Tag: Tarana

Categories
Health

#MeToo Founder Tarana Burke on What Needs to Happen After the Hashtag


I have to admit that when actress Alyssa Milano first tweeted #MeToo, my initial reaction was panic. What if this becomes a popular hashtag, I thought, but it’s not related to the groundwork I laid out? You see, I first came up with the phrase in 2006, after an experience with sexual violence left me searching for the right words. Ever since, I’ve gone to schools and community groups all over to connect with young women—mostly black and brown girls—to let them know, “You’re not alone. This happened to me too.”

After the hashtag began trending, a friend said, “Insert yourself into the conversation.” So I posted a video to Twitter about how empathy can help survivors of sexual assault. It went viral in a way that was like, “We won’t let this black woman be erased from her work.” Then, a different kind of panic set in. 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?” I had to get my arms around it.

Since, I’ve been trying to pivot the conversation to what the solutions are. The hashtag has been amazing at drawing the kind of attention we’ve never seen to sexual violence. But, each and everyone of those people who shared it is an individual person who has a story and took a chance. So a few things have to happen next.

To me, 2018 will be all about processing #MeToo. The next step in the movement will be helping women navigate what happens after they disclose an experience. It’s about what happens if someone posts #MeToo and nobody “likes” their status and how to be advocates in our communities. How to talk to children about this. Discussing the sexual harassment teenagers deal with in school.

I’m driven by the gaps, the things that are missing, the areas where marginalized people exist — and where the least resources are available for them. 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.

We keep talking about how many millions engaged with the movement, but even if just 10 percent of those people stay committed to the work, we will have created an incredible army. Because, the power of #MeToo isn’t just naming it. Naming it is just the beginning of the journey.

Activist Tarana Burke (@TaranaBurke), 44, is the founder of the #MeToo Movement. She lives in New York.





Source link

Categories
Health

Activist Tarana Burke Started the "Me Too" Movement 10 Years Ago


PHOTO: Courtesy of subject

Tarana Burke

While thousands of stories of sexual harassment and assault have flooded Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in recent days, the #MeToo social movement did not, in fact, originate this past weekend. Instead, it goes back a decade—and was originated by activist Tarana Burke.

Burke, who also founded the youth organization Just Be Inc. and is now a program director at Girls for Gender Equity, started the “Me Too” campaign in 2007 to help sexual assault survivors in underprivileged communities. These were women who did not have access to rape crisis centers or counseling and as a survivor of sexual violence herself, Burke wanted to create opportunities for women to heal. As Burke told Democracy Now, the mission of the movement is “empowerment through empathy” and her goal was to bring “messages and words and encouragement to survivors of sexual violence where other people wouldn’t be talking about it.”

The phrase quickly became a trending topic after actress Alyssa Milano encouraged others to speak out and tag their posts with the #MeToo hashtag. While Burke told Ebony that it was “powerful” to see “Me Too” take off, she wants people to know that her movement goes beyond this viral moment.

“It wasn’t built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow,” Burke said. “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.”

She added: “What’s happening now is powerful and I salute it and the women who have disclosed but the power of using ‘me too’ has always been in the fact that it can be a conversation starter or the whole conversation—but it was us talking to us.”

As the hashtag took off on Sunday night, Burke shared her thoughts on Twitter and reinforced that “Me Too” is more than a hashtag.

On Monday, Milano tweeted that she had been made aware of Burke’s creation of the “Me Too” movement and shared Burke’s story. However, the trending topic—and the initial credit to Milano as being its first champion—revealed yet another pervasive issue. As noted by the Huffington Post, “Feminist movements are often whitewashed when they’re brought into mainstream conversations.”

“In this instance, the celebrities who popularized the hashtag didn’t take a moment to see if there was work already being done, but they also were trying to make a larger point,” Burke told Ebony. “I don’t fault them for that part, I don’t think it was intentional but somehow sisters still managed to get diminished or erased in these situations. A slew of people raised their voices so that that didn’t happen.”

And just as Burke said, plenty of women took to Twitter to share their support for “Me Too” and thank her for starting such an important conversation.



Source link