I think it is selfish for me to try to frame Me Too as something that I own. It is bigger than me and bigger than Alyssa Milano. Neither one of us should be centered in this work. This is about survivors.
Tarana BurkeRead
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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of addressing the needs of marginalized communities lacking resources.
Tarana Burke expresses her motivation to focus on the areas of society where marginalized individuals face challenges and where resources are scarce. Her drive comes from a desire to advocate for those who are often overlooked and to highlight the disparities that exist within communities, calling attention to the necessity of providing support and creating opportunities for those in need.
In practice
In a speech addressing social equity at a community meeting.
I think it is selfish for me to try to frame Me Too as something that I own. It is bigger than me and bigger than Alyssa Milano. Neither one of us should be centered in this work. This is about survivors.
Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something.
'Me Too' became the way to succinctly and powerfully connect with other people and give people permission to start their journey to heal.
We want to turn victims into survivors - and survivors into thrivers.
I think that women of color use social media to make our voices heard with or without the amplification of white women. I also think that, many times, when white women want our support, they use an umbrella of 'women supporting women' and forget that they didn't lend the same kind of support.
Men need to help reshape the conversation around consent.
Those in the community who defy authority and 'break the law' seem to enjoy the good life and have everything in the way of material possessions. On the other hand, people who work hard and struggle and suffer much are the victims of greed and indifference, losers. This insane reversal of values presses heavily on the Black community. The causes originate from outside and are imposed by a system that ruthlessly seeks its own rewards, no matter what the cost in wrecked human lives.
Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big—big money, big businesses selling weed—after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed. Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?
Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time.
You can be tweeting strangers and saying, 'Don't say that,' but are you saying that to your friends? How about your mom? Your boyfriend at the dinner table who says something homophobic? If you're not saying the same things in person that you're saying online, then what are your tweets doing?
When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.
This stereotype that Black and brown boys and girls are dangerous or threatening has normalized systems of trauma: the cradle to prison pipeline, foster care, youth detention, and being tried and sentenced as adults. We treat trauma with more trauma.
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