Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

by Tarana Burke

It’s the trap in which so many Black girls find themselves, either performing our pain or performing through it.

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 air to be reborn and handled warmly.

And if all of it—the pain, shame, and fear—were still there, where did she find space for this thing I saw in her face and heard in her voice? What was this softness? Where did the joy come from?

Like so many women raising children who were brought into the world on purpose, and also maybe to serve multiple purposes—to glue together a relationship, to be a personal source of love and adoration, or a proof of worth—I know how hard it hits when you realize that each life has its own purpose, even the lives of our children, and that purpose is not dictated by our needs.

What could I do now? How was I going to help these girls? A stillness came over me and the rumbling settled. I heard, or felt, an answer. It’s you. I opened my eyes and looked around, but I already knew. I was so certain that it frightened me. I wanted to continue wailing like I didn’t hear it, but I did and now I couldn’t unhear it. But why me?