It wasn’t built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow. It was a catchphrase to be used from survivor to survivor to let folks know that they were not alone and that a movement for radical healing was happening and possible.
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Tarana Burke
Tarana Burke is an American civil rights activist. She is known for being the first to use the phrase "Me Too", in 2006, to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in society. The phrase has since developed into a broader movement. Time named Burke, among a group of other prominent female activists dubbed "the silence breakers", as the Time Person of the Year for 2017. She is currently Senior Director at Girls for Gender Equity. 2Biography Burke was born and raised in Queens, New York. As a teenager, she became involved in working to improve the lives of young girls living in marginalized communities. In 2008, she moved to Philadelphia to further her work as an activist. She worked at Art Sanctuary Philadelphia as well as at other non-profits. She was a consultant for the Hollywood movie Selma, based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by James Bevel, Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, J
Sexual violence happens on a spectrum, and I think that accountability should happen on a spectrum as well.
The gray area is really important to talk about because so many of us live in the gray area. People talk a lot about how men are confused about consent and they don’t know if they should touch this or touch that, or ask.
This iteration in social media has placed a larger focus on perpetrators being called out and held accountable for their actions. But the actual Me Too movement is about supporting sexual assault survivors.
We need to be inundating these children with the idea that consent is the way of life. Yes, you do have to ask to touch somebody.
That’s actually the most problematic part here. All of this media attention is on the perpetrator.
What does justice look like for a survivor? It’ll mean different things to different communities.
What about the person whose family didn’t know until they saw it on social media? What if for a survivor social media is your self-care and you’re bombarded with all these posts? It’s really complicated.
There are a series of emotions that most survivors go through after disclosing. It starts with feeling great, like the weight on your shoulders has been lifted, and then you’re alone with your thoughts, like, “Why did I do that?” And then what about the person who gets backlash?
If we’re ever going to heal in our community, we have to heal the perpetrators and heal the survivors, or else it’s just a continuous cycle.
That’s another reason why I center black and brown girls. There are nuances in our community around sexual violence that are informed by centuries of oppression and white supremacy, but we have to confront them.
Inherently, having privilege isn’t bad, but it’s how you use it, and you have to use it in service of other people.
I cannot define how you or your body responds to things. I can’t tell you that’s not trauma.
There’s sexual harassment over here and you shouldn’t conflate it with rape. Which is true; those are two very different things. But they’re on the same spectrum. Sexual harassment is like the gateway drug. It’s the entry point.
Me Too, in a lot of ways, is about agency. It’s not about giving up your agency, it’s about claiming it.
I don’t think that every single case of sexual harassment has to result in someone being fired; the consequences should vary. But we need a shift in culture so that every single instance of sexual harassment is investigated and dealt with.
There’s lots of online information about sexual violence, but there’s not a lot of information about how you as an individual can start dealing with the trauma.
I thought, "Oh my god. This is mass disclosure across the internet and there’s no after care. Who’s going to have the discussion of what #metoo is really about?