text being like they just killed somebody and i go downstairs get changed and just go to the airport like no yeah like that was my life and like i no longer feel the need to like go and move like people get it now and in 2014 we were like convincing the world you know i mean took a lot of work yeah that was like a wild um that's what i'm but i but i've never believed more that we can win i think there are two parts of the work right it's like how do you take down on the bad how do you build the good i don't think that like i won't not be here but like the build the good i don't know if that's my work the take down the bad i see it i'm like i got it i'm like i can see it in

my spirit like the only constraint is i can't find enough people to help we're doing like 80 campaigns which is wild and i like cannot find enough people quick enough like that's the only constraint but i had to ask myself like what do i want to be true before i take my last breath and i like i get that i will not live forever and it's it's like what I what I tell myself is like, I want to be able to say that I fought for black people and I never lost my joy. You know, like I want that to be true. And I hold that. I hold that. Thank you, DeRay.

Appreciate you spending time here. Good to be here. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Andy Gardner Bernstein and Austin Fisher. Andrew Chadwick is our sound editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Michael Martinez, Ari Schwartz, Madison Hallman, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,

Milo Kim, and Narmel Konian, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.