PRENDIENDO CERROS

Columbia University’s graduate program literary journal has displayed hideous racism, misogyny, and classism. Our Editor-in-Chief, Yasmin Belkhyr, wrote an open letter in response. We are demanding a full response and apology from Columbia University ASAP. Please share this post - let’s make sure this isn’t swept beneath the rug.

“Privilege is a powerful currency. Racist and misogynistic structures grow stronger and stronger when writers of color, especially women, are shut out of opportunities that are granted to their white peers. Literature becomes uniform. New voices, the same new voices you claim to want to hear from, are locked away. If marginalized writers are not given the chance to represent themselves and their work, then the same aesthetic of writing from the same white male writers is published and praised, even in mediocrity. It’s a vicious circle and you are doing absolutely nothing to stop it.”

I was 16 and heartbroken; he was 25 and confident I met him on a bus stop in fall, he was tall and blonde. Lean yet gentle. Gentle but cocky. I thought he was everything. He stood at 6'3 like a tree towering over me. We played boyfriend and girlfriend. I knew I wasn’t his girlfriend. I was OK with that, I knew he wanted me for sex. I was trying to fill a void I couldn’t comprehend.

A void of loneliness and self pity, self hatred. For not being pretty or smart or desirable to the one I really wanted that didn’t want me.

I would meet him at his house and we would have sex. This went on for weeks. One day he moved to a county and I wanted to follow because I thought I deserved to be used and unloved.

To be nothing cause I truly believed that’s what I was. Nothing. The way he would smile at me was charming, he was charming. Then he moved and I lost his number. He was gone. And that was OK.

On November 17 he texted me saying he was downtown we should meet up. I told him I was talking to another person. He responded saying we were just friends it would be fine.

I went to meet him, he said hi to my friends and we walked around and went to the top of a parking garage to look at the Christmas lights in November.

“So are you serious about this guy”

“We just started talking honestly but I like him”

“Oh that’s cool, I guess” I didn’t really know what to say, I couldn’t really understand why we would be friends, it was awkward. But I wanted to see him, I wanted to embrace his charm, drown in his confidence. I missed him. He asked if the guy I liked and I were having sex. “No” He smiled really big, really wide. Saying I didn’t like him that much if we weren’t having sex. When we had sex the first time we met. That made me angry. I wasn’t a slut, I wasn’t like that. I was going to cry. He could see that,and kissed me telling me to stop being a little girl. To be a woman. To be a good little whore.

“I’m not a whore” He laughed at me while I cried agreeing with me how I wasn’t a whore but a slut. I told him I was leaving I walked to the hallway of the roof and he asked if I missed him.

“You keep calling me a whore, why would I?” he pulled at my skirt. I told him no I was on my period I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do it here. He told me to be adventurous.

I didn’t know I was raped until I was talking to my counselor about my “encounter ” with him. I told her I just let him do it even though I didn’t want to. it’s not like he held me down or beat me. But that’s not what rape is, it’s unconsented sex.

I didn’t report it, but I tried to confide in my aunt 3 weeks later soI could get tested. She told my guardian, who reported it. When I went to the DA they said they wouldn’t go to court no signs of force. And I waited too long to file a report.