I'm really a worker and about rolling up my sleeves and doing the work. If that lands me a place in history, then I would be among amazing company.
The work is more than just about the amplification of survivors and quantifying their numbers. The work is really about survivors talking to each other and saying, 'I see you. I support you. I get it.'
I founded the Me Too Movement because there was a void in the community that I was in. There were gaps in services. There was dearth in resources, and I saw young people - I saw black and brown girls - who are hurting and who needed something that just wasn't there.
I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.
The personal is political for so many.
There are a number of people who are anxious to leave #metoo behind and move on, but I don't think people realize how short of a time we have been discussing this issue compared to how long this has been an issue.
'Me Too' is about letting - using the power of empathy to stomp out shame.
If we keep on 'making statements' and not really doing the work, we are going to be in trouble.
Smoking is definitely not cool anymore, and the folks who have worked against that have done a great job.
I'm driven by the gaps, the things that are missing, the areas where marginalized people exist - and where the least resources are available for them.
I don't think that every single case of sexual harassment has to result in someone being fired; the consequences should vary. But we need a shift in culture so that every single instance of sexual harassment is investigated and dealt with. That's just basic common sense.
I don't want to get into splitting hairs. Trauma is trauma. I'm not in a position to quantify or qualify people's trauma.
If I found a healing tree in my backyard, and it grew some sort of fruit that was a healing balm for people to repair what was damaged, I'm not going to just harvest all of those fruits and say, 'You cant have this.' If I have a cure for people, I'm going to share it.
Patriarchy doesn't just make men out to be ogres. Women buy into the patriarchy as well, and women make those comments as well, like, 'Boys will be boys.' Women have to undo that stuff, too.
'Me too' became a term that was both succinct and powerful, and it was a way to ring up immediate empathy between survivors.
For every Harvey Weinstein, there's three or four thousand other pastors, coaches, teachers, uncles, cousins, and stepfathers who are committing the same crimes. We have to keep that in focus and we have to keep talking about it.
We use a term called 'empowerment through empathy.' And 'Me Too' is so powerful, because somebody had said it to me - right? - and it changed the trajectory of my healing process once I heard that.
'Me Too' became the way to succinctly and powerfully connect with other people and give people permission to start their journey to heal.
Men are not the enemy, and we have to be clear about that.
There's a power in empathy.
You cannot put a song - you cannot put a person's talent over somebody's humanity. That's just insane.
I want survivors to know that healing is possible.
I think that Me Too is for everybody. I think it's important that people feel validated.
When you truly empathize with someone, you have to take into account all the things that make that person who they are.
We talk about sexual harassment in the workplace, but there's sexual harassment in schools, right? There's sexual harassment on the street. So there's a larger conversation to be had. And I think it will be a disservice to people if we couch this conversation in about what happens in Hollywood or what happens in even political offices.
People are trying to find an outlet to tell their truth.
Anita Hill thanklessly put herself and her career as a law professor on the line more than 25 years ago to publicly name Clarence Thomas for sexually harassing her at work.
Even when black folks make me angry, I know that the foundation is that I love us. I want us to win, and I want us to have all the things that we deserve in the world. And that's driven by love.
I founded the 'me too' movement in 2006 because I wanted to find a way to connect with the black and brown girls in the program I ran.
The young girls of color that first encountered the 'me too' movement in community centers and classrooms and church basements were there not only because they needed a safe space, but because they needed their own space.
I think it is selfish for me to try to frame Me Too as something that I own. It is bigger than me and bigger than Alyssa Milano. Neither one of us should be centered in this work. This is about survivors.
I have been working with young people for more than 25 years.
Foundations have to think outside the box and maybe expand past the usual suspects that get all of the funding and start thinking about how to reach into communities and support community healing on a more local level.
There are so many different people doing amazing work across the country that I, in my capacity, definitely want to lift up, because they don't get lifted up that often.
I started doing organizing work as a teenager. I was part of an organization called the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement at 14.
The first thing I organized around was the Central Park Five case for the young men who were accused. We talked about the unfair misrepresentation of these young teenagers in the media. I've been fighting back against Donald Trump for a long time.
I've done work in every area of social justice you can think of, but I've been highly focused on young people and then specifically black and brown girls.