Tarana Burke

Activist

1973-09-12

Quotes by Tarana Burke

• Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something.

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• 'Me Too' is about letting - using the power of empathy to stomp out shame.

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• 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?

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• I want survivors to know that healing is possible.

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• In many regards, Me Too is about survivors talking to survivors.

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• 'Me too' became a term that was both succinct and powerful, and it was a way to ring up immediate empathy between survivors.

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• I didn't start Me Too as a hashtag, and had I had the opportunity to, I probably wouldn't have done it that way. I think that what has happened subsequently has been beautiful to watch, but what concerns me is what all of these survivors are going to do now.

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• 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.'

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.'

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• 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.

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• We use a term called 'empowerment through empathy.' And 'Me Too' is so powerful, because somebody had said it to me - right? - and it changed the trajectory of my healing process once I heard that.

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• I don't want to get into splitting hairs. Trauma is trauma. I'm not in a position to quantify or qualify people's trauma.

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• I'm grounded in joy; I'm not grounded in the trauma anymore.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• We want to turn victims into survivors - and survivors into thrivers.

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• People ask me what men can do, and I tell them, even if you're not a perpetrator, you should believe women - or queer folks - when they say that they have been violated.

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• If we don't center the voices of marginalized people, we're doing the wrong work.

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