WEBVTT - Book tour bonus: Katie shares the one conversation she can’t stop thinking about 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.880 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this is next question. 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.400 I am super excited to share some of the special 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.840 moments from my book tour with you in an upcoming episode, 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.520 But first you all have to listen to this interview 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:19.000 I did with Toronto Burke. She is really amazing and 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.840 graciously agreed to join me on my l A tour 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.760 stop on November twelve. Since I can't stop thinking about 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.120 this interview, I figured that was reason enough to share 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.640 it in full. So I hope you all will appreciate 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.840 listening to this wonderful, wise woman as much as I did. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.480 You know, this global movement known as Me Too would 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.880 not have happened without the leadership of my first guest Tonight. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.400 For more than twenty five years, activists and advocate Toronto 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.200 Burke has worked at the intersection of sexual violence and 0:00:54.320 --> 0:01:01.680 racial justice. So here are some questions. We're going to 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:06.039 talk about, what has this movement achieved, where are we 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.800 now and how did it all really begin? It is 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.360 such an honor to welcome to the stage Toronto Burke. 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:29.600 We'll do the ericss Toronta. Look at Toronto. Does she 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.600 look fabulous? Well, I mean I've had to dress up 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.400 for this occasion. Well you look awesome and thank you 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.960 so much for spending some time with us tonight. You know, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.679 you wrote your own own memoir that came out in 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.200 September called Unbound, which is a beautiful cover by the way, Toronto. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.160 And I know the book you the book you wrote 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.480 ended up being a very different book than you set 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.040 out to write. So what did you want to write 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.120 and what did it become? Well? I always thought that Well, 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:07.400 first of all, um, so I thought I was going 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.720 to write a book for survivors about what survival looked like. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.360 I mean, I've seen so many misconceptions about that in 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.600 and of itself that I wanted to write about survival stories. Um. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.160 And you know, part of it was personal, and part 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.840 of it was the people around like no, no, no, no, no, 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.040 you have to write a memoir. Um. It quickly became 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.440 a memoir because the distortion that I saw was partly 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.400 because people didn't really understand the origins of me too. 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.880 So hearing people say things like oh, it's a witch hunt. Oh, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.760 it's just trying to take down powerful men. Oh it 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.560 was like you said, People would take selfies and say 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.960 one to three me too, Like No, that's actually not okay. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.120 It's like a thing that you say when you've been 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.720 through a thing. UM So, I just knew people really 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.160 didn't understand it, and I could not explain it in 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.280 like six minutes sound bites on an evening, is right. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.359 I needed time to unpack the story and get into 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.120 the nooks and crannies of it and unpacked the story 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.640 of your life, which is why it's such an important 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:15.080 and powerful memoir because of your personal experiences, both as 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:20.560 a little girl and later as a young woman in Solma, Alabama. 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.680 Can you explain to us what happened in those two events? 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.520 I think kind of diverged, didn't they in a way? 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.880 In a way, yeah, I mean I was I'm gonna 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.920 survive of child sexual abuse that started it seven years old, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.360 and in my experience, we and I think people actually 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:42.080 don't acknowledge this enough that in October when me Too enviral, 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.320 it wasn't just people talking about being harassed at work 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.400 or you know, having a Weinstein kind of experience. It 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.280 was a lot of people who had experienced sexual assault 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.960 on college campuses or child sexual abuse and um and 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.440 the thing about sexual violence is that regardless of the 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.840 circumstance is that got you there. The thing that it 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.200 leaves you with is what connects us. It's that common 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.080 trauma that we have that we're trying to overcome. UM. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.800 And so that's what sort of set me on it. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.280 I was always into work around social justice, right, that's 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.720 my whole life. And I was actually molded by people 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.920 who are veterans of the civil rights movement, black power movement, 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.080 like labor movements, things of that nature from the six 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.960 season seventies, and while I was living in Selma, Alabama, 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.039 which is everybody knows for its historic story because you 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:33.800 grew up in New York. I grew up in New 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.920 York and from the Bronx and then you and then 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.280 and then you went to college in Alabama and then 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.279 you started doing work in Selma. Yes, and I've actually 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.640 started in high school because I was in a program. 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.200 It was based in Selma, and we had these larger 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.120 than life figures who would come and talk to us, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.159 and one of them was um Reverend James Bevil, who 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.200 a lot of people don't know his name, but you 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.880 know his work if you know the Children's March during 0:04:59.920 --> 0:05:02.400 the Um or the sum of the Montgomery match all 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:04.440 of those things. He was like the chief lieutenant and 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.320 architect of a lot of the biggest moments of the 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.240 civil rights movement and one of Dr King's right hand 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.640 you know. Confidence he also was a serial pedophile and 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:22.640 child molester um and he showed up in Selma, you know, 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.920 with his sort of band of misfits, and I threw 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.400 a series of different events which I account in my book. 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.560 Uh found out that he was a pedophile, and it 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.720 was it was two things that kind of was jarring, 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:41.240 the fact that he was this person and the fact 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.880 that the community was willing to kind of overlook it. Right, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.520 Did you feel portrayed by the civil rights movement because 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.080 of that? In a way, not by the movement, because 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.920 I don't define the movement by any singular person, and 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.920 the movement we're still in the movement, right, and so 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.800 I don't think that any one person defines it. And 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.320 so I don't you know, I don't take away from 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.600 I don't even take away from his actual accomplishments. But 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.600 I can separate his accomplishments from who he was, and 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.159 so we don't we can benefit from his accomplishments without 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.359 putting him on a pedestal. Right, you still have to 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.880 be accountable for the things that you did. And what 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.880 happens is that people were so enamored by who he 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.040 was and who he stood next to, that they were 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.800 willing to overlook the harm that he was causing current day. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.600 And I think that's what happens in a lot of cases. Right. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.800 They weighed the benefits and the and and and who 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.279 the people are, and they said, well, we need this 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.640 more than we need to protect children, or we need 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.080 to protect women or protect whoever um. And I just 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.159 wouldn't do it because those same people who introduced me 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.080 to him also said that I have a duty to 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.680 my community. That's what they told me, That's what they 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.320 had been training me for. And I looked around in 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.720 this community and I saw all of these children and 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.000 young people and other people who were experiencing sexual violence, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.200 and there was no response to it. And what those 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.920 same people told me is that community problems deserve a 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.800 community response, and me too was a part of that response. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:27.240 We'll be right back. You started holding these workshops for 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.360 young girls of color, and you would talk about victims 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:36.680 of sexual violence, and you would give details about their experiences, 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.000 and then you would reveal these for very famous women 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.960 tell us about that. Well. I was working in with 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.200 young girls, and pop culture has a hold on our children, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.680 as we know, and I was trying to figure out 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.040 a way to have to make this conversation digestible for them, 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.440 for them to understand. And so you know, when Gabrielle Union, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.480 for instance, was a person who spoke openly about having 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.040 been sexual assaulted, when I just Oprah Winfrey, you know, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.160 or Fantasia or Maya Angelo, you know that there were 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.600 all these stories that I knew. The kids didn't know. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.680 They only saw the after effects. And what I wanted 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.600 them to know was there's life after right. You are 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.200 not the sum total of what happened to you. And 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.080 so I would tell them the story of these women 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.280 without giving their names, and then when I gave the name, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.840 they go, oh, no, that's impossible, because they thought, how 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.800 could something that happened to me happened to some somebody 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:34.959 like Oprah and how could they go on to be 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.160 successful adults. And so that's what I wanted to really 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.040 capture for them, that there is triumph after the trauma 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.400 and it worked, and how did it impact your own 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.880 personal story? Because you kept that so secret, uh see, 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.600 and for so long, and did their empowerment or empowering 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.760 them help you find the strengthen yourself to talk about 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.000 happened to at seven? It kind of forced me to see. 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:05.640 I thought I was going to protect myself. I thought 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:07.800 I'm gonna help. It's too late for me, you know, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.000 I'm going to help the children. Um. But I realized 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.280 very quickly that I could not authentically help without authentically 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.520 facing the things that I dealt with. And you know, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.360 there's a there's a way that we can operate in 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.439 the world where you can speak one thing, but you 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.840 don't actually live it. So I was very good at 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.160 speaking in you know, and I could speak healing into 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.160 the children and talk about it, but I couldn't face 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.000 it in myself. And when those two things came together, 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.720 I realized, oh, I can't. I'm not actually doing this 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.319 work well unless I'm working on myself. And so it 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.760 that work forced me to deal with my own, my 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.360 own sort of stuff. I know that you felt shamed, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.720 but it took you quite a while to feel anger. 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:53.480 And you ran into uh, your abuser unexpectedly at a 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.000 Father's Day event in your old neighborhood and the Bronx. 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.600 He was a police officer now and had kids. And 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.880 how did that feel seeing him for the first time? 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.280 And I guess many years right at that point, it 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.840 was probably about thirty plus years. Um, it was the 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.560 first time I had tapped into that anger. See, I 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.600 grew up feeling like, not he did a bad thing, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.040 but we did a bad thing. I felt complicit in 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.080 my own abuse because what I was told is that 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.000 good girls don't let people touch their private parts, and 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.360 good girls don't go into dark corners with grown with 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.960 grown boys, you know, Like I had heard all of 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:36.400 these rules. But it's probably about eighteen and I was seven, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.199 and so I thought i'd heard the rules, but with 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.400 no adult had ever said to me is if one 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.880 of these rules is broken, it's not your fault. So 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.080 I spent years feeling complicit, like I broke the rules. 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.720 I'm a bad girl. Um. And by the time I 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.520 saw him, I had been doing work. I had been 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.640 doing this work for a while and finally the anger came. 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.480 And and interestingly enough, the anger came because he didn't 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.120 recognize me. Right, I'm standing there, and this is a 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.280 person who has occupied so much of my brain for 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.360 thirty plus years. And he looked right through me as 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.000 if he didn't I didn't recognize me at all. And 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.960 I thought, how do you get to have a life? 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.679 How dare you get to have a life? And I 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.920 have to live with this thing that she left me, 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.199 you know, and and that I'm from the Bronx. Those 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:34.160 f bombs come fast? Did you say something to me? 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.559 I didn't, I mean came up in my spirit. And 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.120 the funny thing, my mother was there, and I was 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.559 like frozen in place because it's like several several questions 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.480 right now, like what do I do? I just didn't 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.559 know what to do. I saw my mother said I 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.360 want to go, and my mother saw and and she 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.560 realized it was happening. She put it together quickly. And 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.720 then my mother also, Mama bear. I knew she wanted 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.240 to do something too, But what do you say you 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.880 did this to my child thirty five years ago? You know? 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.400 Like it was just it was overwhelming, and we left, 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.520 But it was also the moment in the car right home. 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.120 We just got in a taxi and we left everybody. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.680 We left our family, everybody, and we got in a 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.760 taxi and I was crying, and I was like, why 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.880 didn't he even recognize me? You know? And and and 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.920 my mother said something to the effect of because he 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.959 tried to break you, and he can't recognize you because 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.640 you turned out to be a smart, beautiful, accopli paipable 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.040 you know. And and it was really a turning point 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.360 for me because I thought, no, he didn't win, I won, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:51.600 right you did? You know? I wanted to ask you 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.920 about the hashtag me too, which really took off in 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.200 two thousand seventeen, and some in some ways it was 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:09.160 co optive it by famous white women. Well what reaction? 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:14.160 They were very nice white ladies. Um. Well, and I 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.839 usually I'd like to clarify this because the truth of 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:19.360 the matter is I'm being funny. But the truth of 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.320 the matter is the women who came forward in in 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.000 both of those articles talking about Harvey Weinstein didn't know 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.040 who I was at all, and also did not know 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:30.760 what the risk was they were going to take. They 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:32.760 didn't know what the outcome was going to be. They 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.920 didn't do it to start a movement. They thought they 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:37.679 were gonna be blackballed. A lot of them. They thought 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.560 they may not work again. And so there's a there's 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.880 a kind of a fine line, I think, because so 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.119 many black women have experienced that that they're being erased 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.600 and being removed from their work. There's a hedge of 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.880 protection around this that a lot of people are like, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.560 you won't take this from her. But I think two 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.480 things happened simultaneously. It wasn't the women, And I want 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.160 to be really clear about this because as what the 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.120 world will do is find new reasons to put women 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.240 against each other. Right, Yeah, it wasn't the women who 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.559 came out and co opted the movement and said where 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.400 we have the metub movement now. It was the media 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.560 who who looked around and said, well, I got I 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.520 don't know, a list stef celebrity over here, and I 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.520 got forty four year old black lady from the Bronx 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:29.440 over here. It was the media who constantly kept bringing 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.760 the story back to them. And this is the evidence 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:33.720 that you know that it wasn't a co opting me 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.160 because the media doesn't even talk about them anymore. Now. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.840 We we shifted from talking about the famous white women 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.800 to talking about the famous white men. The or the 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.480 men period. Who's who? You know, what's going to happen 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.240 in their lives. How are they going to recover? You know, well, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.920 they can, they come back. It's it's about their redemption. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.960 It's not even most people could not. If I said 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:57.880 to this audience right now, can you name me ten 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.080 people who were affected by me too? And they be 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.400 Weinstein Ward, Charlie Rose, that or not, they've run off 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.880 the list. If I say name me ten of their survivors, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.000 you can't do it right. And that's that's the part 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.640 why I'm careful about the idea of co opting. Those 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.040 women came forward to bravely tell their story unaware of 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.720 what would happen. The media loves white women. They love 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.680 you know. Yeah, so I write about that in my book, 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.880 you know, like missing White Women's syndrome. And the truth 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.080 of the matter is we all feed into it. We 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.680 want to know. These same celebrities are the ones. We 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.600 want to know what they're wearing, who they're marrying, you know, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.360 who they're dating, who they're divorcing. We want to know 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.120 about their lives when we eat up and consume everything 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.560 about their lives. So now this huge story comes out, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.000 this sealacious story, and the media focused on the salaciousness 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.520 of it. But really, the me too movement is because 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.120 twelve million people responded to a hashtag in twenty four hours. 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:04.200 It's not because of you know whoever, a list celebrity, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.480 those people who are part of it, And honestly, it 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.920 wouldn't have stayed a story if they weren't a part 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:16.240 of it. So I I get why people say there 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.560 was co option, and I just want to I just 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.600 don't want this to be about women fighting women, right 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.680 because it's it's more so about us fighting a system 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:33.200 that continues to perpetuate the same stories and stereotypes and 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.040 ideas and print. You know, That's what it's about, and 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.800 I fight that every day. Well, let's talk about those systems. 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.040 I mean, it's been four years since you know this, 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.120 this huge wave of support for me too, many more 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.560 years since you started using the expression. But have those 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:55.600 systems been um broken down? Have they up? I can 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:02.440 tell that's a no. UM know. Has had there been changes? 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:08.600 And what positive changes have you seen? Because things haven't 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.760 things changed a little bit? A little bit? Sure? No? Sure, 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.720 I mean I'm not even sure I think that. Look, 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.760 I used to be the person who was begging people 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.679 to put me on their agenda, like Hey, can I 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.560 get five minutes at the end of it's gonna just 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.359 talk to the people. Right. So it's never in my 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.000 wildest dreams that I think we could have a sustained 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.280 national or international dialogue about sexual violence. And that's amazing. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.080 We've been talking about this for four years. People talk 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.480 about things like, you know, I think about Cuomo stepping now, right. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.600 What has happened is that people look at watching the 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:50.120 me too movement like a spectator sport. So it's like, Oh, 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.399 the governor of New York stept down, that's one for 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.920 the me too movement. Oh Bill Cosby got out of jail. Well, 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.120 that's one one away from the mean. It's not. That's 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.520 not how it is, right, We're not taking score. What 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.399 has changed is five years ago, a woman could not 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.200 have come forward and had the kind of investigation that 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.040 Tiss James did that led to Pomo stepping down. We 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.480 can never control the outcome. We can't control the people 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.760 that cause harm or the perpetrators. Clomo could have just 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.280 said I'm not stepping down, you know. Uh. Weinstein could 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.320 have been found not guilty. We can't control that. What 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.720 I'm most invested in is the fact that we are 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.880 having trials that we're having investigations that people can come 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.240 forward and said, listen, I have been harmed by this person, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.480 and we take it seriously. It's not about believing all women. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.080 It's not about believing all accusations. It's about missing to them. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.880 We are coming out of we we have such short memories, right, 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.080 you've done this a long time, four or five years ago, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.520 ten years ago, these things just went away. In some 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:03.480 cases they still are, oh absolutely absolutely. But also there 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.479 was a time period where these things would come up, 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.040 and the first line of defense were the questions, right, well, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.840 what were you wearing? Why were you there? Well, he's 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.440 a good guy, are you sure. Maybe it's a misunderstanding 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.280 when we say believe survivors, it is because that is 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.320 what we were up against a decade ago, half a 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.520 decade ago. Now what people say is, wow, we need 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.880 to look into this. Right, So you know, policies have changed, 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.960 laws have changed. We're coming up on five years next year. 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.280 What I really want people to think about is what 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.639 has me to made possible? Not the scores that we're keeping, 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.000 and not has it solved everything. That's not going to 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.960 solve anything. We've been this is a decades and decades 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.840 and decades old issues. There were the sexual violence in 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.399 the Bible right like this, it's just not gonna go 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.680 away from the hashtag. It's just not that, it's not magic. 0:19:54.960 --> 0:20:05.520 We'll be right back. I want to ask you before 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.720 we finish up, and I just love talking to Toronto. 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:14.439 You're just such a force. It's just amazing, honestly, Um, 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.199 got big cheers up there. Um. You know, I had 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.720 to ask you about Times Up, which was a separate 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.399 movement but I think spurred by me to to to 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.359 fight for gender equality in the workforce, and that whole 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:35.560 thing seemed to have imploded because well what Toronto, so 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.000 like the board, the board all left and the two 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.640 founders were advising Governor Cuomo on how to react or 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.280 to how to attack one of the accusers. I mean 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.960 not you know, to bad mouth one of the accusers. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.840 What happened there? Well, first, people do this all that 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.280 they complate me to in Times of the right, that's 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.040 that's I just want I want the people to know 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:04.280 it's not me. But also the thing that's this unfortunate 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:05.520 is kind of what I was saying about the co 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.679 option earlier. Times Up isn't a young organization that was 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.640 trying to attack an old problem and they were trying 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.840 to do it with new twols and new ideas. And 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:17.159 I think with a lot of people, and there's a 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.919 lot of powerful people involved. And I think that what 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.800 people forget is that sexual violence is about power. It's 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.840 about the co option of I mean, the the corruption 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:32.160 of power, right, And it's the in the unteched accumulation 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.000 of power, and people are enamored by that, just like 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.240 I think, you know, if you think about Matt Lowry, 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:39.920 we only need to talk about him in your book. 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.600 I'm quite sure that with people or women around him, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.600 who whispered in his ear, who gave him advice, who 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:50.679 thought it's more important to protect this person than it 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.800 is to protect the people. And I think it's the 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.160 same thing that happens. We see it over and over again. 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.199 As long as we are invested in the patriarchy, we 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.440 will default for the patriarchy. And it's just what happens, right, 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.440 And I think in a case of times up people 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.639 made mistakes. I don't think we should hold indicte the 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.480 whole organization. Now. I think that organization did a lot 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:15.480 of good work it's continuing to do a lot of 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.040 good work. They're doing all of the soul searching, and 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.680 you know, they change leadership, what have you. But it's 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.440 the same old thing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.840 if you're a woman or a man, doesn't matter if 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.439 you're a democratic or Republican. Patriarchy is insidious, and it 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.320 is we will all raise and socialize in it. And 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.560 so I think our default is to protect powerful men. 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:41.360 And as long as that keeps happening and we keep 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.840 default into that, you cannot You cannot change something like 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:50.520 as as as big and broad and and insidious and 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:53.919 sexual violence as Yeah, with with the same tools, you 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.520 just can't do it. So if you're trying to use 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.720 power to take down power, it's just not it's just 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.760 not gonna work. We have to rethink the whole thing, 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.359 tear the whole thing down. This is why I'm saying 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.720 it's not partisan. Right. A lot of the players that 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.960 we saw moved out of the like administrations, the government 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.320 administrations and moved into the private sector. And I wrote 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.560 this thing on Twitter that was not popular with a 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.679 lot of people, But I'm like, you can't be a democrat. First, 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:24.080 you can't be a Republican first, right. If you want 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:28.359 to fight this thing in a real way, you have 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.560