In Honor of All Survivors: Tarana Burke

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things

Episode: In Honor of All Survivors: Tarana Burke (Part 1)

Host: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle
Guest: Tarana Burke
Release Date: February 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is a deeply honest and hopeful conversation with Tarana Burke, activist, advocate, and founder of the MeToo movement. The discussion honors survivors of abuse—particularly in light of ongoing revelations about Jeffrey Epstein and the systemic failures that protected him—and centers on Tarana Burke’s life, her memoir Unbound, and the lived realities, challenges, and resilience of survivors, especially Black and brown girls and women. The episode explores trauma, community, faith, liberation, and the co-existence of pain and joy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction & Context (00:00–04:00)

• Solidarity with Survivors: Amanda contextualizes the conversation in light of current events involving Jeffrey Epstein, government cover-ups, and justice for survivors.
• Glennon’s Admiration: Glennon expresses profound respect for Tarana’s work:

  “There will never be anyone whose work is more important to us and to the world than the person we’re interviewing today.” (01:32) Glennon Doyle

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The Power and Pain of Rules for Girls (04:38–11:21)

• Origins of Tarana’s Advocacy: Discussion begins with Tarana’s own experience as a survivor of child sexual assault; she reflects on childhood confusion, shame, and the internalization of responsibility.
• The Role of Rules: Tarana explains how societal and parental rules create a sense of self-blame in girls when abuse occurs:

  “What adults neglect to do is they neglect to say if one of these rules are broken...it’s not your fault. If somebody breaks that rule, it's always the adult’s fault.” (09:06) Tarana Burke

• Silence and Isolation: How unspoken and spoken rules keep survivors from disclosing abuse, and create lifelong anxiety and performance.

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Community, Protection, and Double Binds (14:32–20:21)

• Family Support—And Its Costs: Tarana recounts the dilemma of having supportive family and the fear of consequences for loved ones (e.g., violence or incarceration):

  “What that did was now make me responsible for them… Now I’m responsible for the adults.” (17:08) Tarana Burke

• Double Binds in Black and Brown Communities: Amanda highlights how survivors must choose between protecting themselves and protecting their communities—a cycle that silences.
• Compounded Trauma: The conversation details how additional layers—immigration status, policing, racism—make disclosure especially fraught for Black and brown girls.

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Church, Confession, and Early Faith (20:40–29:18)

• Catholicism as Both Burden and Solace: Tarana reflects on her childhood faith—how confession was both a source of relief and contributed to shame:

  “There is something liberating about getting that—getting truth out of your body… confessing not to the world, even if it’s to God, if it’s to yourself… There is something. The part that felt liberating, I feel like I held onto that and it helped me be a truth-teller.” (32:36) Tarana Burke

• Comic Relief: The hosts and Tarana laugh about the childhood anxiety and rituals associated with confession (“I was like, in choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, and then…” (22:06)).
• Balancing Faith and Liberation: Her grandfather introduced her to Black liberation texts as a “sacrament,” which, combined with faith, became the foundation for her activism and worldview.

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Truth-telling and the Liberation of Speaking Out (32:36–35:38)

• First Self-Disclosure: Tarana movingly describes the first time she told her truth to herself in the mirror:

  “I forced myself to say it to look at myself while I said it. And I was like, oh, look at me. Whew, I’m still here.” (34:18) Tarana Burke

• The Power of Confession: The episode draws connections between confession as a faith practice and truth-telling as a liberatory act for survivors.

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Coping, Performance, and Rage (35:38–41:19)

• Adolescent Struggles: Tarana speaks about expressing pain through anger and “performance”—the lack of space for vulnerability for Black girls:

  “Girls like me didn’t get the air to cry, the air to release our shame, the air to say, ‘I don’t want to fight you.' ” (36:54) Glennon Doyle reading Tarana’s memoir

• Lack of Compassion for Black Girls:

  “Not a single adult says: what happened to your heart? …You just go from whatever small person to this now adult, mini-adult. I’m only held accountable for the consequences of things that happened to me, but not the root cause.” (39:03) Tarana Burke

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Saving Grace of Representation and Imagination (41:19–44:11)

• Maya Angelou as Confidante: Tarana recalls reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and realizing she wasn’t alone:

  “It was the first time I ever realized a little girl like her could have gone through what I went through. …She was my confidant. I no longer felt alone.” (41:19) Amanda reading Tarana’s memoir

• Witnessing Black Women's Joy and Pain: The moment of seeing Maya Angelou perform “Phenomenal Woman” sparks a pivotal question:

  “If what I saw was real, how could a body that holds that kind of pain also hold joy?” (43:42) Glennon Doyle reading Tarana’s memoir

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Embracing Both Joy and Pain (44:11–52:42)

• Coexistence of Emotions: Inspired by Maya Angelou, Tarana begins charting her own “joy journal”:

  “I felt like if I can quantify it [joy], then I don’t have to afford what they’re selling, because I got it.” (49:45) Tarana Burke

• Liberation from Commercialized Self-help: Tarana critiques self-help messages that suggest joy must be purchased or is reserved for the privileged, affirming that marginalized communities can and do experience joy—on their own terms.
• Naming Joy: Tarana urges women, especially Black women, to claim joy unapologetically, despite being told otherwise:

  “I like to be fucking loud, and it brings me joy.” (51:40) Tarana Burke

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Sexuality, Trauma, and Safe Exploration (52:42–59:13)

• Exploring Sexuality After Trauma: Tarana recalls the profound impact of a platonic but sensual friendship in college, which allowed her to explore joy and safety in her body:

  “It allowed me to understand my body as a sexual being, as a person who can feel pleasure. And that pleasure does not have to be balanced with trauma of some sort.” (58:12) Tarana Burke

• The Loss of Her First Love: Tarana shares that the friend who enabled this healthy growth has since passed away—a moving and vulnerable moment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Responsibility & the Consequences of Speaking Out:

  “Not only am I responsible for my own protection of my body, but now I’m responsible for the adults. …I want to tell, because I know something is not right here, but if I do, my dad is going to jail, and it would be my fault.” (17:07) Tarana Burke

• On the Power of Representation:

  “To my 12 year old self, Maya Angelou was just another name on my mother’s bookshelf… She was a lady who wrote a book that shared my secrets. She was my confidant. I no longer felt alone.” (41:19) Amanda reading Tarana’s memoir

• On the Double Bind for Black/Brown Survivors:

  “The protection provided by your community is what saves you, but the need to protect your community is what silences you.” (18:59) Amanda Doyle

• On Naming and Documenting Joy:

  “I wanted to document what felt like joy because I felt like if I can quantify it, then I don’t have to afford what they’re selling because I got it.” (49:45) Tarana Burke

• On Safe Sexual Exploration:

  “It was the first time in my life that I got to safely explore my sexuality with no demands on my body.” (53:18) Amanda reading Tarana’s memoir

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:16 — Introduction & episode context; aligning with survivors and truth
• 01:16–02:46 — Glennon’s emotional framing of Tarana as a hero
• 04:30–06:15 — Beginning of Tarana's story and impact of sexual assault
• 08:24–11:21 — Cultural rules, self-blame, and the harm to girls
• 14:32–20:04 — The double bind of community protection vs. personal safety
• 20:40–24:22 — Catholic confession and its complex effects
• 29:18–32:36 — The relationship between confession, faith, and truth-telling
• 34:18–35:38 — The liberating experience of self-disclosure
• 35:38–41:19 — Loneliness, performance, and coping as a teen survivor
• 41:19–44:11 — The saving grace of Maya Angelou and seeing oneself in literature
• 44:11–52:42 — Documenting and claiming joy alongside pain
• 52:42–59:13 — Safe sexuality after trauma, and honoring a lost friend

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Tone & Language

The episode is raw, emotional, compassionate, and often punctuated with laughter between the hosts and Tarana. It moves fluidly from serious analysis to storytelling, seamlessly weaving advocacy, cultural critique, and personal anecdote.

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Summary: Takeaways for Listeners

This episode offers a powerful testament to the complexity and resilience of survivors—highlighting not only the pain but also the indignity of blame, the burdens of silence, and the absolute necessity of joy and truth-telling. Tarana Burke’s story, and her voice, bring both comfort and challenge, illuminating the systems that perpetuate harm, the essential role of community and faith, and the radical act of claiming joy and agency—even, and especially, after trauma.

Transcript

[Amanda]

Hello and welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. This is Amanda. As Jeffrey Epstein's horrors, the justice system's confirmed collusion to protect him and the government's cover up of all of it are finally coming into the light. We are thinking of all survivors. With each revelation of abuse of the most vulnerable and protection of the most powerful, we are in solidarity with the immense grief, rage and trauma survivors are carrying and their deep wounds that are being reopened. So we wanted to return to this deeply honest, hopeful conversation with activist, advocate, and founder of the MeToo movement, Tarana Burke. This is part one of that conversation and the link to part two is in this episode's show Notes. There are also links in the show notes to my two part series on the Epstein files, which I published last week. The Epstein Files explained everything you need to know and as well as my conversation with Brad Edwards, the Epstein survivor's attorney who exposed the government conspiracy. Both of these conversations and this today are in honor of all survivors, their fight for justice and for peace.

[Glennon Doyle]

Okay, everybody, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. I need to tell you first off that your small, little loving team of Abby, Amanda and I have been losing our damn minds about the interview we're doing today. If we do interviews for the next 20 years, there will never be a more important interview. There will never be anyone whose work is more important to us and to the world than the person we're interviewing today. I know that with every bone in my body. And so that's why we were and are freaking out. That's why I'm wearing a very small tank top, because I'm already sweating. There's this idea that what you do is you look at the world and there's this, like, power in the middle, in the center. And then if you keep going out, you go towards the people that are the least protected and you stand with those people. Because if you stand with those people, then you by definition catch everybody else. Tarana Burke spends her life standing with black girls in America who are some of the least protected people in our culture. And she has been doing it for 25 years. And she does it with grace and power like I've never seen before. And I just think she's the most important effing person on earth. So, Tarana Burke, thank you. You can do hard things, man.

[Tarana Burke]

Listen, Glennon, I need to carry you around with me so that you can. I can have a little drum roll and then Glennon comes out. As a matter of fact, I'll just tape it because I know you're busy.

[Glennon Doyle]

That's what I can do.

[Abby]

She can be your high.

[Glennon Doyle]

I am.

[Abby]

She can be your high.

[Glennon Doyle]

Pr. I am. That's what I'm doing.

[Tarana Burke]

I love it so much. I love it.

[Glennon Doyle]

Before we get into this brilliant freaking book, Unbound, which, I mean, we all knew who read it before it came out that it was going to be a huge success, it's already broken into the top, the number three on the New York Times list. Right. Oprah's crying over it over and over and over again. People are comparing it to I know why the Caged Bird Sings, which I'm sure is just no big deal for you at all, right? Sharana?

[Abby]

Good God.

[Tarana Burke]

I'm like, guys, you know, how are you?

[Glennon Doyle]

How are you?

[Tarana Burke]

I am. Have you. I don't know if you've seen many Spike Lee movies, but he has this thing that he does, and a lot of his movies are the characters just sort of float like this. I feel like I'm floating in a Spike Lee movie. It's. It's a very strange. I think you described it when we were talking the other day about, like, almost out of body experience. Like, I'm watching it happen, but I'm also over here like, oh, that's happening. It's very strange. It's hard to explain. And then I have these moments when I look over and I see my name really big on the book, and I'm like, oh, my God, I wrote that. I was like, oh, I got it.

[Amanda]

You wrote the hell out of it.

[Tarana Burke]

Is what you did. You wrote the hell out of it.

[Abby]

Oh, my gosh.

[Glennon Doyle]

Well, let's start at the start. Let's start at the start. Beginning of Unbound.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

And parts of the beginning of your life, which is, you know, sort of where the origin of all of your work begins, which is when you were sexually assaulted as a child.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

Abby, can you read that passage for us?

[Abby]

I had no real grasp of the gravity of what was happening, but I knew it wasn't right. It made me feel nasty and dirty and wrong. Not realizing that he was wrong and that he was the culprit. I thought we were wrong. And later you say, the only clear memory I have is running through the litany of rules I had broken. Never go off without permission. Never be out of sight when you're playing outside. Never come upstairs late. Stay away from the grown up boys. Never ever let anyone touch your private parts. What I know for certain was that I was in big trouble. I hardly ever broke rules and certainly never this many, you later write. I began to put away the memory of what the boy had done to me because of what I thought it said about me. My insides strained to accommodate this new information, but they couldn't. And so they split in the place I'd tucked away from Mr. West. And my mom was the real me, the bad me. On the outside, I would pretend I was good. Now, Tarana, I need to know what was that like as a kid for you to be abused and then to believe it was your own fault?

[Tarana Burke]

I tried my best to explain it in. In those kind of details because I'm a worrier by nature, right. Like, my. I. I'm. I'm always thinking ahead. Something good happens, I'm thinking about the next thing, how what can go wrong. Right. That's been since I was a kid and. And probably stems from this. I just felt like I was constantly. It's like baggage. I was constantly living with a secret, and I was so, so, so afraid that somebody would find out. And on a small scale, would be like, you know, if you got, like, a stain on your dress or, you know, a mark on the wall or something like that that you were trying to hide. I've done that too, where I've, like, rearranged the furniture in my room so my mom couldn't see it. I got a big skid mark on the. Well. And then you're, like, afraid every time she walks past that part of the room, like, I'm gonna get caught. That's what it felt like. It felt like I was constantly in fear of being found out. And so it made me anxious and it made me learn to perform really, really early. Right. I could. And who knows where I pulled that from? But I just learned to. I showed up, and I was just everything I thought good girls would be like. And the funny thing is, it's who I was. Right? It's who I was prior to this. And I was like, I'm just gonna pretend to be that person again because apparently I must be this bad person. But I'm gonna keep pretending to be who I had already been being, if that makes sense. Right. It was just the fear of constantly being found out until, you know, I found some coping mechanisms, and even that wasn't really helpful.

[Glennon Doyle]

But what do you think? How do we. Because so much of what I read about in that part is the rules about you never doing things. The rules about girls never doing things.

[Tarana Burke]

Yep.

[Glennon Doyle]

Leads then little girls to when they get abused, thinking, oh, it's because I broke the rules. It's not because they did something wrong.

[Tarana Burke]

That is. I, you know, I used to talk to parents about this when I did these workshops that I understand, particularly communities of color. But I think all little girls have this. It's a. It's a thing that we do to look to children, particularly little girl children, that adults don't realize. You're setting the child up. We take rules seriously as kids. You know, you don't run with scissors. You don't cuss. You don't, you know, like those things are reinforced over and over and over again. And we also know as children, there are the spoken rules and then there are the unspoken rules. So you may been. You may have been told to say please and thank you and not to run with scissors, but there's something about that room that, you know, you don't go in that room when the door is closed.

[Glennon Doyle]

Right.

[Tarana Burke]

Nobody's ever said that's a rule. But there are messages, messages that we get from adults that. That kind of sit with us as children. And so I had that little litany of rules, but I also had. There were other sort of unspoken messages that you got. And what adults neglect to do is they neglect to say if one of these rules are broken, meaning those like, don't let anybody touch your private parts or don't go off with boys, older people, or anything like that. They neglect to say, but if that rule is broken, it's not your fault. If somebody breaks that rule, it's always the adult's fault. Yes, right. You get these messages that you get ingrained in your brain that says, oh, God, I did something wrong. I shouldn't. Nobody told me about who else was wrong in that equation. And so I think that's the problem with a lot of what happens to a lot of little girls, that they. Girls are just riddled with rules and protocols. And, you know, I can think of so many times when I've been told or I've seen other little girls be told who are fully dressed, go put some clothes on, because a man comes in the house, right? I could have a short set on a tank top. I'm a child, right, with a short set and a tank top on. And it's like, I'll never forget. This is a little bit of a hood story. But I'll never forget going to visit my uncle in jail when I was a preteen. I must have been like, I don't know, maybe nine or 10 or something like that. And we got to the prison, and they made my grandfather turn around. I couldn't go in. I'm a kid, a little kid. But because I had a spaghetti strap tank top on, they said it would be a distraction to the other prisoners, the other inmates. Yeah. And I like. You just get those kind of messages from different places, right? The school dress codes, you know, all of these different places. Girls get these messages that we are the guardians of our bodies and if somebody is attracted to us where it's our fault because we didn't do enough to protect ourselves.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby]

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[Glennon Doyle]

I thought about this when I was reading. You know, there are so many parts where if things had been different, you may. In a certain situation, you may have been able to share the truth. But the way things were set up for you and for so many girls, there's nowhere safe to share. You know, I was thinking about your parents, the amazing Mr. Wes who just. Oh, my God. I mean, wait till you guys read this, man. But there was one moment where you were walking down the stairs of a building and you ran into a woman that you.

[Tarana Burke]

Ms. Davis.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah, Ms. Davis. Right. Who you loved. And you had a moment where you thought about telling her something that had just happened to you with the boy. And she said, these little boys can't keep their damn hands to themselves. My baby, you got a daddy who will go to his grave to protect you. So be careful because we need Big Wes around here.

[Tarana Burke]

Oh, and that, I mean, I think that is. That was a very important part for me to include because it was important for when it happened to me because it just brought me. And I was 12 when it happened. It brought me back to being 7. And it's like, right. That's what I knew. That's what I knew. I do not want anything to happen to Mr. West. I'm just going, I'm going to leave this alone. And I think a lot, in a lot of instances, there are people who experience some sexual violence and don't tell because they don't have a support system. They think they won't be believed. That happens a lot. I actually had the opposite problem where I did have a support system. There was no question that Mr. West and my mother or my grandfather, whoever would believe me. It was just what would happen if they did. Which brings me to another thing that adults do and we don't realize it. You see this every year drives me crazy. During prom, you have the girls who get ready for prom and the father or brother or uncle with the shotgun or the, you know, or the big, you know, bullying polls and saying, you do something to this girl and I'mma kill you. Whatever. A lot of us grew up with parents who said things like, who did say, if somebody touches you, it's not your fault. But the way they said it was, if somebody touches you, I'll kill them. Something happens to you, you come to me. I will. I will bury them. I heard that over and over again. I'm a mother. I don't play about my child. I've done it. Right. What that did was now make me responsible for them.

[Amanda]

Yes. Yes.

[Tarana Burke]

Not only am I responsible for my own protection of my body, but now I'm responsible for the adults. Oh, my God. I. I want to tell. Because I know something is not right here, but if I do, my dad is going to jail, and it would be my fault for something that I did. I broke the rules and I made my father go to jail. And it just. This is me at seven. These are like, we underestimate how human children are. We are watching all these things. You're taking it in like a sponge. We are little human. Those are little human beings. And one of the things I knew because I did live in an urban community that was over policed and under resourced is that I knew what consequences were. I knew what jail was. I knew what the police did and how they operated in our community. And I know it was never good news when they came around, so I didn't want to. No, not for me. So it's just. It's just we have to be super careful about the messages that we give that we pass on to our kids, because little kids are little worry warts. They don't want mommy and daddy to be hurt. You know, just. It's just. It gets complicated for us. For us. Meaning children, speaking as my small Tirana self.

[Amanda]

And that was really your reality. I mean, it wasn't a perception of yours. It was a real responsibility that you bore. Because one of the things you do so beautifully in this book, over and over, is that you portray impeccably these kind of double binds that you're in. And I feel like so many girls and women go through this, particularly black and brown girls, and most suffocatingly black and brown survivors is that it's like the protection provided by your community is what saves you, but the need to protect your community is what silences you.

[Tarana Burke]

Exactly.

[Amanda]

At the very same time.

[Tarana Burke]

It'S a. It's a. Ooh. That's a very succinct way to put that. And. And it's exactly what it is. And you are just caught in the middle. Like, we did a PSA once for. I was just talking about this last night with this. This Honduran woman was talking about being assaulted by her uncle when she was 16 and didn't say anything because the uncle was the citizen and her family was undocumented and she did not want to involve any law enforcement in their lives. She didn't want any police to come around at all because it put their. Her whole family at risk. And the uncle, knowing that he had the privilege of being a citizen and. And could change their lives any time, held that over their head. And so a lot of times in black and brown communities, there is a whole set of other things that are being thought of. On top of the shame that you're carrying, on top of the guilt and all of the things that come almost automatically when you experience sexual violence, it's compounded.

[Glennon Doyle]

And then Toronto for that message, especially because you work so closely. You work with little black girls, but, like, for a little girl to hear that from Ms. Davis. So her message was your. The little boys can't control themselves. Your dad won't be able to control himself. You're so. You have to control your truth.

[Tarana Burke]

So you. You at this young age is all on you, you know, And. And I took that very seriously. Okay. Yeah.

[Abby]

Y.

[Tarana Burke]

But our little. Our little bodies only can hold and deal with so much. And so that starts coming out in other ways because it's got to.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah. And then we have the church, and I can't. I will never, ever stop laughing about reading about little Tarana in Catholic church because, you know, we have a different background. I was a little white girl, but I also lied in confessional over and over again or made up sins to cover up my true badness. Tarana says I would go to confession regularly to confess a cover sin. Lying, swearing, or something else. Instead of what. What I really held inside, I'd quietly ask God for forgiveness for lying, and then I'd redeem myself by doubling whatever penance the priest gave. But what I need to tell you, my favorite part is that when Little Tarana would go outside to say her double penance, she would only say the first couple. Because you have to understand that when you're a Catholic kid, other kids are watching.

[Tarana Burke]

Watching. That's right.

[Glennon Doyle]

And so if you're sitting your ass in the pew for a long time, they will know you did something really bad.

[Tarana Burke]

Ron is doing three rosaries. We know what's up. Because. Because in school, in Catholic school, most kids. I loved confession, but most kids want to just get through it. So you come out, you do your rosary, your ten Hail Marys, forefathers, whatever. In my mind, I had to do, like, 20 of them. So I'm just like, our Father who are in heaven. Everybody look at me.

[Glennon Doyle]

And then.

[Tarana Burke]

And then I'd be like, in the lunch line, like, here. I'm very full of grace. It was. It's a. It's a. It's such a bananas way to live, though. I'd be like, confession time. I liked it. But also, it was so weird because it would take me, like, two days to get through what I thought. I had to. Sometimes I'd write it. You know how you have to write in detention? I will not talk. I will not. I would just, like, write out Hail Mary's or Our Father or the Apostles Creed or whatever, because I'm just like. I gotta get through. You remember, right? I was like. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, and then. And then also, I was like. I was like one of the pips when we got to that part. I'd be like, I have sinned against you and your church. You're like, you don't even know how bad I am. Sin against you. I have sinned against you and your church. And it would be like, whoo. I get to say that out loud, right? I was. I was. I talk about in the book. I mean, Catholicism both saved and ruined me in some ways, you know? But in that moment, I do. I really wanted to talk about that because it was such a saving grace for me, because that. Speaking about what you're saying, that duality that I was holding felt like. It's like putting on a fur coat and jumping in a pool, you know?

[Amanda]

And you get.

[Tarana Burke]

It's just this heaviness that you always have. And so when I. What I had with confession in this relationship that I wanted with God was. I know you know who I am. I'm just gonna keep apologizing. Like, I know that you are merciful, and I know that you are generous with your mercy and abundant in grace. And I just. Can I please, please, please. If I keep Praying. You just keep giving it to me. That was. It was a real savior for me as a child, because if not, then I would have been buried in just the guilt and the shame with no release for it. So there's a lot of criticism about Catholicism, I know, but that. I don't know that I would have made it through that time period without it.

[Glennon Doyle]

So there was something liberating for you.

[Tarana Burke]

In such a message.

[Amanda]

Speaking of Catholicism, it was while you were preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation, your grandfather prioritized passing down to you the, you know, racial theory and black liberation texts, which seemed to me, as I was reading your story, a sacred sacrament sort of in your life as.

[Tarana Burke]

Well, of its own.

[Amanda]

Yes, exactly. It allowed you. It equipped you that even. You say, even when you were a young girl, you could smell white supremacy from a mile away because of that framework that you had that you had been reading and internalizing. How vital was having that consciousness that was so subversive to everything that you were being told, you know, in all the schools and all around you, to the person that you'd become and the work that you would do.

[Tarana Burke]

I think it was. It was critical, and I. I think both of those things were critical. I'm so glad that I was grounded in my faith really, really early. I really, really enjoyed being Catholic. Like, I did. I just. All the things I did. My. You know, I was baptized at, like, seven or eight months, but I did my communion and my confirmation, and I did all the things. But I'm also really glad that my grandfather came in at the point that he did because. Because of how much I enjoyed being Catholic and because of the release that I got from confession and that kind of thing, I probably was very close to slipping into being obsessive, probably. Right. And so what. What bringing this consciousness did was help me balance some of that out and see a broader view of the world. So it's not. I don't. This is not the only thing that's liberating. It began to feel liberating to me to understand who I was in the world and, like, have something else to think about besides my sins.

[Glennon Doyle]

Right.

[Tarana Burke]

Because the flip side of the liberation is that Catholicism makes you think about your sins all the time. Right? Just all the time. Sin, sin, sinny, sin, sinner. And you just, you know, and everything's a mistake. I would. I would like. I don't know if y' all do this, but you know how you walk in front of a church, you're supposed to make the sign of the Cross. I have ran back a block. Oh, okay.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yes, we do. Yes.

[Tarana Burke]

You'll be like, wait, did I?

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah.

[Tarana Burke]

And so now I'm in front of the church just doing this, like. I mean, just stuff like that.

[Glennon Doyle]

I know. And then you're like, wait, is this faith or superstition? Because it feels a lot like superstition.

[Tarana Burke]

I'm like, why did Jesus kick over the tables in the temple for me to run a block back to make sure that I make the sign of.

[Abby]

The cross just in case.

[Tarana Burke]

But also. Right. But also I'm gonna do it just in case.

[Abby]

That's right.

[Tarana Burke]

And so I think that I would have got. I would have gone down a rabbit hole with Catholicism if I didn't have this thing to interrupt that and balance it out. The grounding doesn't go anywhere. And it gave me being Catholic early, gave me. Set me up for my faith later. Right. I'm Christian, but I don't identify. I'm not Catholic anymore. I was able to pull the things that I needed, the good stuff, and figure that out later on. But at the point my grandfather came in and I started understanding, it helped me shift and, like, sort of focus on something else is a bigger thing in life than, like, sins I might have, you know, done and things like that. And so I'm really glad. And I. I don't. He didn't know what was going on, like, in behind closed doors, but I think he was looking at me like, this ain't. No, this is not. And I found out. This is a small tidbit I found out later. So my grandfather. I found out later. That's why I put in the book that he went to a. He was in a Catholic boy's home when he was growing up, and so he had a really sour view of Catholicism, but he believed in letting his children choose their own path. And my mother chose to be Catholic, much to his chagrin. And then I did. So I guess he was like, I'm about to put it. I have to intervene somewhere.

[Glennon Doyle]

Well, thank God he did, though, Tarana, because you just kind of. You took what you wanted from the Catholic, but his framework became part of your faith too. Right? I mean, I feel like your faith is so social justice. So, you know, it's. It was. It's like those two got smushed together, and you left behind what you didn't want of Catholicism, and it became who you are now. It's so beautiful.

[Amanda]

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[Abby]

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[Tarana Burke]

Somebody said this to me, but it made so much sense. And out now I'm. I'm sorry if that person's listening, that I'm not crediting you, but somebody said something to me about do I think that my love of confession. Do I ever think about how my love of confession ties to the movement and the work and how that is sort of grounded in confession to some degree. And I said, oh, that's really profound. I had not thought of it, but I've been thinking about it ever since they said it. And it does make sense that. That. That nugget stayed. There is something liberating about getting that. Getting truth out of your body. Right. Getting it out of your system and confessing not to the world, even. Even if it's to God, if it's to yourself, it's. If it's in. I tell people. If it's in your journal, whatever. There is something. The part that felt liberating. I also feel like I held on to that and it helped me be a truth teller. Like, I really do enjoy telling the truth. I just enjoy it. It's really, really feels good, you know?

[Glennon Doyle]

But when you say that, it reminds me of the first time you sat in front of the mirror and you said it was after heaven. Right. And you said, I was raped. They molested me. I didn't want it. I didn't like it. I'm sorry. Confessional there. And then you said it was out of my body for the first time and I was still alive. I was still standing with my truth on the outside.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah. I mean, I think we all know this feeling of the. A thing that we're holding regard. It could be anything. But the thing that we're holding that if you articulate it, it makes it true. And we're more scared of that thing being true out in the world. And I had. That thing had balled up inside of my body. And, you know, I talk about it being in the pit of my stomach for so long that I was just scared, like, it would come up. And I could think it, but I couldn't say it, like, out loud. And I think some part of me thought if I say this out loud, I'll die. Right? It's over. I'm just. This is it. Or I don't. I don't know, just whatever dramatic thing might happen. And I forced myself to Say it to look at myself while I said it. And I was like, oh, look at me. Whew, I'm still here. And then, you know, I have that other thing that happens later on in the book, which Oprah calls. You had a dark night of the soul.

[Amanda]

Yes.

[Tarana Burke]

Yes.

[Glennon Doyle]

That's awesome. Yes.

[Tarana Burke]

Did y' all say the same thing?

[Glennon Doyle]

Absolutely.

[Tarana Burke]

I had to go look. I've heard that term so many times in my, like throughout life, but I had to actually go look it up when she said it. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, okay. That sings dead on.

[Glennon Doyle]

It's incredible. What an incredible part of the book. I loved the way you talked about yourself as a teenager so much, Sharana. I thought the parts where you really talked about what it was like to be a teenage girl, kind of protecting your hurt with this ferocity. Right. Was so amazing. And those are some of my favorite parts. But after sort of a few incredible passages about your teenage years and about some violence and fighting that happened, you say it's the trap in which so many black girls find themselves either performing our pain or performing through it. I couldn't quite. This is a little bit later. I couldn't quite grasp the shame, grief, vulnerability and emotional pain. I didn't understand anxiety. So I had no way to explain the fluttering in my chest and rock hard feeling in my stomach that paralyzed me at any given moment. I didn't understand why I had to keep these things to myself. I just knew I had to, I had to keep performing. And there was no heir for me. A dark skinned black girl who had been damaged and used. There was no heir for me to be anything but what they said I was. Girls like me didn't get the air to cry, the air to release our shame, the air to say, I don't want to fight you. I don't even know why I'm so mad at you, except for that you look like me and who the fuck am I? We didn't get the heir to be reborn and handled warmly.

[Tarana Burke]

So that last line is from Ntozake Shange book for colored girls. And I wanted to kind of bring it full circle because I'm talking about that line I used to say there was no heir.

[Glennon Doyle]

And.

[Tarana Burke]

That'S the best way I can think about when I would see other people, when I would see other girls who were prettier than me or more popular or just what from. From my estimation, seem free. It just felt like the air was rare for them. Right? It was just they had. They like they breathed a different Air. They lived a different life, and girls like me just didn't have it. We couldn't. And it also spoke to, like, this feeling. I get it. I'm having it. Not having it now, but recalling it now. Like, this feeling of just not being able to have a full breath before. There was always something, whether it was a thought or an action or a thing, that was just always something. And it didn't allow you to breathe in and breathe out and just, like, live and anger and rage felt really, really good. After performing Good Girl for so long, it just felt like, fuck it, you know, Like, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna. I don't know what to do next. And I think this is how we cycle through coping mechanisms, right? I tried the good girl thing. It's not. It's not helping. I still feel this way. Let me try this other thing, you know, And. And I was fortunate because that could have been. I tried drugs, you know, to cope and. Or I tried alcohol and Let me try drugs now. Let me try, you know, like, there's so. People don't realize what brings people to those coping mechanisms. We just look at the end result. So, oh, that's an alcoholic. That's a drug addict. That's a bad girl. So I'm a teenager who will bite your head off, who will fight anybody who steps to me and says anything crazy, but not a single adult says, what happened to your heart? How did you get here? I'm still a child, but we don't get seen as children. You just go from whatever small person to this now adult, many adult. And I'm only held accountable for the consequences of the things that happened to me, but not the root cause of them. Nobody is digging into the root cause. And so you get what you get. And I was giving out. I was dishing it out as quick, early and often.

[Amanda]

For years, you thought that the assault on you wasn't something that someone did to you or even. Even something that happened to anyone else. And then one day, you snuck Maya Angelou's anoa. The caged bird sings from your mother's collection. And you wrote. When I read about what happened to a young Maya Angelou, I was able to read her as innocent in a way I didn't allow for myself. Maya was decent and nice, and it seemed egregious that God would have allowed something so horrible to happen to her. It was the first time I ever realized a little girl like her could have gone through what I went through. I finished the book and Kept what was now in my mind, our secret. To my 12 year old self, Maya Angelou was just another name on my mother's bookshelf. She wasn't Dr. Maya Angelou, the esteemed poet, author, activist, and all around legend. She was a lady who wrote a book that shared my secrets. She was my confidant. I no longer felt alone.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah, that was. It's like having a. What do they call those? Like your ghost pal or your secret pal? What do kids call that? Imaginary friend.

[Abby]

Imaginary friend.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah, it's like having that and I don't know. I don't know that I didn't think it only happened to just the two of us, but I was just. I didn't know anybody in real life. Nobody ever talked about it or said anything like that until I was much older. So it was like, oh my God, this is. But it was the feeling that she talked about, right? It's always the. It's not the details ever. It's the feeling like it was her fault and not wanting to speak words because what happened to him now was her fault. And all of those things kind of sat with me and I was like, this is amazing. I have a friend, even though my friend is in the book. But I mean, I thought, you know, I read Judy Blume, you know, and Tiger Eyes and I thought those were my friends too. So I was just that kind of kid.

[Glennon Doyle]

Same, same Tarana.

[Amanda]

And then she became not so imaginary friend when you first, when you first heard her. Heard her.

[Glennon Doyle]

But that was so amazing, Tarana, because I just. That part just. I mean, just knowing you, right, because you have this heartbreak and pain that started your work in your life and then you have this ferocious joy that is why the whole world falls in love with you. And so to see you experience Maya Angelou first as somebody who was hurt like you, and then to read in your book later, you experiencing her in high school, right? Your high school honors English class.

[Tarana Burke]

Yes.

[Glennon Doyle]

Where your white man teacher put on Dr. Maya Angelou reading Phenomenal woman performing it. And you had the most beautiful experience where you saw her power and her joy. And you say, as I sat tuning out my teacher, my mind returned to what I had just seen. How had a woman who had been through what I'd been through been able to claim such confidence and pride while I was finding newfound comfort and anger? She was smiling while I was lashing out, she was laughing and reciting beautiful poetry. And then later you say, more than anything, I contemplated the question that eventually became central to my healing if what I saw was real, how could a body that holds that kind of pain also hold joy? Can you talk to us about what that meant to see her in all her glory, knowing that she was your friend who experienced what you experienced?

[Tarana Burke]

It was. Oh, it was life changing, but it was also like, wait a minute, you know. You know how sometimes you have, like, little kid notions in your mind and then you find out the adult, real thing? And it was. It was that moment of like, I thought, okay, I thought that. I thought. I thought that what we were doing, Maya Angelou and I, we were faking it until we make it, essentially. I didn't have that terminology, but it was like, you sure she writes books. I'd never seen her. I never, like, saw her on television, anything. I'd only read her books. So in my mind, it's just like, I don't know what I thought in my mind, but I didn't think that. And when I saw. And you know, she had this eloquent way that she spoke and. And was so confident, and it all felt real. And I was like, oh, my God, I am not real. I am not a real person. I am. I am a shell of a person. Like, I. Everything I'm doing is performance. I'm not. I don't even know. I mean, this. I don't know that I had this deep of a thought like this at 15, but essentially, I am just piecing together what I can to live. I'm just trying to survive, right? I'm just trying to get through these days and hope nobody finds out who I am. But she's like, ha, ha ha, ha.

[Amanda]

Ha, ha, ha ha.

[Tarana Burke]

Look at all of this joy. My name is Maya Angela. I was just like, yo, how do you do that? And what I know what I knew for myself, this person, this body that I had was constantly. Felt like it was in pain. When I calmed down, when I wasn't running track or in honest bowl or doing something to impress some people, in my quiet time, I felt pain all the time. I felt sadness. A really, really deep sadness. And so I was searching for that sadness in her face. I was searching for it in her voice, in her something. I thought, I'll be able to see it. And I just couldn't. And I'm like, okay, does the sadness go away? Does the pain go away? Does the joy and pain. I have the journal at the top. I just wrote joy, pain, question, like, this is, how does this work? But what it did, because. And I thank God for curiosity, because I was Also just very curious, honestly. Like, there was the I want to feel better thing, but it was also like, how does this work? Let me. Maybe I've been thinking about this wrong, and I just became very curious about the coexistence of those two things. And I would. Do. I mean, do I write about the joy journal in my book? I saw crazy that I don't even remember. I don't write about it.

[Glennon Doyle]

So.

[Tarana Burke]

So I'm the person who kept a joy journal at some point in my life when I was in my early 20s, because I wanted to document what joy looked like in my life. Like, I thought it was unfair. This is the part of me that's, like, wired. Like I said, wired to respond to injustice. I was on this quest, right? This was around the time of Deepak Chopra and What's the other guy's name? Eckhart Tolle.

[Glennon Doyle]

Oh, yeah.

[Tarana Burke]

Iyanla Vanzan. And all of the help. Remember the help? Not the help. The help.

[Glennon Doyle]

You're trying to manifest shit.

[Amanda]

Right?

[Glennon Doyle]

Right. Yeah, right.

[Tarana Burke]

I was like, okay. I don't know. I didn't have quite the language yet. But what I did have was a job that didn't pay me shit and a child to take care of by myself. And the secret cost, like, $119. I will never forget watching that whole infomercial.

[Glennon Doyle]

Oh, Jesus.

[Tarana Burke]

And getting to the end and being like, seven CDs for 100. I can't afford that.

[Glennon Doyle]

That was the secret.

[Amanda]

That was secret.

[Tarana Burke]

Exactly. You know, you can buy the book. You know, I just. Everything. Every message that I got during that time, and I'm not trying to disparage any of those people or things, but for me, as a single woman, single mother, every message I got said, joy is right out there somewhere. If you can just get your coins together to put. You know, to get it. It's just right beyond your reach. It was always outside of you. And I was like, so what about people who can't afford it? We just don't. We just don't get joy. We. I was like, that can't be right. There's no way that God set us up in a world that joy is for the rich or the privilege. I just don't believe it ran up against what I believe. Speaking what you were saying, Amanda, about how those things mesh together. It ran up against everything I believed about who we are and what we deserved and how power and privilege work. I bought a book from the Dollar store. Go to the goddamn Dollar Store and buy a journal. Go in your house. And dust off one of them. 17,000 journals that you got that you fall in love with because it's pretty. And then you don't use.

[Abby]

And you fill out the first page.

[Glennon Doyle]

I have eight.

[Tarana Burke]

You fill out the first page, Right?

[Glennon Doyle]

First page.

[Tarana Burke]

Rip out that first page, or fold it and fold it to the back and write joy at the top. And you got a joy journal. But my point is saying that is that I am the person who wrote down. I wanted to document what felt like joy because I felt like if I can quantify it, then I don't have to afford what they're selling because I got it.

[Glennon Doyle]

That's right.

[Tarana Burke]

And so the book had things in it like, I've told this story before, but I. I can't believe I didn't put this in a book. I just asked, whatever, next book. But. But I used to pick up Kaya from daycare. And, you know, I wear my bracelets. Everybody dislike my sign. I've always wanted. My mother gave them to me. And so Kaya would hear my bracelets as soon as I hit the door in the daycare. And Kaia, every single day when I got off of work and I get kya, you would hear Kya say, my mommy's here. And then you hear, you know, running down a thing. And I'd be waiting at the end of the hallway and Kai would. And I would write that down because that was my joy. That was the most joyous part of the day I felt. Even if it was for 10 minutes, I felt so good. I felt nothing bad, right? It was stuff like I would get on the phone with my girls and I would laugh until my stomach hurts and I had tears coming out my eyes. And you can't pay for that. It didn't stop me from being triggered. It didn't stop me from feeling sad, but it existed in the same body. And once I started to document that and I was like, okay, you can't sell me shit no more. I'm not buying any. I might buy your book and read it, but I'm not buying them CDs. I'm not taking. Saving up my money to go. And I'm not doing that. I can't afford to. And it almost became like a part of my ministry to talk to my personal sort of ministry, not like religious to spread that as a. As a word, like, yo, we have joy, we have to name it. The problem is that other people tell us what we find. Joyous is not. Doesn't qualify, right? So a bunch of black girls Sitting together, laughing. Or white girls, even if you. I'm sure you all, because I can tell from your personalities, have had people tell you, y' all are too loud.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yes.

[Tarana Burke]

You laugh too loud. Y' all are too silly. You know, women are always too something. Get a group of. A group of women together, laughing, cackling. Somebody's like, oh, my God. It's so unladylike. You know, you get a group of black girls together, talking. Why are you all so loud? It's so ghetto. I like to be fucking loud. And it brings me joy.

[Abby]

Yes. Yes.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Right?

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah.

[Tarana Burke]

I'm sorry, I'm getting off topic, but.

[Glennon Doyle]

That in your journal, none of that is off topic. No, that's the most on topic thing. It's the most on topic thing. The fact that you can have both of those exist in your body at the same time, and you don't have to be all pain and you don't have to be all joy all the time.

[Tarana Burke]

No.

[Amanda]

Either.

[Tarana Burke]

No, that's not possible. No, it's not even possible. You know, it's just. It's just. Yeah, but. But it started for me with that Maya Angelou clip and. And watching it and that question, and I. It took me a long time to get to, like, to answer that question, but it planted a seed of like, huh, something else is possible.

[Glennon Doyle]

And then you went off to college, and Sister is dying to talk to you about this one part that you wrote, this one sentence that you wrote, which maybe we've talked about for 13 hours. There's no way you thought about this sentence as much as we've thought about this sentence.

[Tarana Burke]

Well, it goes.

[Amanda]

It goes back to what you were just talking about of in the same body. Okay, so this is.

[Tarana Burke]

I have to.

[Amanda]

To me, it might just seem like a, you know, sexy as hell little interlude, but to me, it blew my mind. Okay, so you're talking about you and Rob. They never.

[Tarana Burke]

Ugh.

[Amanda]

Oh, is right. Oh. They never played the music for long. Maybe two songs. But whenever they did, we found each other and let our. Whatever pent up sexual energy we were both trying to ignore. We danced like no one else was there. Like it was a mating ritual. And we had fire in our bellies. I loved every minute of it. It was the first time in my life that I got to safely explore my sexuality with no demands on my body. Can you talk about this? Because I feel like it's the. It's another double bind that you talk about, which is that for so many survivors, it's the very same Bodies that are the portals through which we access this pleasure and sexuality are the same portals that were poisoned by our assaulters with shame and hypervigilance. And it's like being told to run and have fun on a playground full of landmines. Like, how. How does that.

[Glennon Doyle]

How to explore safely in the midst of trauma. Like, when do women ever get to do that? Just.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

How.

[Tarana Burke]

Let me say this first. This part, first of all, you're the first person in the thousands of interviews I've done to bring up this part and to bring up Rob, whose name is actually code as I had to change it in the book. I'm bringing him up because he just recently passed away. Oh, I know. And it's. And it. It is. I'm still really raw behind it because he was one of my first loves, and we remained friends up until his death. He died in June. On June 1st. And he will never know. I wanted him to read this, right? I really wanted. I wish I had given him. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But I really wanted him to read this because I wanted him to know how important that relationship had been to me and had remained for so long. He and I, you know, later on, we dated. And actually, for real dated, but he was my friend. He was so respectful. And everything I knew about relationships, including the boyfriend that I had at the time, there was always pressure and it was always tenuous, right? Either there was the forced situation, which obviously was terrible. But even after that. And I think this also happens to a lot of survivors is what you're talking about. You have. You have a. Some. You experience some kind of sexual assault in college, in high school, and, you know, before then in elementary school. And then you're trying to live your life the way people say you're supposed to live. You're supposed to get a boyfriend, you're supposed to date, you're supposed to do whatever. And there's the regular world of, like, maybe not rapists, but harassers and. And people who. Who think it's okay to touch you without consent or these really, like, situations that we get entangled in where consent is on a sliding scale, it seems like. And I had all of these other things that had happened, too. It was so important to me, and I think people listening will understand this. I never. I developed like a normal child, right? I had went through puberty, which meant I had the hormones, which meant I felt sexual. And I wanted to explore. I could not explore in the way that everybody else could. I actually thought. And this was Part of my downfall, I thought the first person I have sex with is who I got to be with for the rest of my life. This is it. And it happened to be my daughter's father. So that's it. I'm. I'm stuck with him. If he turns out to be a bad guy, I just have to put up with it because you put out, you know, so that's some of the Catholic stuff, but it's also some of the. Like, this is the only way you can be a good girl. You're already bad enough, right? Don't be out here now you're going to be a whore. I mean, that's just really. You know, do you want God to literally come down himself and just tap you on the shoulder? Right? And so I thought that's the way to deal with it. And then I met him. And I'm Caribbean. We love. I love reggae. I love to move my body. I love to, you know, to be that way. And I would do it at home in my room. You know, I'd be practicing and doing all of that, but with an actual boy. I couldn't go to the places that he allowed me to go to. Those places. We'd finish dancing and that would be it. And it was. It was just like. And then there was a part of me that was kind of like, don't I owe you something? You know, it's the other message that girls are given and what all the trauma does to you as well. I'd be like, I thought you were supposed to know. You know, I had to cycle through that. We went through our whole freshman year. I mean, I had a boyfriend at home, even though he was cheating on me and having a baby by somebody else. But I was trying to be loyal. And, yeah, we went through our whole freshman year. We did not kiss, we did not date. We didn't touch outside of the way that we danced on that dance floor. And it allowed me to understand my body as a sexual being, as a person who can feel pleasure. And that pleasure does not have to be balanced with trauma of some sort. And it was just another form of liberation. It was so beautiful. And that's how he was. Even when we dated. He was super sensitive to the things that had happened and super sensitive to my needs in those ways. He's a wonderful person. It didn't work out that we would be together, but he was still a wonderful person.

[Glennon Doyle]

I'm sorry that you lost him.

[Abby]

May he rest.

[Tarana Burke]

Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

Okay, listeners, this is going to be sad. Okay? We're gonna have to pause this beautiful conversation right there. So in the meantime, pick up Tarana's book, Unbound. It's out now, and the book needs to be in your hands and on your shelves. Bye, everybody. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us. We can do hard things on Instagram, and we Can Do Hard things show on TikTok.