Book tour bonus: Katie shares the one conversation she can’t stop thinking about

it in full. So I hope you all will appreciate listening to this wonderful, wise woman as much as I did. You know, this global movement known as Me Too would not have happened without the leadership of my first guest Tonight. For more than twenty five years, activists and advocate Toronto Burke has worked at the intersection of sexual violence and racial justice. So here are some questions. We're going to talk about, what has this movement achieved, where are we

now and how did it all really begin? It is such an honor to welcome to the stage Toronto Burke. We'll do the ericss Toronta. Look at Toronto. Does she look fabulous? Well, I mean I've had to dress up for this occasion. Well you look awesome and thank you so much for spending some time with us tonight. You know, you wrote your own own memoir that came out in September called Unbound, which is a beautiful cover by the way, Toronto.

And I know the book you the book you wrote ended up being a very different book than you set out to write. So what did you want to write and what did it become? Well? I always thought that Well, first of all, um, so I thought I was going to write a book for survivors about what survival looked like. I mean, I've seen so many misconceptions about that in

and of itself that I wanted to write about survival stories. Um. And you know, part of it was personal, and part of it was the people around like no, no, no, no, no, you have to write a memoir. Um. It quickly became a memoir because the distortion that I saw was partly because people didn't really understand the origins of me too. So hearing people say things like oh, it's a witch hunt. Oh,

it's just trying to take down powerful men. Oh it was like you said, People would take selfies and say one to three me too, Like No, that's actually not okay. It's like a thing that you say when you've been through a thing. UM So, I just knew people really didn't understand it, and I could not explain it in like six minutes sound bites on an evening, is right.

I needed time to unpack the story and get into the nooks and crannies of it and unpacked the story of your life, which is why it's such an important and powerful memoir because of your personal experiences, both as a little girl and later as a young woman in Solma, Alabama. Can you explain to us what happened in those two events? I think kind of diverged, didn't they in a way?

In a way, yeah, I mean I was I'm gonna survive of child sexual abuse that started it seven years old, and in my experience, we and I think people actually don't acknowledge this enough that in October when me Too enviral, it wasn't just people talking about being harassed at work

or you know, having a Weinstein kind of experience. It was a lot of people who had experienced sexual assault on college campuses or child sexual abuse and um and the thing about sexual violence is that regardless of the circumstance is that got you there. The thing that it leaves you with is what connects us. It's that common trauma that we have that we're trying to overcome. UM. And so that's what sort of set me on it. I was always into work around social justice, right, that's

my whole life. And I was actually molded by people who are veterans of the civil rights movement, black power movement, like labor movements, things of that nature from the six season seventies, and while I was living in Selma, Alabama, which is everybody knows for its historic story because you grew up in New York. I grew up in New York and from the Bronx and then you and then and then you went to college in Alabama and then

you started doing work in Selma. Yes, and I've actually started in high school because I was in a program. It was based in Selma, and we had these larger than life figures who would come and talk to us, and one of them was um Reverend James Bevil, who a lot of people don't know his name, but you know his work if you know the Children's March during the Um or the sum of the Montgomery match all

of those things. He was like the chief lieutenant and architect of a lot of the biggest moments of the civil rights movement and one of Dr King's right hand you know. Confidence he also was a serial pedophile and child molester um and he showed up in Selma, you know, with his sort of band of misfits, and I threw a series of different events which I account in my book.

Uh found out that he was a pedophile, and it was it was two things that kind of was jarring, the fact that he was this person and the fact that the community was willing to kind of overlook it. Right, Did you feel portrayed by the civil rights movement because of that? In a way, not by the movement, because I don't define the movement by any singular person, and the movement we're still in the movement, right, and so

I don't think that any one person defines it. And so I don't you know, I don't take away from I don't even take away from his actual accomplishments. But I can separate his accomplishments from who he was, and so we don't we can benefit from his accomplishments without putting him on a pedestal. Right, you still have to

be accountable for the things that you did. And what happens is that people were so enamored by who he was and who he stood next to, that they were willing to overlook the harm that he was causing current day. And I think that's what happens in a lot of cases. Right. They weighed the benefits and the and and and who the people are, and they said, well, we need this more than we need to protect children, or we need

to protect women or protect whoever um. And I just wouldn't do it because those same people who introduced me to him also said that I have a duty to my community. That's what they told me, That's what they had been training me for. And I looked around in this community and I saw all of these children and young people and other people who were experiencing sexual violence,

and there was no response to it. And what those same people told me is that community problems deserve a community response, and me too was a part of that response. We'll be right back. You started holding these workshops for young girls of color, and you would talk about victims of sexual violence, and you would give details about their experiences, and then you would reveal these for very famous women

tell us about that. Well. I was working in with young girls, and pop culture has a hold on our children, as we know, and I was trying to figure out a way to have to make this conversation digestible for them, for them to understand. And so you know, when Gabrielle Union, for instance, was a person who spoke openly about having been sexual assaulted, when I just Oprah Winfrey, you know, or Fantasia or Maya Angelo, you know that there were all these stories that I knew. The kids didn't know.

They only saw the after effects. And what I wanted them to know was there's life after right. You are not the sum total of what happened to you. And so I would tell them the story of these women without giving their names, and then when I gave the name, they go, oh, no, that's impossible, because they thought, how could something that happened to me happened to some somebody like Oprah and how could they go on to be

successful adults. And so that's what I wanted to really capture for them, that there is triumph after the trauma and it worked, and how did it impact your own personal story? Because you kept that so secret, uh see, and for so long, and did their empowerment or empowering them help you find the strengthen yourself to talk about happened to at seven? It kind of forced me to see. I thought I was going to protect myself. I thought I'm gonna help. It's too late for me, you know,

I'm going to help the children. Um. But I realized very quickly that I could not authentically help without authentically facing the things that I dealt with. And you know, there's a there's a way that we can operate in the world where you can speak one thing, but you don't actually live it. So I was very good at speaking in you know, and I could speak healing into the children and talk about it, but I couldn't face it in myself. And when those two things came together,

I realized, oh, I can't. I'm not actually doing this work well unless I'm working on myself. And so it that work forced me to deal with my own, my own sort of stuff. I know that you felt shamed, but it took you quite a while to feel anger. And you ran into uh, your abuser unexpectedly at a Father's Day event in your old neighborhood and the Bronx. He was a police officer now and had kids. And how did that feel seeing him for the first time? And I guess many years right at that point, it

was probably about thirty plus years. Um, it was the first time I had tapped into that anger. See, I grew up feeling like, not he did a bad thing, but we did a bad thing. I felt complicit in my own abuse because what I was told is that good girls don't let people touch their private parts, and good girls don't go into dark corners with grown with grown boys, you know, Like I had heard all of

these rules. But it's probably about eighteen and I was seven, and so I thought i'd heard the rules, but with no adult had ever said to me is if one of these rules is broken, it's not your fault. So I spent years feeling complicit, like I broke the rules. I'm a bad girl. Um. And by the time I saw him, I had been doing work. I had been doing this work for a while and finally the anger came. And and interestingly enough, the anger came because he didn't

recognize me. Right, I'm standing there, and this is a person who has occupied so much of my brain for thirty plus years. And he looked right through me as if he didn't I didn't recognize me at all. And I thought, how do you get to have a life? How dare you get to have a life? And I have to live with this thing that she left me, you know, and and that I'm from the Bronx. Those f bombs come fast? Did you say something to me?

I didn't, I mean came up in my spirit. And the funny thing, my mother was there, and I was like frozen in place because it's like several several questions right now, like what do I do? I just didn't know what to do. I saw my mother said I want to go, and my mother saw and and she realized it was happening. She put it together quickly. And then my mother also, Mama bear. I knew she wanted to do something too, But what do you say you did this to my child thirty five years ago? You know?

Like it was just it was overwhelming, and we left, But it was also the moment in the car right home. We just got in a taxi and we left everybody. We left our family, everybody, and we got in a taxi and I was crying, and I was like, why didn't he even recognize me? You know? And and and my mother said something to the effect of because he tried to break you, and he can't recognize you because you turned out to be a smart, beautiful, accopli paipable

you know. And and it was really a turning point for me because I thought, no, he didn't win, I won, right you did? You know? I wanted to ask you about the hashtag me too, which really took off in two thousand seventeen, and some in some ways it was co optive it by famous white women. Well what reaction? They were very nice white ladies. Um. Well, and I usually I'd like to clarify this because the truth of

the matter is I'm being funny. But the truth of the matter is the women who came forward in in both of those articles talking about Harvey Weinstein didn't know who I was at all, and also did not know what the risk was they were going to take. They didn't know what the outcome was going to be. They didn't do it to start a movement. They thought they were gonna be blackballed. A lot of them. They thought

they may not work again. And so there's a there's a kind of a fine line, I think, because so many black women have experienced that that they're being erased and being removed from their work. There's a hedge of protection around this that a lot of people are like, you won't take this from her. But I think two things happened simultaneously. It wasn't the women, And I want to be really clear about this because as what the world will do is find new reasons to put women

against each other. Right, Yeah, it wasn't the women who came out and co opted the movement and said where we have the metub movement now. It was the media who who looked around and said, well, I got I don't know, a list stef celebrity over here, and I got forty four year old black lady from the Bronx over here. It was the media who constantly kept bringing the story back to them. And this is the evidence that you know that it wasn't a co opting me

because the media doesn't even talk about them anymore. Now. We we shifted from talking about the famous white women to talking about the famous white men. The or the men period. Who's who? You know, what's going to happen in their lives. How are they going to recover? You know, well, they can, they come back. It's it's about their redemption. It's not even most people could not. If I said to this audience right now, can you name me ten

people who were affected by me too? And they be Weinstein Ward, Charlie Rose, that or not, they've run off the list. If I say name me ten of their survivors, you can't do it right. And that's that's the part why I'm careful about the idea of co opting. Those women came forward to bravely tell their story unaware of what would happen. The media loves white women. They love you know. Yeah, so I write about that in my book, you know, like missing White Women's syndrome. And the truth

of the matter is we all feed into it. We want to know. These same celebrities are the ones. We want to know what they're wearing, who they're marrying, you know, who they're dating, who they're divorcing. We want to know about their lives when we eat up and consume everything about their lives. So now this huge story comes out, this sealacious story, and the media focused on the salaciousness

of it. But really, the me too movement is because twelve million people responded to a hashtag in twenty four hours. It's not because of you know whoever, a list celebrity, those people who are part of it, And honestly, it wouldn't have stayed a story if they weren't a part

of it. So I I get why people say there was co option, and I just want to I just don't want this to be about women fighting women, right because it's it's more so about us fighting a system that continues to perpetuate the same stories and stereotypes and ideas and print. You know, That's what it's about, and I fight that every day. Well, let's talk about those systems. I mean, it's been four years since you know this, this huge wave of support for me too, many more

years since you started using the expression. But have those systems been um broken down? Have they up? I can tell that's a no. UM know. Has had there been changes? And what positive changes have you seen? Because things haven't things changed a little bit? A little bit? Sure? No? Sure, I mean I'm not even sure I think that. Look, I used to be the person who was begging people to put me on their agenda, like Hey, can I get five minutes at the end of it's gonna just

talk to the people. Right. So it's never in my wildest dreams that I think we could have a sustained national or international dialogue about sexual violence. And that's amazing. We've been talking about this for four years. People talk about things like, you know, I think about Cuomo stepping now, right. What has happened is that people look at watching the me too movement like a spectator sport. So it's like, Oh, the governor of New York stept down, that's one for

the me too movement. Oh Bill Cosby got out of jail. Well, that's one one away from the mean. It's not. That's not how it is, right, We're not taking score. What has changed is five years ago, a woman could not have come forward and had the kind of investigation that Tiss James did that led to Pomo stepping down. We can never control the outcome. We can't control the people that cause harm or the perpetrators. Clomo could have just said I'm not stepping down, you know. Uh. Weinstein could

have been found not guilty. We can't control that. What I'm most invested in is the fact that we are having trials that we're having investigations that people can come forward and said, listen, I have been harmed by this person, and we take it seriously. It's not about believing all women. It's not about believing all accusations. It's about missing to them. We are coming out of we we have such short memories, right, you've done this a long time, four or five years ago,

ten years ago, these things just went away. In some cases they still are, oh absolutely absolutely. But also there was a time period where these things would come up, and the first line of defense were the questions, right, well, what were you wearing? Why were you there? Well, he's a good guy, are you sure. Maybe it's a misunderstanding when we say believe survivors, it is because that is what we were up against a decade ago, half a decade ago. Now what people say is, wow, we need

to look into this. Right, So you know, policies have changed, laws have changed. We're coming up on five years next year. What I really want people to think about is what has me to made possible? Not the scores that we're keeping, and not has it solved everything. That's not going to solve anything. We've been this is a decades and decades and decades old issues. There were the sexual violence in the Bible right like this, it's just not gonna go

away from the hashtag. It's just not that, it's not magic. We'll be right back. I want to ask you before we finish up, and I just love talking to Toronto. You're just such a force. It's just amazing, honestly, Um,

got big cheers up there. Um. You know, I had to ask you about Times Up, which was a separate movement but I think spurred by me to to to fight for gender equality in the workforce, and that whole thing seemed to have imploded because well what Toronto, so like the board, the board all left and the two founders were advising Governor Cuomo on how to react or to how to attack one of the accusers. I mean not you know, to bad mouth one of the accusers.

What happened there? Well, first, people do this all that they complate me to in Times of the right, that's that's I just want I want the people to know it's not me. But also the thing that's this unfortunate is kind of what I was saying about the co option earlier. Times Up isn't a young organization that was trying to attack an old problem and they were trying to do it with new twols and new ideas. And I think with a lot of people, and there's a

lot of powerful people involved. And I think that what people forget is that sexual violence is about power. It's about the co option of I mean, the the corruption of power, right, And it's the in the unteched accumulation of power, and people are enamored by that, just like I think, you know, if you think about Matt Lowry, we only need to talk about him in your book.

I'm quite sure that with people or women around him, who whispered in his ear, who gave him advice, who thought it's more important to protect this person than it is to protect the people. And I think it's the same thing that happens. We see it over and over again. As long as we are invested in the patriarchy, we will default for the patriarchy. And it's just what happens, right, And I think in a case of times up people made mistakes. I don't think we should hold indicte the

whole organization. Now. I think that organization did a lot of good work it's continuing to do a lot of good work. They're doing all of the soul searching, and you know, they change leadership, what have you. But it's the same old thing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, doesn't matter if you're a democratic or Republican. Patriarchy is insidious, and it is we will all raise and socialize in it. And so I think our default is to protect powerful men.

And as long as that keeps happening and we keep default into that, you cannot You cannot change something like as as as big and broad and and insidious and sexual violence as Yeah, with with the same tools, you just can't do it. So if you're trying to use power to take down power, it's just not it's just not gonna work. We have to rethink the whole thing, tear the whole thing down. This is why I'm saying

it's not partisan. Right. A lot of the players that we saw moved out of the like administrations, the government administrations and moved into the private sector. And I wrote this thing on Twitter that was not popular with a lot of people, But I'm like, you can't be a democrat. First, you can't be a Republican first, right. If you want to fight this thing in a real way, you have

to be a human being first God. The reason why this keeps happening over and over and over again is because we prioritize the same thing in Watson, we priorities power and money and and you know, those kind of things over humanity. At the end of the day, this is people, the people who experienced the violence or are trying to prevent the violence. We want people to have the right to walk through life with their dignity and

their humanity intact. I should be able to show up at my job, my church, my my home, anywhere with my dignity intact, with my humanity attact. And when people are harassed, sexual harassment chips away at that. Sexual violence also chips away at that. And so we have to think about this very differently. We have to approach it very differently, the same things that we did before. Putting a soul and so on the White House is not going to change it. Taking a soul and so out

of the White House is not going to change it. Right, this is about something bigger than politics, and I think people just keep getting caught in that Oh, we just gotta we just gotta know, we gotta tear the whole thing down. Well mean, we got this. I mean, I love this audience. This has been my favorite audience. Don't tell the other cities. But but you know, I mean, we have so many smart, engage people who really care about,

you know, making things better here. So what can the average person do to kind of help support this movement and keep it? Okay, I'm glad you asked. I'm gonna go back to what I said. This is a movement with people. Don't you throw a hashtag in front of a word and people call it a movement. I appreciate the hashtag because it amplified the movement. But movements are

made by people everyday. People right, We would not have the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, We would not have so many things that movement gave us if people didn't join those movements. So figure out a thing, whatever the thing you're most comfortable with. You can donate money, you can donate time. But the other part. We created something called Act two because people always like, well, what do I do learn about? This is an issue? Sexual

violence is a social justice issue. We are fighting for survival justice, and so everyday people need to And the reason why we had something like the Wine Stained Verdict is because people finally are understanding the depth and breath of what this does to your body, to your person. Right educate your self. If you can't volunteer, if you can't pick up a sign and go out and protest, it's okay. We don't need everybody to do that. I

need doctor's, lawyers, dentists, accountants, receptionists, clerks. I need you to understand what sexual violence does, how much of it is around you. Talk to people around you, talk to your peers. It's not just women, it's not just men, it's people across the gender spectrum. Educate yourself about what this is and how it impacts your life, and then find your place in it, because there is definitely a place for everybody in this Read a book, listen to

a podcast, listen to an article, but be engaged. Don't just say, oh, I wonder who they're gonna meet to next. Stop making it a verb that's annoying. It's not a verb. It is a declaration that people whose lives have been deeply impacted by something that is awful say to try to reclaim some of their humanity and we just need you to. We can't do that alone. And so that's

the call to action I put out to people. We are saying those of us who are saying me to needs you to act you Wow well by the way, um, I just want to mention Toronto's daughter is here. She must be so proud of you, Rona, and I think this conversation resonated with a lot of people in this audience, one of my friends in particular. I think she has taken great comfort in some of the words you've spoken tonight. Toronto Burke, thank you, Thank you, than awesomes Fine, thank you,

thank you. Thank you all so much for listening to this bonus episode of Next Question featuring the incredible Toronto Burke. Until next time, I'm Katie Curic. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements,

Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements for more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,