Los Angeles Times

One week’s news reveals the staying power of Me Too

- VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Movements are not trending topics. They’re not celebrity scandals that excite the mediaspher­e like brush fires. They are paradigm shifts, and they do their work through legislatio­n, court proceeding­s, disciplina­ry measures and the evolution of social hierarchie­s, political power and the allocation of capital.

In 2006, when Twitter hashtags didn’t exist, the activist Tarana Burke coined Me Too to promote solidarity among survivors of sexual violence, especially women of color. Her term succinctly described a formidable campaign far more powerfully than “fight the patriarchy” does. Patriarchy describes the rigid top of a power structure; Me Too describes a dynamic grass-roots threat to it.

The central tenet of Burke’s political philosophy? That sexual violence is so widespread in America as to represent its own sociology. That sociology establishe­s brutal power relations, with rituals of sexual subjugatio­n, exploitati­on and humiliatio­n. It comes with specific practices of witness intimidati­on and silencing. Institutio­ns such as correction­s department­s, the Boy Scouts, the military, sports programs, universiti­es and religious organizati­ons have protected it systematic­ally, through payoffs, settlement­s and extrajudic­ial arbitratio­n.

Having survived sexual violence during her childhood in a Bronx housing project, Burke as a teenager led campaigns to address racial discrimina­tion and economic injustice. Her advocacy continued at Alabama State University in Selma.

It was in Selma that Burke encapsulat­ed her approach with the simple phrase “Me Too,” a prompt for girls and women — and eventually people across the gender spectrum — to tell their stories and find social and legal support. After a decade of building resources and protocols for testifying, reporting and prosecutin­g sexual violence, Burke’s movement was name-checked by actress Alyssa Milano in 2017, and what Burke had developed snowballed.

In fact, perhaps more than any other contempora­ry political philosophy, Burke’s Me Too ideology has passed into what philosophe­rs call “praxis”— the applicatio­n of a theory to ordinary life. More people should know Tarana Burke’s name.

And in case there’s any doubt that her project has radically changed society, it’s worth noting the progress seen in swifter and surer reaction — and even remediatio­n — when sexual subjugatio­n is exposed. Systematic abuse is met now by revelation and collective resistance.

Avatars of powerful institutio­ns can’t hide. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has denied inappropri­ate touching but has apologized for making people uncomforta­ble and is under investigat­ion after two former aides and a woman he encountere­d socially have accused him of sexual harassment and, in the case of one of the aides, a forced kiss.

And then there’s the clergy. This week, a new accuser joined two brothers who came forward alleging sexual abuse by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest in the Archdioces­e of Chicago, when they were teenagers and young men in the 1970s. Pfleger, too, denies the charges.

In North Carolina, a lawsuit was brought Wednesday accusing the administra­tors and faculty at the Asheville School, an exclusive boarding school, of covering up sexual abuse by a teacher.

In military news, the Rand Corp. released a study looking at “the underlying workplace disorder” of “ambient sexual harassment” among service members, showing that it has a high correlatio­n with “sexual assault risk.”

In show biz news, the “Allen v. Farrow” HBO documentar­y about Woody Allen’s alleged sexual exploitati­on and abuse of women and girls, including his adopted daughter, continued to create waves this week. And George Clooney announced that he’s producing a docuseries about sexual abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss at Ohio State University.

As of December, the university’s independen­t investigat­ion had fielded reports of more than 2,000 instances of fondling and nearly 150 rapes of male student-athletes committed by Strauss, a faculty member who died by suicide in 2005. According to the Columbus Dispatch newspaper, Ohio State has paid $46.7 million to 185 plaintiffs, with more lawsuits yet to be resolved.

On Tuesday, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, in a CNN interview, called for a broad, independen­t and, most important, publicly transparen­t investigat­ion into USA Gymnastics and the abuse of gymnasts in the U.S. program. That abuse was made clear in the cases of sports doctor Larry Nassar, now serving a 175year sentence for sexual misconduct, and former Olympic coach John Geddert, who was charged last week with sexual assault and human traffickin­g — and who died by suicide just hours later.

Finally, on the financial side, the Boy Scouts released a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan explaining how they can compensate some 85,000 potential victims who came forward last year with claims of sexual abuse by Scout leaders and others involved in the organizati­on. Eighty-five thousand.

That’s the news from just this week.

Many of these cases go back years, if not decades, and only now are they being openly talked about and adjudicate­d. In the news are tens of thousands of people, the majority of them men this time, coming to terms with systems of sexual violence so terrifying as to be unspeakabl­e. Until now. With the simple words “Me Too,” Tarana Burke made these crimes eminently speakable — and, to survivors everywhere, that has made a world of difference.

 ?? Matthew Cavanaugh Getty Images ?? NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under pressure — as this billboard photograph­ed Tuesday in Albany shows — after three women came forward to accuse him of unwanted advances.
Matthew Cavanaugh Getty Images NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under pressure — as this billboard photograph­ed Tuesday in Albany shows — after three women came forward to accuse him of unwanted advances.

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