Columbia University...

[Streck-Fu]

I thought about adding this to the Mizzou thread, but this is a special snowflake storm of blizzard proportions.

LINK

“I was brought up by seniors in this institution. I don’t know how I could’ve gotten through freshman year without seniors,” she said. “I have so many first-years I took under my wing last years because I could not imagine what it would be like to be a 17, 18 year-old coming into this institution. … It’s to the point where you should pay me for all I do.”

In addition to a lack of substantive support beyond “quick fixes” from the administration, Aya said that the the Core Curriculum further silences students of color by requiring students to read texts that ignore the existence of marginalized people and their histories.

“It’s traumatizing to sit in Core classes,” Aya said. “We are looking at history through the lens of these powerful, white men. I have no power or agency as a black woman, so where do I fit in?”

Aya mentioned that even in her most recent Art Humanities class, the word “primitive” was used five times to describe Congolese art—a label she did not speak up against because she was tired of already having worked that day to address so many other instances of racism and discrimination, she said.
.........
“You cannot grow up in a society without assimilating racist views,” he said. “Part of what is exciting about this conversation is that it’s issuing accountability for us to look within ourselves and try to understand the way that racism shapes how we see the world and our institutions.”