Must-See: Deray Mckesson Discusses LGBTQ Within the Black Lives Matter Movement

Social media and Black Lives Matter activist, Deray Mckesson recently spoke at a GLAAD gala in San Francisco.

Mckesson used the LGBTQ platform to discuss his attitude towards being a person of a color and a member of the gay community with respect to his social activism.

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“I stand here as a proud Black gay man,” he said. “What I’ve learned is there is danger in the either/or. When loving myself only looks one way, when protests is either in the street or not at all, this puts constraints on how we express ourselves and the ways that we can get free.”

Mckesson relates the injustices people within both the Black and LGBTQ community face to being in what he calls “the quiet,” which acts similarly to a library.

“When I think about the quiet I think about the places where you’re not supposed to make noise. So many of us, the world is a place where we’re not supposed to make noise where we’re asked to hide who we are and be soilent about the injustices that we face.”

“We have never been the voiceless,” concludes McKesson. “We have always been the unheard…let’s use our platforms to rinder visible the invisible to help us see the beautiful complexity in all of our identity.”