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The following is an interview from the Lambda Literary site with Mckesson. Read his
responses to the question about the idea of reparations, which is the idea that people whose
ancestors were enslaved would receive some kind of compensation.

from DeRay Mckesson on Changing the Institution of Policing
Changing the World
Nahshon Dion Anderson
[P]lease share your thoughts on reparations. Who should benefit? Will there ever be a
time to “move on”?
I think that reparations are a true expression of acknowledgement and repair. We need to
acknowledge how we got here and what happened, and then we need to repair it. That seems
so basic to me. I’m shocked that that word is really charged to people, but the notion — the
work behind the word — is just seen as common sense. There was harm done, so we should
talk about it, and we should fix the harm. What does it mean when there are generations of
people who worked for no pay? That has long-lasting consequence. We should probably do
something about that, right? It just seems like common sense to me.
Explain how his answer to this question connects with his central idea in “The Bully and the
Pulpit.”

While we are able to share the pain that we us at risk. It’s the trick of the bully that some of
experience, to organize, and to act in ways and us may not realize the risk. Indeed, there are
with speed not heretofore possible, many of the those who don’t realize that the bully is coming
tools that we now have at our disposal have for them too; they have not yet learned the fear.
simultaneously been turned against us. The But white supremacy is about the fleecing of
platform that facilitated community building in power to gain more power. So while the bully
Ferguson and beyond is now the preferred venue may not be after you today, he will surely target
for our president to lie and mislead the public. We your car or hop over your fence in due
now know that our election was manipulated time — because the bully is aiming to amass
through the abuse of social media information on power, regardless of its victims.
Facebook and the like. So though the tactics of the In the face of this ever-present threat, silence
bully are tried and true, there is an unprecedented is tempting. Indeed, responding can be tiring and
sophistication to the bullies of our time. it may even seem futile in the midst of the
I know the world better since that year that onslaught. You just want the pain to end. Or to
I lived at my grandmother’s house. I know that acknowledge the risk and walk confidently down
there’s no avoiding the bully — not when you the street despite it. While understandable, silence
move off that street, or exit that grade, or too easily becomes acceptance. But neither offers
graduate from that school. In truth, the bully us a path to address the bully. The bully will take
only becomes more vicious, more insidious, your lunch money, then tell you to go buy lunch;
more institutionalized as time passes. steal your car, then give you a driver’s license. The
Paradoxically, many white people have been bully likes to perform innocence when
the collateral damage of policies enacted to confronted, suggesting that we can all just move
uphold white supremacy. And thus we are all of on, but we know this is one of his tricks.
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