An exchange of empathy provides an entry point for a lot of people to see what healing feels like.
Tarana Burke
Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something.
If I found a healing tree in my backyard, and it grew some sort of fruit that was a healing balm for people to repair what was damaged, I'm not going to just harvest all of those fruits and say, 'You cant have this.' If I have a cure for people, I'm going to share it.
Social media is not a safe space.
Patriarchy doesn't just make men out to be ogres. Women buy into the patriarchy as well, and women make those comments as well, like, 'Boys will be boys.' Women have to undo that stuff, too.
When one person says, 'Yeah, me, too,' it gives permission for others to open up.
We talk about sexual harassment in the workplace, but there's sexual harassment in schools, right? There's sexual harassment on the street. So there's a larger conversation to be had. And I think it will be a disservice to people if we couch this conversation in about what happens in Hollywood or what happens in even political offices.
These movements aren't about anger. We're not angrily saying 'Black Lives Matter.' We're declaring it. It's a declaration. We want to be seen as robust, full human beings that have anger and have joy. We want to be able to just freely have that joy. Like everybody else does.
For every R. Kelly or Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, there's, you know, the owner of the grocery store, the coach, the teacher, the neighbor, who are doing the same things. But we don't pay attention until it's a big name. And we don't pay attention 'til it's a big celebrity.
I founded the Me Too Movement because there was a void in the community that I was in. There were gaps in services. There was dearth in resources, and I saw young people - I saw black and brown girls - who are hurting and who needed something that just wasn't there.
If we don't center the voices of marginalized people, we're doing the wrong work.
There's a power in empathy.
I'm grounded in joy; I'm not grounded in the trauma anymore.
The work of #MeToo is about healing. It's about healing as individuals and healing as communities.
Sexual harassment does bring shame.
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. That's just basic common sense.
So many people who deal with sexual harassment don't have the means to file lawsuits or to get legal representation or legal advice.
We have to come together and speak honestly about what the barriers are within our community - and then tear them down. It's really that simple.
Nobody can take you out of something, especially if you're the one who started it.
We have to trust the voices of the community to be in leadership and know what we need for our communities.
I started doing organizing work as a teenager. I was part of an organization called the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement at 14.
Foundations have to think outside the box and maybe expand past the usual suspects that get all of the funding and start thinking about how to reach into communities and support community healing on a more local level.
If we keep on 'making statements' and not really doing the work, we are going to be in trouble.
What does justice look like for a survivor? It'll mean different things to different communities.
Inherently, having privilege isn't bad, but it's how you use it, and you have to use it in service of other people.
At the start of my career - not just Me Too, which is not the totality of my career - I wish I would have known that you don't have to sacrifice everything for a cause. And that self-care and self-preservation is also a tool that is necessary to do the work.
'Me too' was just two words; it's two magic words that galvanised the world.
There are a number of people who are anxious to leave #metoo behind and move on, but I don't think people realize how short of a time we have been discussing this issue compared to how long this has been an issue.
Social media is so immediate and in your face that I know many people have been helped and many people who have been traumatised by their entire timeline filled with 'me too.'
I've done work in every area of social justice you can think of, but I've been highly focused on young people and then specifically black and brown girls.
'Me too' became a term that was both succinct and powerful, and it was a way to ring up immediate empathy between survivors.
Part of the job is to find out what they need. #MeToo is about helping people find those resources.
I feel the reason people started using 'me too' is there is beauty and power in those words.
I'm really a worker and about rolling up my sleeves and doing the work. If that lands me a place in history, then I would be among amazing company.
In many regards, Me Too is about survivors talking to survivors.
The work is more than just about the amplification of survivors and quantifying their numbers. The work is really about survivors talking to each other and saying, 'I see you. I support you. I get it.'
I want the women I work with to find the entry point to where their healing is.
The first thing I organized around was the Central Park Five case for the young men who were accused. We talked about the unfair misrepresentation of these young teenagers in the media. I've been fighting back against Donald Trump for a long time.
When you truly empathize with someone, you have to take into account all the things that make that person who they are.
For every Harvey Weinstein, there's three or four thousand other pastors, coaches, teachers, uncles, cousins, and stepfathers who are committing the same crimes. We have to keep that in focus and we have to keep talking about it.
Anita Hill thanklessly put herself and her career as a law professor on the line more than 25 years ago to publicly name Clarence Thomas for sexually harassing her at work.
I don't work for Hollywood.
I wish men would stop telling me how they are not 'bad guys,' how they're 'an exception to the norm.'
The world doesn't realise I have a regular job!
There is always a way to get what you need, and I really believe in taking what you have to make what you need.
Everybody has a lane. Everybody has something that they can contribute.
Violence is violence. Trauma is trauma. And we are taught to downplay it, even think about it as child's play.
I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.
I have a lot of experience - not just with my 'Me Too' campaign but with survivors disclosing. I know that there is a wave of emotions that happens after that.
Even when black folks make me angry, I know that the foundation is that I love us. I want us to win, and I want us to have all the things that we deserve in the world. And that's driven by love.
