12 CommentsBwog was just tipped a link to a statement commenting on the current discussion of the sexual assault policy on campus. The authors, who claim to be “survivor/victims, organizers, students, and alums of Columbia University,” are significantly not publicly affiliated with any big-name student organizations or leaders. We reached out to Sejal Singh, head of the Columbia Democrats, who responded by saying that it isn’t something with which she or the Democrats as an organization are affiliated. The authors state that they are writing in response to part one of Anna Bahr’s Blue and White article about the policy (look for part two later this week) and the subsequent comments on both that post and others that make reference to the campus discussion. Bwog has decided not to publish their full statement, here’s an excerpt from the end:
tl;dr: You want to advocate for survivors/victims and prevent sexual assault but will not even invest the time it takes to read this article to educate yourself on how best to do that.
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12 Comments
@Anonymous b/c it requires placing part of the blame on the individuals in the community, not on the “monolithic” entity of the institution. this requires a concerted committment to self-reflection, self-criticism, and self-awareness.
@person @Anonymous: the piece isn’t asking to place blame on individuals, it has more to do with the structural reasons for the culture in the first place
@Anonymous @person: Our and your complicity in perpetuating rape culture is part of the reason why sexual assault occurs, why it is normalized, and why survivor/victims choose not to speak about it. We worry that given the recent coverage, Columbia will only be able to see rapes, not rape culture. We worry that people will not face their responsibility for perpetuating and normalizing violence, and they will fail to understand that rape culture is also composed of messages and conversations in which people are encouraged to minimize trauma and re-inflict pain on survivor/victims, and so on.
@Anonymous Our and your complicity in perpetuating rape culture is part of the reason why sexual assault occurs, why it is normalized, and why survivor/victims choose not to speak about it. We worry that given the recent coverage, Columbia will only be able to see rapes, not rape culture. We worry that people will not face their responsibility for perpetuating and normalizing violence, and they will fail to understand that rape culture is also composed of messages and conversations in which people are encouraged to minimize trauma and re-inflict pain on survivor/victims, and so on.
^^^ That pretty explicitly asks individuals to recognize their own responsibility….
@Anonymous i refuse to accept responsibility for an awful crime i didn’t and will never commit.
@person i don’t see why combatting the social/cultural mechanisms that underly the phenomenon of rape is honestly any different than combatting the CU administration: a bulwark of corporate oligarchy that helped preserve, worship, and transmit these cultures in the first place (i.e. almost every name listed on the butler library was a fucking sexist/racist)
@anon OMG BWOG TRIGGER WARNING for people who are afraid of the letters tl;dr
@Anonymous Shut up.
@Anonymous “We should prevent our perspective from being clouded by a heroic response to crisis. As always, it is the sudden and catastrophic that seizes our attention. It is the graphic account of a sexual assault that hooks us (and undermines our ability to mind the survivor/victims who can then no longer participate in the discussion). The urgent may be what first mobilizes us, but it will undoubtedly limit our work if we cannot expand our view.”
This is critical! The discussion must be expanded to combat rape culture! Anything that undermines that effort will simply make this dialogue a historicized event in Columbia’s timeline of placating student demands.
@Anonymous Oh, a rational response. Well OBVIOUSLY it wasn’t affiliated with any student leaders, Bwog.
@CC '14 “Our and your complicity in perpetuating rape culture is part of the reason why sexual assault occurs, why it is normalized, and why survivor/victims choose not to speak about it. We worry that given the recent coverage, Columbia will only be able to see rapes, not rape culture. We worry that people will not face their responsibility for perpetuating and normalizing violence, and they will fail to understand that rape culture is also composed of messages and conversations in which people are encouraged to minimize trauma and re-inflict pain on survivor/victims, and so on.”
Yes. Thank you for posting this. It is so important to hear this in addition to what’s already been put forth.
@Anonymous That’s a really passive aggresive tl;dr. I’m going to read the article now, but damn, what a gibroni.