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central text
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DeRay Mckesson
Bailey Graham 5

This is a painting called The Odd Girl by Bailey Graham, who made the following statement about
herself: “Though I was bullied and alone, it didn’t hit me very often, but when it did, it hurt. I found
solitude in my creativity, and slowly I became what I created.”
What do you see in this image that reflects what Graham says of her being bullied, and what
connections might Mckesson make to this image?

to normalize the interaction so that you are There were many days when I just wanted to
simultaneously traumatized and left questioning get home. I didn’t want to fight, I didn’t want to
if what you experienced actually happened, if run, I didn’t want to find another way. I wanted
what you felt was real. to see my grandmother, my grandfather, my
Every day after school I anticipated him, father. I wanted things to be normal. I now
even though he did not always show up in the realize that the bully wants his tyranny to
ways I expected. But I was prepared, mentally become the norm. And when he succeeds, he
and physically. I realize now that his power lay creates a burden that incessantly grinds on your
partly in his omnipresence-ever present in my spirit. It threatens your joy; it steals your
mind even when he wasn’t there in the flesh. innocence. The threat and the fear and the
And long after the bruises from the bully had burden transform you. In the most literal sense,
healed, I was left living in a world where it changes the way that everyone in its orbit
I expected violence, where the anticipation of interacts with one another.
trauma served as a survival mechanism. It was a In the face of the bully, there are seemingly
world that looked subtly different from the one only two options: to challenge him or to accept
that I used to inhabit, a world without agency. him. I never understood the notion of “fight or
The bully aims to become the center of your flight” in this context, because “flight” would
everything. For me, the block was no longer the only be a temporary reprieve and not an actual
block where my grandmother lived, but the stance. I couldn’t avoid the street forever, and
block with the bully. His trauma trapped me in I shouldn’t have had to. “Fight” feels like an
the present where time, space, and my sense of equally false option — overcoming the bully
self all folded in on themselves. should not rest on adopting his tactics. When we
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