Say, we can
act if we want to
If we don't, nobody will
And you can act real rude
and totally removed
And I can act like an
imbecile
And say, we
can dance, we can dance
[“Safety
Dance” by Men Without Hats]
I’ve been reading about “safe spaces” more than usual lately, you
know, the metaphorical and literal environment we create for ourselves with
each other so that we can pretend to avoid the risk of rejection or ridicule. It comes in handy while discussing topics that may or may not be comfortable for us to discuss. I
credit Starbucks although I doubt they intended this consequence when they started
the #RaceTogether coffee cup hashtag. As a non-coffee drinker, I first worried that
some caffeinated person wanted me to run a 5K with them. Then I read the PR and
realized the Starbucks' CEO expected his baristas to engage customers in
conversations about racial equality.
Smart, funny, bold coffee addicts populate the majority of
my Twitter timeline; they go to Starbucks, and this past week some of them asked
the barista to start the conversation. That’s how I learned that the Starbucks’
baristas have been given no script and very few guidelines on how to conduct a
conversation about race relations in America, which seems risky. What if the
barista is actually a closet racist faking a tolerant mindset just to keep the
job? How would that conversation go? But I digress.
Whether or not Starbucks artfully executed the program, they
at least started a conversation, and that is never a bad thing. But it has led
to some sidebars about “safe spaces” in which to conduct difficult dialog, and
whether or not such spaces exist. Earlier today, a Tweep shared an article link
to a New
York Times op-ed piece on the topic that piqued me.
The article begins with the author detailing the “safe
space” created at Brown University in response to a debate being held to
discuss campus rape culture. The potential for a nuanced and informed exchange
of ideas to make rape survivors feel invalidated may or may not be a dominant
concern, but a few students saw the risk and created a safe space for attending
rape survivors who might experience a trigger during the debates. This space they
stocked with “cookies,
coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video
of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal
with trauma.” The trained students and staff members made perfect sense to
me, but bubbles?
The space sounded more like my old kindergarten classroom. Were
the victims children? If so, I could understand it, but how were cookies and
coloring books going to help college-aged women work through the trauma, talk
about the nightmares, face the triggers, and learn to defeat them? How would
Play-Doh educate their friends, sisters, brothers, parents, and lovers on how
to better show compassion? The space sounded more escapist than safe.
I retweeted the article with my own two cents thrown in:
“Cookies and coloring books? Are they ten?” I did not ask the questions
sarcastically (although I own that sarcasm is my usual demeanor where retweets are
concerned). I sincerely did not understand how coloring books made a place
safe. My questions reverberated as snark though, and someone else on Twitter
quickly reminded me that the person who created the space was “a rape survivor,
but whatevs,” which is Twitterspeak for “but if you want to be an asshole, just
know I think you are being an asshole and shame on you.” (At least that is how I use “whatevs.”)
Twitter likes to shame. Twitter
is no safe space.
The world is no safe space.
And college is supposed to be
teaching that.
Humans can create the illusion of safe space – we can fill
the metaphoric room of our choice with like-minded people and promise not to
step on each other’s toes while we do a safety dance of political correctness. We’ll hold
conversations on pre-approved topics with expected emotional responses ranging
from mild interest to active encouragement. We’ll discourage negative criticism,
everyone wins a trophy, and those who disrupt the order, we will shun. In this
bubble we’ll convince ourselves we are enlightened. It is the ultimate denial.
In that “safe” space, we lose our ability to think
critically, to argue successfully, to change a mind, plead a cause, march for
reform. I think we also lose empathy for one another – that necessary element –
the only hope to keep Homo Sapiens
from fully devolving into sociopathic narcissists. So many people prefer to
avoid uncomfortable truths or refuse to listen to the stories told by fellow humans of racial
injustice, sexual violence, abuse, and oppression. In the absence of conversation , they (we, I) never learn to
understand the courage of those who experience it, survive, and press on. Those
in true denial delude themselves into thinking it doesn’t happen often or only
to people who deserved it. It provides their rationale to ignore the calls for change
or the suggestions that one could do better. In the blind eye turned, others
perpetuate the violence, parrot the old hatreds, and create a new generation of
intolerance. The space is anything but safe.
More baffling is why today’s future leaders think safe
spaces are necessary. No one ever taught me something by agreeing with me. I
was schooled in how to debate and raised with an open mind. I learned more through
hard conversations with others who, rightly or wrongly, believed I was the
problem, than I learned in books and movies, which are skewed by their creators’
personal biases. As a teenager I was threatened with a beating for my whiteness
while walking home after school: “Didn’t you see Roots? Don’t you remember slavery?” Rhetorical questions unanswered
by my feeble “yes” and “no, I wasn’t alive then.” In that moment, I had no safe
space, and it was a hard conversation.
My takeaway from that scary experience? Getting judged based
only on skin color really fucking sucks. I empathized. I quit doing that to
others.
I was never informed by being called a name either, and I have been
called many, but I don’t care. If you have resorted to that, you have lost the
debate. Your toolbox is empty, and your clue bag is filled with trash.
We each have the power to create a safe space, not just for
ourselves but also for others. It’s a choice we make – recognize shared common
ground, celebrate what’s different in ourselves and in others -- dance if we
want to.
