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- [00:00]
Monica Lewinsky
Wondery subscribers can listen to Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky early and ad free right now. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:22]
Tarana Burke
Hi.
- [00:22]
Monica Lewinsky
For today's episode, I spoke with the amazing activist, author and my friend Tarana Burke, the founder of the original MeToo movement. I wanted to talk to Tarana because her personal story is remarkable and she shares it with such power and love. This woman embodies Reclaiming in her every breath. In our conversation, I was really moved by how much of a kindred trauma spirit she is for me and it reminded me also of how funny she is. Anyway, I hope you can find something in our chat to connect to and thanks for joining us on Reclaiming. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, audible explore, over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts and exclusive Audible originals that'll inspire and motivate you. Visit audible.comreclaiming to find your next listen. Thank you to our exclusive fashion partner, Reformation. I honestly can't tell you how many of their pieces have become my go to favorites. Their sweaters have this incredible way of being both polished and and comfortable. And in fact, when we recorded my own Reclaiming story for the podcast, I was wearing the same Reformation sweater as the producer interviewing me, but thankfully we had the Clara on in different colors. Their clothes work for all moments in my life. Whether it's a casual day out or a more formal occasion, I always find myself reaching for my Reformation pieces. Visit reformation.com to see why. They're one of my favorite brands for stylish and sustainable fashion. Hi Tarana.
- [01:53]
Tarana Burke
Hi.
- [01:53]
Monica Lewinsky
Welcome to Reclaiming. Thank you so much for being here. This is very meaningful to me.
- [01:59]
Tarana Burke
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.
- [02:01]
Monica Lewinsky
I was thinking on the way over how I think the last time I saw you was at your kick ass 50th birthday party where you were like looking amazing and I left early because I'm old and even though it was good music, I was like, yeah, no time for me to go home.
- [02:18]
Tarana Burke
But I'm glad I caught you before.
- [02:20]
Monica Lewinsky
Exactly. And that I think we actually we connected first. Connected online in 28. Exactly. On Twitter. I still call it Twitter. Right. It's Twitter forever. Exactly. I think we met before. Finally met in person. Before COVID did a panel. During COVID Yeah, we.
- [02:39]
Tarana Burke
Oh right. We did that panel. Africa.
- [02:42]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [02:42]
Tarana Burke
And then we met at Laura's wedding.
- [02:44]
Monica Lewinsky
Exactly. We were the only two in that very kid friendly hotel. Everyone else was quite glamorous. But.
- [02:50]
Tarana Burke
But that was such a stark reality of, like, you're only kind of famous.
- [02:55]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. And then we had that long flight home with 8 million connecting flights, and so. But. But it was nice. Cause we. We got a chance to. I felt like I got a chance to. To spend more time with you and get to know you more. And this is just so meaningful to me to have you here, because I think you've got some of the most powerful reclaiming stories. Stories ever. And interestingly, I find that you're. When I think about it, like, you're reclaim. It's like you have a reclaiming story nested within a reclaiming story nested within it. So, I mean, it's a. It is. You're sort of the queen of that in many ways.
- [03:36]
Tarana Burke
Oh, wow. Feels like it sometimes.
- [03:38]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. I'm like, lucky you. Lots of trauma. Here's your prize.
- [03:45]
Tarana Burke
Exactly. I wear it right here.
- [03:47]
Monica Lewinsky
I guess as the creator of the MeToo movement, I was thinking that it might help people just to orient more, to kind of hear an origin story. Because you started. I mean, I always think of it. I probably read it somewhere, but I always think of it as MeToo 2.0, the hashtag online. Because you started MeToo about 10 years prior to that, right? As a movement.
- [04:11]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. In 2006, I'd started this work under the name MeToo movement in Alabama, and then I moved to Philly and was doing it in Philly. And so that work. There was really no social media then. I mean, we had a little thing on MySpace, but it was like, what's up, Tom?
- [04:29]
Monica Lewinsky
From MySpace? Right.
- [04:31]
Tarana Burke
This was me going into schools at first, and actually, because of MySpace, we started working with adults, but it was me going into schools, junior high schools and high schools with young people.
- [04:43]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, wow.
- [04:44]
Tarana Burke
And using my story and their stories to talk about, like, the commonality that we had amongst this trauma that these young girls had experienced. To say, like, there's a commonality in your trauma, and there's also power. And how can we build on that power to build leadership, to build healing, you know, and to take action against it. Not really what went. The thing that went viral, but in a very similar way, the same things that my girls needed when we were having our meetings is exactly what these women were looking for when they were saying me, too, to each other across the, you know, the Internet. So it wasn't very different. People were looking for empathy. They were looking for understanding, connection and community, and they were looking to be seen and heard and believed.
- [05:30]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. But starting and then we could go backwards a little of the moment when MeToo 2.0 went viral.
- [05:39]
Tarana Burke
Oh, yeah.
- [05:40]
Monica Lewinsky
If you can tell me that story, what happened then?
- [05:44]
Tarana Burke
And, you know, the Weinstein thing was unfolding, and that time on Twitter, there was always sort of, like, movements, right? There were all these little, like, flash movements that would happen. Something would happen in the public sphere, and then the social media would respond to it in some kind of way. And I do remember very distinctly there was, like, this call for women to have a day without women on the Internet. Right. As a response. And I remember it was funny to me because I remember black women and other women of color were like, no, we're not participating in that. When. When black women like Leslie Jones. There was like, a Leslie Jones, the actress had been doxxed and treated really badly, and people did not respond to it. Right. They didn't rally around her in the way that black women thought they should. Yeah. They were like, no, we're not doing that. And so there was this sentiment that what was happening in Hollywood and with the Weinstein thing was sort of, like, white women and, you know, actresses. So when that Sunday, as MeToo started going viral, I got text messages from people, and they were varying text messages. Some of them were saying, oh, my gosh, congratulations. I'm seeing your hashtag everywhere. And then I got messages like, hey, is this you? Like, because people knew that it's not something that I would do, right? They were like, is this you? Like, I'm seeing me, too. Like, did you start this? Did somebody take this? Like, you should get online. And then by the time I got online, I had to call my daughter and be like, help me find this. What's going on? By the time I got online, it was starting to go viral. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Because I didn't start the hashtag. Alyssa Milano had started.
- [07:30]
Monica Lewinsky
Right? So just to. I'm just trying to refresh my memory. So it's fall of 2017, right? So Harvey Weinstein accusations have come out.
- [07:40]
Tarana Burke
And the two articles have hit. Right?
- [07:43]
Monica Lewinsky
Right. And then Alyssa Milano does the tweet, and is. And so it's the moment when Alyssa does that tweet that now this is going viral, and you start hearing. Okay, Right, right.
- [07:54]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. There's a call to action. Like, if all the women who have experienced sexual harassment, sexual violence would. Would post me, too, that maybe people could see the magnitude of it. And women start doing that. And in doing that, they're also posting their stories. They're saying, you Know what happened to them. And it just. It goes viral. And in fact, there were 12 million responses across social media. Are you 24 hours?
- [08:21]
Monica Lewinsky
12 million.
- [08:23]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. It's one of the largest hashtags in the history of social media. Oh, my gosh, it was. It was incredible. And they were coming from all walks of life. And I think this is also one of the things that people get wrong about it when they say it was. Oh, it was like white women and Hollywood. It was. MeToo actually became a phenomenon because of everyday people. Right. It was part of the zeitgeist, because of the Weinstein conversation. But MeToo went viral because of everyday people and everyday survivors who were responding to that call. And, you know, we don't think of the Internet as a safe space. Most people don't exactly. But there was this. For this moment, for a while, there was a sense of safety and community, really, maybe not safety, but community where people could say, like, can I actually say this out loud? Right? And that's what happened. And that is what happened when I created it, Right? It was like this was a way for people, for survivors to communicate with each other in short form, in shorthand to say, it doesn't matter really what happened or how it happened or what the details were, but if it happened to you and it happened to me, I know who you are. Right. I know what you're going through. I know what you're holding. I know what that is. There is power and empathy. And survivors, we give that to each other. And that's what happened when it went viral. And so it goes viral. Alyssa doesn't know who I am at all. And then people, because this one had been doing the work for more than a decade, start, you know, start going at her like, there was this other phenomenon that had happened online a lot where black women had created work that had been stolen or had been taken or had been undermined. Again, that should be underscored here. That's not what happened. Alyssa Milano did not know who I was.
- [10:23]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [10:23]
Tarana Burke
You know, there is a.
- [10:25]
Monica Lewinsky
It was an innocent mistake.
- [10:26]
Tarana Burke
It was an innocent. And in fact, she reached out to me after she had gotten so many tweets at her saying, where's Tarana Burke? What happened? You know, this is Tarana Burke's work that she inboxed me and said, hey, I didn't know this was something you started. How can I be of support to you? And I was like, oh, sure, this is great.
- [10:46]
Monica Lewinsky
That's the right way to handle a fuck up.
- [10:48]
Tarana Burke
Absolutely.
- [10:48]
Monica Lewinsky
And an unintentional thing, an unintentional thing.
- [10:51]
Tarana Burke
And so I was like, that's great, thank you. And then I put out a tweet saying, this is great. I'm so glad to see so many people embracing. Me too. Let me tell you what it is. And people heard that there was no reason for a 44 year old black woman from the Bronx to be in a leadership, a national or worldwide leadership position at any given time. That's something that Alyssa could have taken and run with that completely. And to her credit, she was like, I just want to amplify what works and I want to help, like, make sure that there is a moment here where people can get what they need. And so when I started talking about what it is and what the work is, people were like, yeah, can we hear more?
- [11:34]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:35]
Tarana Burke
And so it just took off from there. I was able to. That first year was such a whirlwind. It was like there was so many more cases, of course. Right. Weinstein, blah, blah, blah. It was one after another after another. And so it was also a thing where the news, the mainstream media didn't know what to do both with me and with the moment. So it was just like this perfect storm. Right. Because we never had a moment where powerful men were being called to account for anything really, as you might well know.
- [12:13]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [12:14]
Tarana Burke
You know, like there's never been. Nobody's ever called to question, I mean, like, why are you, Matt Lauer, why do you have a lock on your door? You know, like, why there's These things were never questioned before. And so, no, they were not really canceled. Like, that's some. Those people are not actually canceled. But there was this at least a call for accountability. Right. It was questioning. That was a shift in what we had never. Something we had never seen. And there was nobody to talk about it.
- [12:44]
Monica Lewinsky
Right? Yeah. Roxane Gay, I think calls it consequence culture.
- [12:47]
Tarana Burke
Yes.
- [12:48]
Monica Lewinsky
And I think.
- [12:48]
Tarana Burke
Which is I cannot cancel culture.
- [12:50]
Monica Lewinsky
And so it's interesting one thing just from back, what you were saying is maybe I didn't do enough. I didn't take enough sort of feminism classes in college. I took one. It was interesting to me because 2017 was when I, as a white woman came to understand about intersectionality. And that, I think is some of what you're talking about here too, of the recognition sort of how is the media dealing with this? How are we recognizing these kinds of stories from more lenses and perspectives. Right. Than what we might normally.
- [13:28]
Tarana Burke
It was incremental though. Right. Because we had the whole reason why There was even a recognition, I think, is because these were maybe not as obviously not as powerful as these white men. But you did. You had these white women in Hollywood who were saying, this hurts. This is. We have been impacted by this. There's no way that if the women had been, you know, first of all, you know, Gabrielle Union or, you know, Taraji or whatever, amazing black women actresses.
- [14:01]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [14:02]
Tarana Burke
Who, by the way, have all seen their fair share of the same thing. I'm sure that we would have had the same impact. Right. And so it's the reason why. It's who those women were, is the reason why it became cover stories and what have you. In fact, we saw we had all of that response, and then Lupita came forward and had a different response.
- [14:21]
Monica Lewinsky
Really? Well, you know what. Here's what's telling. I don't remember that.
- [14:25]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. In that situation, when those women came forward about Weinstein, it was, you know, all the same response. When Lupita came forward and said that she'd also suffered at the hands of Weinstein, he said, no, no, that didn't happen. You know, and she didn't get the same response. Same thing around R. Kelly. Like, we black women have been screaming at the top of our lungs about r. Kelly for 10 years before MeToo went viral.
- [14:52]
Monica Lewinsky
Wow.
- [14:53]
Tarana Burke
But the R. Kelly did not come under scrutiny until after metoo went viral. And then a group of black women started something called Mute R. Kelly. Right. Because there was an opportunity for her.
- [15:03]
Monica Lewinsky
And was that here? Is it Dream Hampton?
- [15:07]
Tarana Burke
Yeah, Dream Hampton is her name.
- [15:08]
Monica Lewinsky
Right. And she did the documentary on R. Kelly. Right.
- [15:11]
Tarana Burke
But prior to the documentary, there were two women.
- [15:14]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [15:14]
Tarana Burke
They started something called Mute R Kelly.
- [15:17]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay.
- [15:17]
Tarana Burke
Which was their own movement.
- [15:20]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [15:20]
Tarana Burke
And it was. It preceded me to. But because of MeToo, it got amplified. Right. So the intersectionality part is understanding that sexual violence is so complex and it affects the most marginalized people in the country way more. Right. And we never get to have those conversations. That's still difficult. It's still a difficult conversation to have. It's still, you know, we've got to have it a little bit more. And in fact, it's a complex thing because as a black woman who represents the this movement, part of what my work is is about making sure that people understand that. And it's been really hard because I represent all survivors. Right. But my work is always to sort of amplify and center the most marginalized and the most impacted. And that initial year was really hard. It was so hard to do that because people didn't want to hear it.
- [16:16]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Well, I think even though you had been an activist for a long time, and so we're sort of used to stepping forward, in some ways, it wasn't necessarily on that big stage. And I hadn't thought about this until just now. Of that. You also experience, like I did, this experience of being thrust from sort of 0 to 60 in terms of losing your anonymity and your privacy overnight. Yeah, exactly. And what that. I.
- [16:43]
Tarana Burke
What that all means going to work every day. I lived in Harlem, was going to work in Brooklyn. I was at work. This was another thing that Alyssa did. She was called to be on Good Morning America, and she asked them to bring me on. And I was at work, and they called me and they said, we want you to come on Good Morning America. They filmed it that evening. So I left my job and they sent a car for me. I get to the studio. I filmed for, like, 20 minutes. And then the next day, the next morning, they aired. It was like three seconds, but I was on Good Morning America.
- [17:18]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [17:19]
Tarana Burke
Like two days after this thing goes viral. Right. And I never looked back from there. From, like, working every day to just being in the spotlight. So my life has it completely changed. Like, completely. And I was. There's no, you know, there's no roadmap. There's no.
- [17:39]
Monica Lewinsky
No.
- [17:39]
Tarana Burke
There's nobody to come. There's no consultant to hire.
- [17:42]
Monica Lewinsky
No. Well. And I think most of the time it's people who. Are they working hard and maybe working a long time to step towards being in that limelight. And they usually have a lot of resources, both just whether it's people around them or the money to sort of, you know, I remember in 98, it was. We ended up having to hire a bodyguard. And, you know, same. And it just. Yeah, it's just like, oh, wait, how do you fucking get a bodyguard?
- [18:10]
Tarana Burke
Like, you know, I remember these two women who tried to attack me, who came after me in jfk. Now, first of all, I'm from the Bronx, so there's a whole other thing that's like, I'm not. Don't let me to get you fucked up.
- [18:21]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [18:22]
Tarana Burke
Right. So I had to, like, tell these women, these two women stopping me in jfk, one woman tried to spit on me. And I'm just like, rest your understanding on this.
- [18:31]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, my.
- [18:32]
Tarana Burke
Don't let me talk.
- [18:34]
Monica Lewinsky
So sorry.
- [18:34]
Tarana Burke
Oh, no, it was fine. Trust me.
- [18:36]
Monica Lewinsky
No, it's not fine.
- [18:37]
Tarana Burke
I mean, it wasn't fine.
- [18:38]
Monica Lewinsky
No.
- [18:38]
Tarana Burke
But what I'm saying is it was a reality. Of like, I'm a public figure, and so now if I drag this woman down this. Damn.
- [18:45]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [18:45]
Tarana Burke
Now I'm go to jail and I'm going to look like a person because now I have to behave.
- [18:51]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [18:52]
Tarana Burke
Like, I'm from the projects in the Bronx.
- [18:53]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [18:54]
Tarana Burke
I know, it was really interesting. And I did have to get a bodyguard because I can handle these two old white women from. In the JFK airport. But there was other people who I, you know, who I don't know, and I had to travel with security, which was. What is that? You know. Cause I do. I do feel like I can handle myself, but I can, you know, all.
- [19:15]
Monica Lewinsky
The time in certain. In certain situations. You can't. No.
- [19:19]
Tarana Burke
From 20, mid-2017 up until Covid, I had a. I had traveled with security, and my husband became my security for part of that. That was. It was bizarre. You know, I've been doxed more times than I can think of. I've had strange gifts and boxes sent to my house and just. I had to move my daughter. We had to.
- [19:40]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, my gosh.
- [19:41]
Tarana Burke
There's that whole side of it, too, that was. And the other part that people don't get is I don't just represent the thing. I'm also a survivor. Right. They separate those two things. As if you are. Like the things that people say to me, you know, there are. And this is across the board, I've had the most horrific things said and done towards me as if my survivorship doesn't matter. So it's not. So you have to keep working despite that. Right. Like your trauma, your. It's compounded. Right. It's like you have to. I have to set aside all the experiences of my life and then accept these new experiences and then set those aside. Right. To continue to work. Because it's the work that I want to do.
- [20:34]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. I wanted to ask you about your. Me too. Your personal MeToo experience. And just wanting to be mindful. I think you talk about this of people who've been victimized, not having to perform their trauma for other people. And so I don't know what's the most comfortable. Do you have a shorthand? Do you want to give the details. You want me to give the short details of. Just because I'm more interested in the aftermath, but I think you just have to have a little context to. I don't want you to relive it.
- [21:09]
Tarana Burke
No, I'm okay with that. I just. For me, I think that when survivors tell their stories, they should be in complete Control of it. That's all. It's just that I think when I say that we shouldn't have to perform our stories, I think a lot of times in political spaces sometimes, or even in entertainment spaces, survivors are asked to share for the purpose of people understanding what sexual violence is or what it does. And I don't think that that's necessary. I don't think it's true. You don't need for me to cut and bleed for you to understand what this trauma is. Wow.
- [21:45]
Monica Lewinsky
You know, that's very powerful statement.
- [21:48]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. And that's the reason why I try to help survivors know that you get to guard yourself. You get to guard your story. And I don't think people understand it when I say it, but I think at some point our story becomes our gift. Right. It is a source of power, and power is a gift. And so we get to guard it and protect it and hold it and share it how we see fit. So when I feel comfortable and I trust the person, I'm fine with that. And if I think it is empowering and helpful, then it makes absolute sense. That's all. And it's not performative in any way.
- [22:23]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah. No.
- [22:25]
Tarana Burke
But I do think in relation to what I'm saying, people forget. I've had people say to me, like, for instance, when the R. Kelly trial was going on and even before the trial, when the documentary happened, because I was in the documentary, you know, it was really difficult, particularly in the black community, for us to talk about sexual violence. And I think as a reaction to that, we go to defense. And so people were so ugly. And they were just like, well, why would he. They were. They were conflating, thinking that I was saying that he. That I was one of his victims. And so why would R. Kelly. Ray paused. She's too ugly. Why would she. You know, I was getting.
- [23:08]
Monica Lewinsky
I had versions of that.
- [23:09]
Tarana Burke
Oh, yeah. You know.
- [23:10]
Monica Lewinsky
You know, it's.
- [23:12]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [23:12]
Monica Lewinsky
So fucked up. It is so fucked up.
- [23:15]
Tarana Burke
And so I would say to people all the time, well, no, actually, I was raped when I was 7. Does that make you feel better? And so it's jarring for people. And I do it as a shock. My friends would be like, you gotta stop doing that. I'm like, it's my story. I get to say it how I want to. But I say it because I want. For the shock factor to folks so you can hear. I'll say, oh, I was cuter when I was 7. Does that make you feel better? You know, because I need people to Hear that information. I need you to hear what you're saying. I need you to reflect on what you're saying. There's no. Women are assaulted in hijab. Women are assaulted in sanitation uniforms. Women are assaulted in all manner walks of life and every age. Little girls are assaulted.
- [24:03]
Monica Lewinsky
Well, sure. Look at Giselle Pellico.
- [24:06]
Tarana Burke
Pellico.
- [24:07]
Monica Lewinsky
I mean, exactly. An extraordinary story.
- [24:09]
Tarana Burke
Unbelievable. Yeah, Unbelievable. Right? So, you know, I was seven years old the first time. Right. And I. I have carried over the years, and I talk about this in my memoir. I have carried over the years. Just the. The shame of not wanting to talk about how many times I've been sexually assaulted. It feels like, you know, over. Over time. I was comfortable saying I was 7 years old because I felt like people can understand a child being molested. You know, like, they have sympathy and empathy for that. When you say it would happen again and then it happened again and like, oh, right. Well, then, well, why didn't you do something about it after a while? Right. Like, you should have gotten the wherewithal at some point to do something about it. But that's just not true. And part of. I feel like part of my mission in life is to help people understand survivorship. Right.
- [25:04]
Monica Lewinsky
You've helped me so much.
- [25:06]
Tarana Burke
I'm glad to hear that.
- [25:07]
Monica Lewinsky
So much.
- [25:07]
Tarana Burke
I really am.
- [25:08]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [25:09]
Tarana Burke
Because I just think. I think that we have been exposed to so much of the trauma, the point of trauma, like, we've been sort of socialized to respond to the act.
- [25:20]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [25:21]
Tarana Burke
We don't really get to understand the aftermath.
- [25:25]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [25:25]
Tarana Burke
Right.
- [25:26]
Monica Lewinsky
It is. I mean, I think of it as trauma porn. It's interesting because my. You know, my concern when I. When I wrote about my MeToo experiences, both. I mean, I didn't write about the earlier than 98 ones, but the 98 ones. And I had received a DM from a public person who said to me, I'm sorry you were so alone. And that really landed with me. And then I remember not wanting to really. I mean, when I did MeToo, I wasn't even talking about night. Cause I. Like, I actually existed before then. And I remember sort of in connecting with you, I felt like you had that come through. I know. And I felt like, well, if Tarana says it, then it is. And that. That's sad in a way. Like, I was so grateful to be accepted by you. And it was also sad for me that I felt like I was still.
- [26:26]
Tarana Burke
I'll tell you, it was sad for me because this is the part that is so unfortunate. That. And I get this all the time. You know, I get this on college campuses from young girls who come up to me and say, well, it was just this or that or this. Can I say Me, too. And I say, this is not about. This is about what it left you with. Right. There are some people. There are some young people. There are some people who have experiences, and it did not leave them with the same kind of mark. Right. It did not leave them. And that's okay. That's every person's individual experience. And you know what's so interesting? Because we're the same age. Right? Right. And I remember when my daughter was that age and think, you know, I'm looking at my daughter like, this kid is a baby, you know?
- [27:20]
Monica Lewinsky
You mean in her early 20s? Like, for what? Yeah. So for me, my 98 and my early 20s. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [27:26]
Tarana Burke
What, 22.
- [27:27]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, 22 when the relationship started and 24 when it became public.
- [27:32]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. So. But 22.
- [27:33]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, I know, right? I'm like, is a baby. I couldn't even rent a car without an adult signature.
- [27:40]
Tarana Burke
And it's like thinking about how grown you think you are.
- [27:43]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, yeah.
- [27:44]
Tarana Burke
And also putting that up against the fucking President of the whole United States. There's not more power than that. And we talk about a lot of abuses, about power dynamics. Right. And so you can't really garner much more power than that.
- [28:05]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [28:05]
Tarana Burke
I don't care what you want to call consent. I don't care. I don't really. I'm not. These are the arguments. I'm conjuring up the arguments I've had. Like, I'm not interested in who gave consent or whatever. That's not really. I don't care about that. What I'm interested in is where the power lies. Right. Where the manipulation lies.
- [28:24]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [28:25]
Tarana Burke
And so. And then what you were left with after that and to the point of the person that said to you, how alone were you? Where was the trauma in that? I will never forget watching in an interview after he wrote a book and was talking about how much money he spent in defense of that, and I almost came up out my skin. I was like, really?
- [28:46]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:47]
Tarana Burke
How much money you spent?
- [28:48]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [28:49]
Tarana Burke
But you got to go on with your life and be revered everywhere. I've watched him walk through places like a rock star.
- [28:59]
Monica Lewinsky
Yep.
- [29:00]
Tarana Burke
So you get to say whatever you want.
- [29:04]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [29:05]
Tarana Burke
It's what you carry. And I know what you carry. Whew.
- [29:11]
Monica Lewinsky
I know.
- [29:12]
Tarana Burke
That shit pissed me off so bad. Oh, my God. Cause if somebody did that to my Baby, I would be you. You could not. I would be hunting that motherfucker down.
- [29:24]
Monica Lewinsky
I think my parents felt that way.
- [29:27]
Tarana Burke
I'm so sure.
- [29:28]
Monica Lewinsky
You know, it's.
- [29:29]
Tarana Burke
You wanna talk about how much money you spent? And my child had to go into hiding because the other thing is. How many other little girls were out there like that?
- [29:37]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. No, not only just.
- [29:39]
Tarana Burke
And I don't mean of him. Of. Although all over the place.
- [29:43]
Monica Lewinsky
Yes.
- [29:44]
Tarana Burke
And the thing is, I'm thinking about the little girl whose gym teacher's doing that, whose coach is doing that, whose teacher's doing that. Right. And you think you're giving permission because you want to be at that age, that age between like 16 and 20 something. We want to be grown. We want to be in charge. Your frontal cortex is not even fully developed.
- [30:06]
Monica Lewinsky
And also, too very often we're still dealing with and experiencing and finding our way with our hormones and puberty and what it means to be a woman. And, you know, and you.
- [30:20]
Tarana Burke
Yes, we give permission because that means for that, consent. And those. In those. A lot of times, consent in those. In that context is about the longing, right? The longing to be grown. Right? The longing to be. That's why you can be groomed, because you. That's where the. That's. The people know. The older person, the person with more power can seek out the person, the younger person who is looking to be accepted, who wants to. You can see it, right. They know what to look for. It is such a fucking manipulative conversation and situation, and it can only, to me, be seen in that way. The person who molested me was 18, I was 7. And he was very popular in our neighborhood. He was like a very popular boy. He would do tricks for the little kids, and he would always go take us. In fact, the day that I was molested, he bought us candy in the candy stores. Like the most typical conversation you get, right? There was a candy store in the corner that we all used to go into. It was me and two of my friends, and he came in the store and bought us all candy bars. And I was supposed to go upstairs, and one of my friends went one way, the other one went the other way. And he walked me around the corner and convinced me to go with him.
- [31:47]
Monica Lewinsky
Mm. Do you think he bought you candy knowing?
- [31:51]
Tarana Burke
Absolutely.
- [31:52]
Monica Lewinsky
Mm.
- [31:52]
Tarana Burke
Absolutely.
- [31:53]
Monica Lewinsky
Mm.
- [31:54]
Tarana Burke
But why wouldn't I trust him?
- [31:56]
Monica Lewinsky
Right?
- [31:56]
Tarana Burke
But also, he was the cute boy in the neighborhood, the fun boy in the neighborhood. And he would make us, the girls, feel like we were special.
- [32:08]
Monica Lewinsky
Mm.
- [32:09]
Tarana Burke
You know, I can distinctly still remember that feeling.
- [32:11]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Yeah.
- [32:12]
Tarana Burke
At seven years old.
- [32:14]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [32:14]
Tarana Burke
You know what I mean? I didn't want to give consent, but I was confused because I was a child.
- [32:22]
Monica Lewinsky
Right? I mean, you were seven fucking years old.
- [32:25]
Tarana Burke
Exactly.
- [32:28]
Monica Lewinsky
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- [35:05]
Tarana Burke
Condom on a banana.
- [35:06]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, exactly. I didn't even know that I got that one, you know, but so for me, I didn't. Things like unwanted sexual experience. Never heard that phrase till I was in my 40s. Understand. Somatic therapy starting. Somatic. Understanding the nervous system, vagus nerve, you know, I mean, it's just sort of.
- [35:24]
Tarana Burke
And even when I was doing it, it was unheard of. I mean, I was also doing this in Alabama, right? It was. It was. So let me just tell you the first time. I'll never forget my friend and I. I had devised this workshop, and I did this research to figure out all of these black celebrity figures who had experienced sexual violence. And I printed out these pictures, and it was like, Oprah, Patti LaBelle, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Gabrielle Union. So I just found any story I could find where somebody had talked about that they had experienced some level of sexual violence. I printed out their pictures, and I put them up, turned them. You know, turned them around on the floor so that the kids couldn't see them. And then we would talk about very generally, you know, different kinds of, like, describe an experience and say, do you know what that is? What I discovered really early with these young people was they didn't have any language, to your point. They had never heard words. They'd never heard molestation. That's not. Maybe on TV or something like that, but they never heard any of these words. So we literally gave them language. And then we would turn the pictures over, and it was such an incredible thing to see them go, no, not Gabrielle Union. No, Oprah. No. It was something about them connecting a thing that may have happened in their life happening to these celebrities that normalized it in a way that made them feel like, oh, maybe I'm not bad or crazy or terrible, right? There was something about that connection for them once they saw themselves. It happened to me, and it happened to Oprah. And Oprah's still success. It happened to me, and it happened to Mary J. Blige. Wait, but how did she become Mary J. Blige then? Cause I feel like crap. So what happened between here and there? And then I would just fill in the blanks. Well, yes, that happened to her, but she still became a success. Because this doesn't define you. I was trying to create something for them that felt hopeful. And I know they love these celebrities so much that it made them feel hopeful. And I'm telling you. And Oprah was always the last person. She was always the last one we turned over, and they would, ooh. And I. And, oh, my God, da, da, da. And when we turned over, Oprah, they'd be like, no way. Oprah Winfrey. No. Because she's like, yeah, yeah. Larger than life.
- [38:10]
Monica Lewinsky
Of course.
- [38:11]
Tarana Burke
And we go, yeah. And it's funny because it feels like so many people know Oprah's story, but little kids don't.
- [38:16]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. But what's also interesting to me about what you're saying is they already understand that from society's perspective, there's a shame there. Right. Because this thing of the shock that this thing has happened to someone else, and they're still. They're still successful, you know, so it's interesting. I just. I was thinking about how, you know, it's just. It'll be interesting to see what these younger generations who are growing up with those. What those experiences are like. Cause my. I think about my mom will, you know, she'll sort of talk about her. She'll call them, quote, unquote, uncomfortable experiences, and she'll sort of, you know, just say a little thing. But I know she doesn't want to unpack it. She's a boomer. So that's their. You know, and then our generation has been in this very, very, I think, interesting place of. Of the language coming around and how we start to look at that. But these younger ones.
- [39:17]
Tarana Burke
These younger ones are different. It's. It's. So those kids would probably be millennials.
- [39:23]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay.
- [39:24]
Tarana Burke
The kids that I was dealing with, because I was in my 20s and they were young teenagers to middle school.
- [39:32]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [39:32]
Tarana Burke
So they would probably have grown up to be millennials.
- [39:34]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Yeah.
- [39:35]
Tarana Burke
And so I would say the next. What is the next one?
- [39:39]
Monica Lewinsky
Z. Right.
- [39:40]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [39:41]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, I know. I'm like, don't get me with the alpha and the beta and the.
- [39:44]
Tarana Burke
But these kids, the Gen Z and after, I love them. They are. They are the ones who grew up. It's so funny to me now when I meet kids who are like, oh, my God, when. Me too. I remember. Me, too. I was in the seventh grade or who say stuff like, I did a history project about you.
- [40:02]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, no. I, you know, you were in my history class.
- [40:07]
Tarana Burke
Yeah, lovely. You know, so. But. But they grew up with the language. They grew up knowing about it. So they have way Less shame. They have way less tolerance.
- [40:19]
Monica Lewinsky
Are you able to recognize how just even your work is shifting transgenerational trauma? I mean, that, you know, the impact of that. I don't know how you hold so much. You know, you're holding so much. I mean, I have my own experience of that, of holding a certain kind of collective energy. But you are holding so much collective energy. And first of all, thank you. Thank you for doing it. No, really. Thank you for doing it. But I don't know how you. I don't know how you do it and keep your mental health.
- [40:52]
Tarana Burke
Well, who says I have that?
- [40:55]
Monica Lewinsky
I guess, like, someone says, oh, you're so normal. I'm like.
- [40:58]
Tarana Burke
But no, I think part of it is I'm not alone. Right. I get it's. It's. The thing about doing shows like this is, like, I sit here by myself, but I, you know, I run an organization. I have an amazing team. Danny. Danny Ayers, who's the CEO of Me Too, is one of the most amazing beings, like, walking the face of the earth. I could not do this work without her. So that's part of it is I don't do this alone by any stretch of the imagination.
- [41:25]
Monica Lewinsky
In your memoir In Unbound, you talked about this thing, and I was so fascinated by. Of that. You called it cover sin when you were a kid. And I was like, this is some interesting trauma math. I know my own version is. So will you talk a little about that?
- [41:44]
Tarana Burke
People love that. It's so funny. And the funny thing about it is how many people have told me their own versions of it.
- [41:49]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:50]
Tarana Burke
So when I was a kid, Catholic, I used to. To. In Catholic school, you go to confession.
- [41:57]
Monica Lewinsky
Y.
- [41:57]
Tarana Burke
And so I was. So I was being. Was going through molestation from 9 to 12 years old. I was so traumatized by what was happening, and I was so deeply shamed by what was happening that I felt like one. I felt complicit in my own abuse. So I didn't understand that what was happening to me wasn't my fault at all. I didn't get that understanding until years later. So when I would go to confess, I wanted to confess what I was doing wrong, but it felt like it was so bad that I couldn't tell God. So I would make up a cover sin to confess in confession so that I could get something that I felt was not equally bad, but bad enough to get enough, you know, back from the priest to, like, pray for so I wouldn't have to tell. So I would go in and Be like I said all of these curse words. I didn't do my homework. I was just. Which was weird because you're lying, right? Right. Like you're lying to the priest, but.
- [43:03]
Monica Lewinsky
You'D make a good lawyer, you know.
- [43:08]
Tarana Burke
But I felt like those sins, because I didn't actually do them, it wasn't so bad. They were just cover sin for my actual sin, which was really, really, really, really, really bad. And that the priest would give me like, he would be like, oh my gosh, you need to do like 50 Hail Marys, do the Apostles Creed 10 times, you know, like. And then I would take those. I just, I felt like I just needed the priest to give me direction. And so he would give me the direction for my cover sins. And then I would go back out into the, to the pews and I would do all these risks. It's the mind of a child is.
- [43:43]
Monica Lewinsky
So bizarre, but also the gymnastics that we have to do with trauma as a kid. And I think that idea of not really understanding, not understanding what's happened at all, we don't have a whole lot of learned structures for how to put them into place. Like good and bad. Good and bad is there. So it's really easy. And it's so much easier to blame yourself 100%.
- [44:10]
Tarana Burke
You're not getting it alone.
- [44:12]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [44:12]
Tarana Burke
So you have just your like 11 year old brain.
- [44:16]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [44:16]
Tarana Burke
That says. And so I was given all of this information by my priest and you know, and again in the church and I was in the church and in the school and so our, our pastor, Father ODonnell, would come around every week with the good news. You know, every Friday we'd get the good news and he'd come around and he'd talk about your sins. And this is something, what I'm talking about in my new book about grace and mercy. And I never thought that I would, I qualify for God's grace. Right. Because it was unmerited. But I always prayed for God's mercy because God's mercy was. It's so messed up. It's just the mental gymnastics. God's mercy was for those who were bad. But if you prayed hard enough, God would grant you mercy. And so every week I would pray for God's mercy because I was such a bad kid. And really I was, I was, I mean, I probably did little things, but I was, I tried to be as good as possible. I got all good grades, I did, I ran track and I, you know, I played my sports and I did, I was always on the honor Roll. I did. I tried to do everything else right because this part of my life was so bad. And I thought God is going to kill me one day because this is just if I keep doing all this bad stuff, you know? And so part of what the book is about is examining grace and how I just feel like grace is utilitarian in so many ways and we just don't use it. Right. And the people who need grace the most often get it the least and who are asked to give it the most. Right.
- [46:04]
Monica Lewinsky
Wow. Yeah, that's a really interesting point.
- [46:08]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. But you think about how grace is disseminated, even if not in the Christian sense. Because I'm not writing the book from a Christian standpoint. It's talking about the idea of grace, whether it's secular or non secular. The people who are asked to give grace the most, usually the people who need it more. And I think especially when we talk about movements and liberation, even in this time period. Right. It's just I don't believe that we can have a politic of liberation without a politic of grace. And I use the word politic deliberately because I think we throw around words like hope and love and even grace as like throwaway words. Right. But I think they are drivers in our life. But yeah, I'm just trying to examine the utility of grace.
- [46:58]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [46:58]
Tarana Burke
And I think we have to have a different type of grace in order to get us through. I think in this moment in the world, we need new rules anyway. A lot of the things that have gotten us through up until now, I don't think they're gonna work.
- [47:14]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [47:15]
Tarana Burke
We either need.
- [47:15]
Monica Lewinsky
What an interesting way to put it that we need new rules.
- [47:19]
Tarana Burke
Oh, yeah.
- [47:20]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [47:20]
Tarana Burke
Oh yeah.
- [47:21]
Monica Lewinsky
How. How the hell are we gonna come up with rules that we agree on?
- [47:27]
Tarana Burke
Well, I don't know, but I think that, you know, people have. There's lots of smart people out here. We have new ideas. And I think as this, this is no better time than now for us to start generating new ideas. And so this is my offering. And I think we need lots of new offerings so that people can start thinking about it. At the very least, we need to start talking about what new things we need. And people will figure out what works for them and start building from there. But we're reaching for old stuff. When there's a new world happening and it's just not. There's a disconnect that feels. It feels scary for me, you know, having children, having, you know, people who I care about. I want the world to Be here.
- [48:13]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. I have a niece and nephew, so I don't have kids, but I have a niece and nephew that I'm like.
- [48:18]
Tarana Burke
Grace is always gonna be necessary. Love is always gonna be necessary. But how are we gonna use it moving forward? Right. I'm not saying it's gonna be something that replaces love or grace or hope, but how are we gonna use it in moving forward? There's gonna be useful in the way the world is shaping up now. So that's what I'm trying to look at in this book, and I think we have to revolutionize it.
- [48:41]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You had said in Unbound, you wrote how empathy for others, without which the work of MeToo doesn't exist, starts with that dark place of shame where we keep our stories. I mean, I think that encapsulates so much of actually what you were just saying, too, which is really.
- [49:01]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. I think empathy is another word that is both overused and under. Not understood as much, you know, but it's so necessary. It is absolutely key for us to be in community with one another. It's absolutely key to our healing because we don't heal in isolation.
- [49:21]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Tarana Burke
You know, and you. And empathy helps to stomp out shame.
- [49:27]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. I think Renee Brown said. I quoted her in my. In my TED Talk, you know. And you and Brene wrote a book together, right? Yeah, she's.
- [49:35]
Tarana Burke
Brene is like, you know, now one of my close friends, but also one of my heroes. Yeah.
- [49:41]
Monica Lewinsky
One of my heroes, too. I was.
- [49:43]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [49:43]
Monica Lewinsky
I got to know her a little bit a while back, and it was just. She's a unique kind of magic. I want to step back about and just talk a little about the silence. Because you stayed silent with your childhood trauma. And I know, for me, my own experiences, I was so silent, I don't even remember them. I know they're there. You know, it's like, enough. There's been enough proof. I don't even know what happened. I mean, luckily my trauma psychiatrist is like, you don't have to know what happened to heal from it. So I'm like, great. But I wasn't carrying that, you know, day to day heaviness of silence. And I just. So when did you start to be more open about what had happened to you?
- [50:34]
Tarana Burke
It's a weird time period where it was like, when the abuse stopped and I went into high school and I kind of like, put it out my mind and I decided I was, you know, I was into overachiever mode. Right. And I was such an Overachiever in high school. And then I, you know, slowly but surely, I kind of suppressed it, pushed it down, pushed it down. Went into college, you know, kind of continued. And I got into activism work in high school, and that just really helped me find another identity. And I think I stepped out of one thing, and I just decided, I'm this person now. Right. And all of that was a part. It was helpful, but it was also part of the suppression. I'm really clear about that now. It was a part of me moving away from that girl, leaving that girl, and becoming this other person. And the thing I know now, we all, you know, we know that it's just not possible.
- [51:34]
Monica Lewinsky
Integration. That has to happen.
- [51:36]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. And so I had disassociated and left. Thought I left this person behind, and she would creep up on me every now and again, and it would be. I would have these. I would just be, like, panicked, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know that I don't want that person. And so in my early 20s, right out of college, I started working with young people. And the more I worked with them, the more it started coming back. And so I was trying my. I mean, my level best to keep that away. And then one day, it just. And I write about this in the book when I was working with this young girl who just broke me wide open. Because in my pro. The organization I was in, we would talk about trauma all the time. People would confess. And that's funny. I would sit through all of that. Like, that's so. That's so sad. I'm so sorry that happened to y'all, you know.
- [52:30]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, wow. Never, like, not thinking. That's, like, my experience or I know what that feels like.
- [52:36]
Tarana Burke
I didn't even.
- [52:37]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, wow.
- [52:39]
Tarana Burke
As a young person, I talked about what happened to me. I listened to people talk about it. But as a young adult, when the kids started talking about it, it started affecting me. When my peers talked about it, I didn't. I would comfort them and console them. But the kids started getting to me, and this little girl got to me bad. And I call her Heaven in the book. And when Heaven broke me, because she was looking for the thing that survivors look for, which is empathy, which is some connection, and I just couldn't give it to her because I had built a wall around myself to protect me from that. It was like, no, no, I don't do that. You know, I tried to send her away. I don't do that. I had built a completely false life that Was like, I give, I serve. I don't do that. I don't connect. And so.
- [53:32]
Monica Lewinsky
Gosh, that's hard to imagine you like that.
- [53:34]
Tarana Burke
Yeah, I was very. I mean, I was 22. Right.
- [53:37]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [53:37]
Tarana Burke
I was just, like, decided I had. It's a thing that you can't do. I had decided I was gonna be this person. Right. And it just wasn't real. And I don't even know that I, like, wrote it down or made a decision, but somehow I just created this thing, and it was working in my mind, and she was tearing at the fabric of that, and I was so, so scared. And then just in an instant when it happened, I remember thinking, this is not gonna work.
- [54:04]
Monica Lewinsky
Mm.
- [54:05]
Tarana Burke
I can't have both. I so desperately wanted to work with these kids, work with these girls. I wanted to help them. I wanted to, like. Because I could also see so many of these girls were gonna be down. Going down a path that happened to me. Right. I was hearing all these stories of things that were happening to them in their communities, whatever, and I'm like, there's no way. I can't be this person that's protected and protect them. I can't do both. So I needed to figure out how to fix me so that I can be real for them, because that's all they wanted. They needed a real person, and that's where I started to. And the interesting thing is I didn't have anything. I didn't like. I wasn't like, I'm gonna go to therapy. Right? Okay.
- [54:45]
Monica Lewinsky
Did you go to therapy ever?
- [54:47]
Tarana Burke
Oh, I did. Oh, okay.
- [54:49]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay. Okay.
- [54:50]
Tarana Burke
But it took time. I didn't have. I didn't have money back then.
- [54:53]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [54:53]
Tarana Burke
I didn't have. I had insurance, maybe in my first job, but. But, like, therapy just wasn't, like, a thing. This was like, 96.
- [55:03]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [55:04]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [55:04]
Monica Lewinsky
I mean, I had a therapist for. From a young age, but, you know, I just.
- [55:09]
Tarana Burke
I think. But, you know, community, though.
- [55:11]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay.
- [55:11]
Tarana Burke
We. We don't really.
- [55:13]
Monica Lewinsky
I was wondering that.
- [55:15]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. I don't know anybody. I feel like we started talking about therapy in the 2000s.
- [55:20]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay.
- [55:20]
Tarana Burke
Maybe, you know, I had with the Brits therapist in 2010.
- [55:26]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay. Wow.
- [55:27]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. My first therapist, I had or 2009 somewhere around there.
- [55:31]
Monica Lewinsky
Okay.
- [55:32]
Tarana Burke
I did a group situation in a little earlier now, and it was like, this group of women, and I don't think. And I did a church situation before that, but my actual first legitimate therapist was 2010. So I did a church group that was a survivors of sexual violence group in my church. In Philly in 2007, maybe 2008. But yeah, I didn't. But I decided to work on it. So I went. I bought the Secret. Remember that book, the Secret?
- [56:03]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, I'm like, you're talking my language, girl. That is. I'm very. Woo woo.
- [56:09]
Tarana Burke
Now, those first years was all self help. It was all. It was Deepak Chopra and it was the Secret and it was Ayan Van Zahn. It was anything Oprah Winfrey put out. It was. It was anything I could get my hands on. There was all self help stuff. I was doing it on my own for a good chunk of years. But I was trying my best. I mean, I was trying my best to like, become different. And I don't even know. I had. I remember these women in California gave me the word survivor. I didn't call myself anything.
- [56:45]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [56:45]
Tarana Burke
I didn't say, like, I did it. I didn't have language. And I went to this, to this, to this thing out in California for digital storytelling. And it was this group of women, and they were sitting around after that thing and they were talking about. I don't know how the subject came up. And I said I was feeling proud to say victim, right? Like, I was a victim. And they were like, oh, no, sister. They were older women. We don't say victim. You are a survivor.
- [57:15]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [57:16]
Tarana Burke
And to this day, I can feel that feeling washing over me. And I was like, oh, yeah. And they were like. They held my hand, you know, and they were like, no, you survived. You survived. And I was like crying and. And they explained to me why the language survivor was important. And I was like, okay. And that had to be, I don't know, 98, 99. You know what I mean? Like, it's just. It was very incremental. And everything I got, I brought to my kids every little bit of stuff. Wow. Every little bit of thing I got, I would bring back to my kids and be like, hey, y'all, y'all are survivors. You know, it was just slowly but surely building this thing. So by the time I got the words. Me too. That was 2005, 2006, you know.
- [58:08]
Monica Lewinsky
So before you had gone into therapy.
- [58:10]
Tarana Burke
Oh, way before therapy.
- [58:11]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, interesting.
- [58:12]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. That's why I didn't want to do it. That's why I talked about in the book. I was like, God, I don't want to do.
- [58:17]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah. There was. Well, there was. There was a point, right, I think, when that viral moment was happening where you just thought, okay, yeah, bye, bye. But I mean, not bye, bye, but.
- [58:27]
Tarana Burke
In the book, when someone else talk about when I knew that me too came to me. There's a point now. And I talk about sitting in the parking lot outside of the rape crisis center because I had gone to the rape crisis center in Selma, Alabama, because I was trying to get information because I hadn't been in a classroom in the junior high school. And we had all of these girls who had experienced sexual violence. And I was like, I don't know how to help them. So I went to do what you're supposed to do, get a professional. And the guidance counselor in the school was no help. And the community people were telling me to just go to their parents. And I'm like, that's not obviously not going to help. So I was like, oh, there's a rape crisis center. Let me go by there. And I went to the rape crisis center and they told me, oh, we don't take walk ins. They were like, you have to go to the police station and fill out a police report, and then they'll refer you back. And I was just. This was like two days of trying to get. Please, somebody help me. I just want to help these kids.
- [59:29]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, my God.
- [59:29]
Tarana Burke
And that was my last at the rape crisis center. And I left the center, by the way, the rape crisis center was situated next to a halfway house. Oh, no. It was beautiful.
- [59:40]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, my gosh.
- [59:41]
Tarana Burke
So I left the rape crisis center. I went and sat in my car, and I was like, God, why are you doing this to me? I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. I don't want to do this. But I knew it was put on my heart. I was like, okay, I know what you're doing. I see what you're doing.
- [59:57]
Monica Lewinsky
Right?
- [59:58]
Tarana Burke
I'm clear. And I was crying. I was like, I don't want to do this. But it was such clarity in my. This is how things happen in my mind all the time. I'm like Moses, you know, like, this is you. And I was sitting in my car, like, God, I don't. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to mess these kids. And that was my thing. I was like, I just don't want to mess these kids up. Like, I'll do it if you give me something. Give me something. Give me a manual or something. And I said, I basically went home and I tried to write. Think about what could somebody have told me at 12 that would have changed the trajectory of my life? What could somebody have, like, you said, nobody came into a classroom and told me anything. And then that's when I started with the definitions. Wow. Nobody. When it was happening to me, it was like I thought I was complicit because I didn't know what it meant to be molested. I didn't know what that meant. I thought I had to keep going back. I thought I had to comply. You know, I didn't know. I thought I was gonna get in trouble if my mother found out or my father. You know, I didn't know anything at all. I had no information. And I was a smart girl. Right.
- [61:07]
Monica Lewinsky
Well. And as a kid, you. I totally. I remember I had a friend whose house I would spend the night at, who had some brothers and parents. And I just remember there being a period of time where I called my parents and. And I couldn't, say, come pick me up. But I kept wanting them to somehow.
- [61:32]
Tarana Burke
Hear it in my voice.
- [61:33]
Monica Lewinsky
Somehow hear it in my voice. And so I think that that's. You know, there isn't. You don't know what to do.
- [61:41]
Tarana Burke
I had that moment with my mom. I'll never forget it. Just. Why don't you see this? Why don't you hear it? Why don't you get this in my. I'm 12.
- [61:54]
Monica Lewinsky
Do you think she had her own experiences that she dissociated from?
- [62:00]
Tarana Burke
And I mean, you know, trauma is so blinding, and it is. So. I understand now completely why the inability to see. And especially, like you said, boomer generations, they had way less than we had.
- [62:18]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, yeah.
- [62:18]
Tarana Burke
You know, I think my mom has had more healing in the last decade than she. And she had her whole. All the. You know, her whole life.
- [62:25]
Monica Lewinsky
Well, especially for women. I mean, we couldn't even get a. If we were married, we couldn't get a fucking credit card with our name on it.
- [62:31]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [62:31]
Monica Lewinsky
You know, I think until the 70s, right?
- [62:33]
Tarana Burke
Yeah. Yeah. So. So thinking about trauma and healing and all the rest of that, it wasn't even. And. And again, you think about more marginalized communities. You talking about people who are just trying to survive.
- [62:44]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [62:45]
Tarana Burke
So whatever trauma happened, it's like, listen, put that away. I need to get food on the table. I need to pay this rent. Right.
- [62:51]
Monica Lewinsky
I mean, it's one of the things, I think, one of the things that I hoped, you know, would come out of the movements. And I think, as we're seeing in the pendulum, you know, whenever it moves, you always hope that it's a permanent stop, but that's not how change happens. But one of the things I think about a lot is how do we, how do we help the survivors? How do we help people? Because it is expensive to get help and it's, it's a lot of resources. It's time and money.
- [63:24]
Tarana Burke
Yeah.
- [63:25]
Monica Lewinsky
You know, it's like. And even. What are you supposed to, even if you could afford it, you're supposed to go on your, your lunch hour break and then pack your trauma back up to go to the 2:00 meeting.
- [63:35]
Tarana Burke
It's just the first thing I did when we started the organization was, was create resources that were free and available. I think that what people don't understand, talking about reclaiming what people don't understand is the journey back to yourself as a survivor is long and continuous and it is a journey of trying to get back to wholeness. But it doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen in a straight line. And, you know, we've heard all these things. What you needed on day one is not what you need on day 301. And so people need various types of resources and they, and what mostly exists out here are a lot of the resources that exist are for after, immediately after it happens. Right. So call the crisis line.
- [64:23]
Monica Lewinsky
Right.
- [64:23]
Tarana Burke
And, and go to the police or get to go to the hospital. You know, there's. Which is obviously very necessary, but they're not a ton of resources for, for, oh God, I was watching this show and it triggered this memory and now I can't go to sleep. Or, you know, the millions of us who are still living with that albatross around our neck that we have been slowly trying to pull off for 25 years or 10 years or whatever. And there need to be resources for that because that's an ongoing battle. All the time I meet survivors who are like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to get like you. I can't wait to be here. I can't wait to get where you are. And I'm like, let me tell you something.
- [65:06]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [65:06]
Tarana Burke
I'm still afraid of the dark.
- [65:08]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [65:08]
Tarana Burke
Right.
- [65:09]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [65:09]
Tarana Burke
This is a, this is an ongoing battle. In fact, I have to reclaim my life every day. It's a decision, right? And I don't make the decision every day. I'm not able to every single day. But I'm so grateful that I have more days than less days. Right. Like, I have just, I have gotten to the point where I've trained myself. I have enough information and tools that I can say, today I'm surviving.
- [65:36]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. But it's fucking exhausting.
- [65:38]
Tarana Burke
It is Exhausting. Which is, again, why we don't do it in isolation.
- [65:43]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, you can't.
- [65:44]
Tarana Burke
What I do have is I have a community that recognizes the days that I'm not. That says, you are. Right. You think you're not all right, but you're all right. I have a person who loves me, who can look at me and be like, what's going on? What do you need? What's happening? Right. I have people who understand me in such a way that they can hold me up when I really can't hold myself up. Which is why people think that you're doing so well. I'm like, maybe.
- [66:15]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah.
- [66:16]
Tarana Burke
Depends on what angle you look at. Right. And so it is just. It's really important, the story that. The narrative that survivors understand is so much more important. They need to know the reality of what it is to survive. Right. That's going way back to what you said. It's way more important than the story of what happened. It's the story of what happens after.
- [66:38]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. The aftermath.
- [66:39]
Tarana Burke
And aftermath is so much more important.
- [66:41]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Well, I feel like you answered this. Our last question that we ask everybody on the show is, what is something you're wanting to reclaim right now? And the answer could be anything. A part of your identity, an emotion, a place, a thing. I don't know if there's something beyond you reclaiming yourself every day. That's a fucking good reclaiming, Tarana. That's a good reclamation, baby.
- [67:03]
Tarana Burke
I do. I do. I try to reclaim myself every day. And it's a lot of me, you know? And sometimes it's different parts of me, you know, I have to sometimes reclaim my heart. I sometimes have to reclaim my brain. You know, I just. There's a different part of me that I have to decide every day. My whole self. But it is.
- [67:25]
Monica Lewinsky
The.
- [67:27]
Tarana Burke
Part of what happens when you experience extreme trauma is you get broken up in a particular kind of way. And the truth that people don't like to say, they're like, you're not broken. No, I'm not broken because I've worked really hard to pull myself back together, and I'm not the same. And I'm okay with not being the same, but the truth is, I have to fill in those gaps all the time, and it's okay as long as I get up and I keep going. But it is. I am very conscious that that is what my life is, and that's just the truth of it. And I think we have to be honest about that truth. It's not a bad truth. There's a lot of joy in my life. There's a lot, A lot of joy. I laugh a lot. I live a lot. I love a lot. There's a. There's so much good in my life. And there are days when I can't get out of bed. There are days when I'm extremely sad. There are days when I feel really desperate and hopeless. And I balance that out with all this other goodness. That's just what's true. And I think that's true for a lot of people.
- [68:38]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. I cannot thank you enough for doing this. Not only just for me personally, but I just know this is gonna help so many people. And you've already helped so many people. But I'm just. I'm very grateful to you.
- [68:54]
Tarana Burke
I am, too. I'm so glad we got to spend more time.
- [68:56]
Monica Lewinsky
I know, I know. You know, it's funny, that's like one of the things with this podcast is I've had a lot of friends on and I feel like, gosh, I don't. I don't get to. I don't get to sort of, you know, sit and have an hour and a half, two hour conversation where there's no one else around and we just get to go deep and connect. And I just, I feel so grateful. But I just thank you for coming and bringing all of you and I hope you don't have a vulnerability hangover, as Renee calls them. But if you do, you call me. Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky is hosted and Exactly. Executive produced by me, Monica Lewinsky production services by WTF Media Studios. Our theme song is by Ben Benjamin and our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. Our story producer is Elna Baker and our senior producer is Megan Donis for Wondery. Eliza Mills is the development producer. Our managing producer is Taylor Sniffin. Nick Ryan is our senior managing producer. Senior producer producers are Candace Manriquez Wren and Emily Feldbrake. And executive producers are Dave Easton, Erin O'Flaherty and Marshall Louie.