#MeToo: Tarana Burke, Creator of ‘Silence Breakers’ Women’s Movement, Sits on the Back of the Bus

by | Dec 8, 2017 | Opinion | 0 comments

America once again, has whitewashed and corporatized a movement that was created by a Black woman.

As with the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement, which was “brought to heel” by white corporate America and lesbian feminists, the #MeToo movement of women speaking out about sexual harassment was usurped by white media and corporate interests and just one more Black woman got pushed aside from her own table.

When Martin Luther King Jr. jumped off an entire Civil Rights Movement in the Late 1950s that went ‘1960S-style viral’ and spread all over the world, one pregnant teen by the name of Claudette Colvin was the young lady who started the whole thing. But she got put on the back of the civil rights bus by her own, because -at the time- she would have been chastised and the movement itself would have been ridiculed and invalidated by fronting out the unmarried pregnant Black teen who started it all.

It’s gotten to the point now where all across America, you cannot even go to a Civil Rights Celebration during Black History Month without seeing everything and everybody controlling the narrative except the people Dr. King actually fought FOR, Black people.

Black History has been historically reduced to an “Everybody Else But Black” History celebration, but in case you decide to get the story all twisted, they did put a Black woman on the cover of TIME in Burke’s place, she just wasn’t the Black woman who fronted the Movement that ‘went viral’ on the national conversation on women’s rights and equality.

A Black woman creates something in this universe and white people pat themselves on the back for it, which is why we didn’t find out until the new millennium that a Black woman named Katharine Johnson’s mathematical calculations saved three white astronauts from burning up in space on a moon mission gone awry.

From her well-tailored and coifed braided hair to her clothing creations made from real Kente cloth to her Ghanaian Black teen dolls and her military service (#rememberingshoshanajohnson), to her political statements and activism — no matter what WE Black women do, it’s all about THEM and the way they want to spin the story.

TIME Magazine featured “The Silence Breakers” of the #MeToo movement as their 2017 ‘person’ of the year, and even though the movement’s creator, Burke, got an honorable mention, they chose not to put her on the cover. Maybe she volunteered not to be on the cover, most activists don’t do it for the media attention; however, her presence certainly would have made more sense than the presence of a pussy-grabbing sexual predator and pedophile like Donald J Trump. Senior. on the cover of TIME. He only belongs on there in the Hitleresque category of Nazi Judaism.

So many men have been fired or forced to resign here lately, so many allegations involving celebrity and public figures have come to light, and yet the only thing that remains is the sexual predator now known to others as the President of the United States.

He’s the only one, it seems, that they have YET to pressure to resign from his job, though Trump and the constituents he supports have been the most guilty of all sexual predators in the land.

To be sure, one cannot expect sexual harassment and sexual predation to be a REAL problem in America with the highest office in the land being held by an admitted sexual predator who laughed it off.

Apology or no apology, wrong is wrong, and making an exception of one or two sexual predators while allowing the others a pass makes the ENTIRE thing a big high-falutin’ joke.

Instead of being about sexual harassment and rape, it’s all about personal vendettas; so they not only stole Tarana Burke’s mojo and pushed her aside on the national landscape, but they also made a mockery of the very reason why harassment and rape aren’t supposed to be a joke.

“SIDE PIECE”: Feminists, I swear. One minute, they’re all “strong women,” and the next, they are bending weakly over for those “special molesters” who get a pass, crying like they are real victims when they could have sent a strong message that would RESONATE. Some women certainly have more locks on their cars than they do their coochies; and to top that off, I have some serious doubts that Burke meant for predators and molesters like Trump and friends to get a pass on this.

On the one – Maybe Tarana Burke chose not to be on the cover of TIME. Most people who start movements don’t do it to make the news, but to get something done that has been too long avoided or ignored. Regardless, @TIME should not have played her role cheap, even if Burke didn’t want to be on the cover.

-30-

If you meant it, NO ONE would get a pass. NOT EVEN TRUMP, or any of his rapey friends.

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