25 CommentsGod only knows Ferris can grow stale in its weekly cycle of a menu. We know. We have the dining app and tear up a little every time we refresh the menu. But today, in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, they’ve decided to live it up while they can and have given us this little gem. Dig in!
Update (6:25 PM): Statement from Vicki Dunn, Executive Director of Columbia Dining:
Columbia Dining supports Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Denim Day NYC (April 23). Today, when many employees are wearing their Denim Day pins, some members of the Dining staff wanted to also show recognition of the initiative. The cake was a well-meant, but inappropriate gesture by an employee in recognition of this important cause. The cake was removed almost immediately. We believe sexual violence is a serious issue not to be taken lightly in any form.
Downright gruesome (and sickly sweet to boot) dessert via Anna Bahr
Loading …
25 Comments
@A guy The sad thing is that the people expressing outrage about this are quite possibly the very same people who raise heckles about “Student-Worker Solidarity”. The only thing certain people know is righteous outrage, and if today’s outrage knocks over yesterday’s cause celebre so be it.
@Anonymous I am a senior at Columbia college. I wanted to speak out about my experience because i am certain that others are in my position and have kept quiet for too long.
trigger warning
my boyfriend made me eat the cake.
@CC 2014 I think that the disgust regarding the cake comes not from the cake itself, but that this baked good is the first tangible (even edible!) form of support offered by any entity at Columbia. The fact that this form of support is written on frosting on something people usually eat at parties or in celebration, understandably, is bound to ruffle a few feathers.
Sure, that e-mail Bollinger sent out begins to deal with the issue, but until yet another high-paid bureaucrat is put into office to “deal with this,” Columbia will have made no realized action.
While cooked with the best intentions, I can see how for students, this cake seems like a tongue-in-cheek move from the administration. Obviously, that’s not what it is – but regardless of its intentions, as of right now all Columbia has to show for months of campus-wide debate regarding sexual violence is a f&$%ing cake.
@Anonymous http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140423.png
@Anonymous I hope the workers at Ferris got to eat the cake since it was, apparently, too much for some hypersensitive minds to handle. If the cake is *somehow* still around, can we have it Thursday? Plz? It was a touching, if misinterpreted, gesture and I would like the gastronomic pleasure of treating it as such.
@Anonymous Bwog, how is the cake “gruesome”?
@Anonymous Please don’t assume it was Vicki Dunn that wrote this email. She was probably forced by the PR spin cycle. Give the staff a break! They are removed from the day to day discussion around this and wanted to support the students.
@Anonymous Hear, hear.
@Anonymous I honestly don’t see anything wrong with this. Everyone has been sequestered in this festering PC prison for too long if you see this as a jaded and spiteful message from the Ferris staff. Take off your non-prescription turtle shell pseudo hipster glasses and (maybe) you’ll see what a kind gesture is again.
@20/100 vision I need my hipster glasses to see. Check your vision privilege.
@Everybody wants a piece https://www.facebook.com/theCUMB/photos/a.10152429493654428.1073741837.50574284427/10152769211099428/?type=1&theater
@Disgusted This was obviously done with the best intentions. And now that well-meaning person (or persons) is being publicly humiliated by elitists dying to display their super-refined sensibilities. Typical, privileged, condescending, ivory tower PC BS….
@idk Criticizing this/the dining staff makes me very uncomfortable. They weren’t belittling the cause, but trying to be supportive.
@Anonymous I agree, but seeing sexual violence in red frosting (the color of blood, if you imagination isn’t cooperating) was painful for me as someone who has experienced it. However, I find the flyers everywhere that are like “rape happens everywhere” way more triggering, and those are also inescapable. I did not know “denim day” was a sexual violence thing, thought I was looking at something light-hearted, then saw it was about rape and got light-headed. I was just trying to check out what was going on around campus on my way to class. The student activists who are so critical of this cake have caused me a lot more grief.
I’m glad they removed the cake, let’s stop posting the photos of this cake everywhere and triggering more people. We get it.
@genuinely confused Sorry, I really don’t understand where you’re coming from.
There are people who genuinely want to make things better. They need other people to support their cause. How can they inform others about sexual assault without publicizing it through posters, word of mouth, etc?
Let’s say I’m organizing a talk about sexual assault, and a survivor agrees to speak at the event. Do I ask attendees to refrain from wearing red clothing? What if the speaker sees the “no red clothes” announcement and is triggered by that? Where does it stop?
@me again I’m not sure, to be honest, but this is my least favorite time of year. I can’t stand in the elevator without seeing statistics about how “completed rape” (What is that even? As opposed to almost-rape?) is just around the corner waiting to find me again. Maybe I’m being selfish. It would certainly be worth it if for all my queasiness and flashbacks, the wall to wall tbtn flyering ended sexual assault. But I don’t think it will. I think consent education and consent being a buzz word around campus has made us somewhat safer, and I’m glad students have filed complaints against the hearing and support policies so that change happens there. But I don’t think a rapist sees those statistics and decides that what s/he’s done is wrong. It is a rare sociopath who believes what they’re doing is rape and does it anyway. I’ll add that I’m happy with the “always ask for consent” cards that pepper campus year round, because I think everyone should always have it on their mind to ask first, and the cards are making a positive statement, not a menacing one about how likely it is we’ll all be assaulted. ALL CAPS RAPE IS EVERYWHERE flyers may spark a sense of urgency in people who haven’t been affected, and I am glad that so many have been mobilized with the recent town hall and everything. There just must be some way to do it without making hallways and elevators sickening to me and I’m sure many other people who have experienced sexual assault.
@It's weird but can anyone really say why it’s inappropriate other than that it invites snarky discussion? Even Dining is conscious of SAAM thanks to student efforts. Isn’t that a good thing?
@Anonymous “even Dining”? sounds a little condescending
bottom line tho, i think we should recognize this as well-intentioned, if poorly thought out
@Anonymous It speaks to the fragmentation of the university. It’s not condescending. Condescending would be if I was Vicki Dunn, upset at workers daring to display their individuality by putting stuff on cake.
@Progress? Nothing says “this is a serious matter and I’m treating it as such” like a delicious cake
@Anonymous Yeah, I can’t believe Terry Martinez hand-crafted this cake and put it in Ferris.
@Anonymous dark
@wow. a reeeeeeaally not great idea. there are better ways to show support, folks.
@Anonymous It’s… it’s beautiful. *one tear*
@Anonymous I want to ravage that cake