Patrisse Cullors and Tarana Burke on turning #blacklivesmatter and #metoo hashtags into movements
Patrisse Cullors and Tarana Burke are two foot soldiers on the frontlines of issues impacting people of color—and especially Black women.
These fearless activists are the women behind the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements and they recently spoke to Elle about how their influence, anger and activism has galvanized women and men around the country to speak truth to power.
When #MeToo started trending last fall on social media, many people credited actress Alyssa Milano with creating the hashtag. However, Black Twitter was quick to correct the masses and let them know that Tarana Burke created the #Metoo movement a full decade earlier and has been diligently fighting for the cause.
Patrisse Cullors says she co-founded the “Black Lives Matter” movement out of love. But in a country plagued by deadly tension between law enforcement officers and communities of color, she has often found herself to be the target of hateful attacks.
—The #YouOkSis hashtag created by Black woman hijacked to promote white female concert–
Check out some excerpts from Elle’s powerful dialogue with Cullors and Burke:
On How to Get Fired Up
Patrisse Cullors: “I’ll just keep it simple, which was the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Just clarity that I received in that moment, that folks did not care that that black boy died. And we’re not interested in holding George Zimmerman accountable, or the public, the white public that allowed for that to happen. I remember just feeling that that couldn’t be the period to the story. That George Zimmerman couldn’t just go home and that’s how history books were going to be written. And, that’s the birth of Black Lives Matter.”
Tarana Burke: “I was trying to think of something directly in relation to #MeToo, because there’s so many other things that have had me “fired up.” But definitely, living in a small city, living in Selma, which is where I was living when we gave birth to this. Living in a small city, looking every day in the faces of these black and brown girls that we were working with—seeing visibly the trauma that they were holding, and recognizing that trauma because of something that I had held, and feeling like I don’t have a way to help, I don’t have resources. What I know is that, in our communities and historically in the way that I’ve worked, when there’s a deficit, when there’s a problem, we find a solution.”
On Turning a Hashtag into a Movement
Tarana Burke: “I would imagine that once you have a hashtag that’s gone viral or it’s gotten a lot of attention or you create something that gets a lot of attention, that the next logical step for me would be to figure out how to take that off the internet and into the community or whatever the place is that you are in service of so that people can get a more robust understanding of what the work is, because it can’t live solely on the internet.”
Patrisse Cullors: “I think that’s absolutely right. With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn’t just going to live online. We were like, We’re creating this thing and then it’s also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations. It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.”
—How new Mississippi abortion law will harm Black women–
Tarana Burke: “I was just having this conversation, too, and I see the digital space as one tool in the larger arsenal that we use to do our organizing. It’s impossible, in this day and age, to not have a presence online, some sort of digital presence. But I think if you are serious about making systemic change, it can’t just live online.”
Patrisse Cullors: “I think for Black Lives Matter, the first thing we did is we actually called our own folks, organizations, and community members and said, “What do you think about this? What do you think about using this? Should we be using it? Is it something interesting to have as a part of our larger conversation? Obviously a lot of black folks were like, “Finally.” Finally, we’re saying “black.”
Tarana Burke: “Yes, explicitly.”
Patrisse Cullors: “Exactly, and unapologetically. And not just saying “people of color.” And, especially because that was a moment when we were living in an era, where everywhere believed that we were at a “post-racial society.” Obama’s the president now, white folks thought that racism was over, and Black Lives Matter came in to have another conversation, and say: “Actually, racism is not at all over.” And we get to deal with it, we have to deal with it. And we have to take it to the streets.”
Read the entire interview at Elle.com.
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