[RD] Diversity of Safe Spaces

[BvBPL]

Cameron Okeke recently pointed out that there are two definitions of safe spaces. One is a place where one could “run away from people’s perspectives” and the other being “places where people didn’t question who I was.” The first is a place free of challenges, the second is one free of “pestering,” i.e. a place where discussions are held in a “respectful manner.” (all quotes of Okeke)

So one definition is a place free of contrary opinions. The other is a place free of disrespect.

A problem with dialogues around safe spaces is how the easily a speaker may mean one type of safe space and a listener may assume another. This miscommunication leads to confusion and worse. The solution is for the speaker to clearly define safe spaces in front of any discussion. Or just avoid the confusion all together by avoiding the value-laden term and call it something else.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well, it's easy enough to "run away from people's perspectives"; just run away from people.

Institutionally sponsored safe spaces must be the second variety: a place for people to gather and socialize where they won't be questioned for who they are.

 

[Lexicus]

Is "black people are mentally inferior subhumans" a "contrary opinion" or does it constitute "disrespect?"

 

[Gori the Grey]

My dog was calling for a walk, so I didn't finish my last post.

What I think the first kind is is the right's caricature of the second. They treat minorities' not wanting to have their very identity challenged as minorities wanting to flee "alternate opinions." But when the "alternate opinion" is "you are a mentally inferior subhuman," well, we're back to the second kind of retreat.

To put it another way. There's only one kind of safe space. The supposedly first of Okeke's kinds is just the right's caricature of safe spaces.

Yes, they should be clearly delineated in any conversation about safe spaces: the one as an accommodation institutions make to help minorities deal with the hostilities they routinely face, the other as a fantasy.

 

[BvBPL]

That first use isn’t limited to people who might not be expected to know better. The University of Chicago used the first definition last fall with its letter to incoming students. As did the Atlantic the year prior.

Katherine Ho draws out some other interesting definitions as well.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Cameron Okeke recently pointed out that there are two definitions of safe spaces. One is a place where one could “run away from people’s perspectives” and the other being “places where people didn’t question who I was.” The first is a place free of challenges, the second is one free of “pestering,” i.e. a place where discussions are held in a “respectful manner.” (all quotes of Okeke)

So one definition is a place free of contrary opinions. The other is a place free of disrespect.

A problem with dialogues around safe spaces is how the easily a speaker may mean one type of safe space and a listener may assume another. This miscommunication leads to confusion and worse. The solution is for the speaker to clearly define safe spaces in front of any discussion. Or just avoid the confusion all together by avoiding the value-laden term and call it something else.

People who don't want to be exposed to contrary opinions should stay home and never talk to anyone else.

Free of disrespect? Yeah, that's how I would term "safe spaces" - whether online in communities where the rules are strict about trolling and flaming, or in RL.

I'm reminded of one year when we arrived for the Thanksgiving weekend science fiction convention in Calgary, only to discover that in addition to our convention, the provincial Liberal Party's leadership convention was also going on. As Murphy's Law would have it, my suite was next to the hospitality suite for one of the candidates (who happened to be the one my grandmother favored).

Well, that weekend was an absolute nightmare. Delegates were clogging the hallway to the point where we could barely get in and out of our room, and if any of us happened to be wearing costumes, it was even worse - hoots and snide remarks about the costumes, even considering that I was wearing a long dress that reached the floor, nothing immodest whatsoever. One of my roommates picked that weekend to try out her chainmail bikini, and of course that got people's attention in a negative way. I dreaded the gauntlet between my room and the elevator, but once I arrived at the mezzanine where our convention was, it was a huge relief - safely away from those disgusting politicians and their hooligan-like delegates.

Some of their delegates decided to crash our convention, sneaking into panel discussions, poking around the dealers' room, art room, video room... we really weren't amused, since we'd paid for the privilege of attending and meeting the authors, artists, etc. who were the Guests of Honor.

The final joke was on them, though. They called the police and told them that illegal activities were going on in our consuite (while the political delegates were carrying open containers of alcohol in the hallways - illegal here). When the cops arrived, they found two people in our consuite, drinking coffee and having a quiet conversation. The politicians, on the other hand, got kicked out of the hotel on Saturday night, and it was very satisfying to see them leaving in a steady stream, toting their suitcases... giving us dirty looks as they passed the room where some of us were enjoying a session of filking.

Is "black people are mentally inferior subhumans" a "contrary opinion" or does it constitute "disrespect?"

It constitutes racism.

 

[Lexicus]

It constitutes racism.

Sure, but the point is that very ugly views (including racism and sexism) can be expressed politely, even, in a superficial sense, respectfully. Liberal centrist commentators like those who so often decry safe spaces and other activities of student activists often give the impression that tone matters to them more than content.

 

[Traitorfish]

Sure, but the point is that very ugly views (including racism and sexism) can be expressed politely, even, in a superficial sense, respectfully. Liberal centrist commentators like those who so often decry safe spaces and other activities of student activists often give the impression that tone matters to them more than content.

I think we're far past the point of impressions, on that one.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sure, but the point is that very ugly views (including racism and sexism) can be expressed politely, even, in a superficial sense, respectfully. Liberal centrist commentators like those who so often decry safe spaces and other activities of student activists often give the impression that tone matters to them more than content.

There is no polite way to say racist and sexist things. Hopefully this will be brought home to the racist currently running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. I refer, of course, to Kellie Leitch - who wants to vet all immigrants, refugees and visitors to Canada, and anyone who can't pass her "Canadian values" test wouldn't get in. On the surface, of course it makes sense to impress upon newcomers here that we value equality of the sexes, same-sex marriage is allowed, abortion is allowed, women can wear whatever they want, etc... but she is so obviously aiming this at Muslim immigrants and refugees by sly references to stoning women and other things known to occur in the justice system in some Middle Eastern countries.

She conveniently chooses to ignore the fact that there are many Canadians who don't accept full equality for everyone, would repeal the marriage laws and abortion and assisted dying immediately if they could, and don't respect people's freedom of religion (or to choose no religion). When a journalist questioned whether she would allow a Catholic immigrant in who refused to accept that abortion, same-sex marriage, and assisted dying were legal, she dodged the question and steered it back to her narrow agenda.

 

[Traitorfish]

There is no polite way to say racist and sexist things.

Haven't known that to stop people from trying, mind.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I'm not a racist, i'm an equal opportunity offender.

 

[Arwon]

Cameron Okeke recently pointed out that there are two definitions of safe spaces. One is a place where one could “run away from people’s perspectives”

Uh that really doesn't sound like it's a thing to be honest.

 

[Traitorfish]

Uh that really doesn't sound like it's a thing to be honest.

Never encountered the Free Church of Scotland, I take it?

 

[Camikaze]

A problem with dialogues around safe spaces is how the easily a speaker may mean one type of safe space and a listener may assume another. This miscommunication leads to confusion and worse. The solution is for the speaker to clearly define safe spaces in front of any discussion. Or just avoid the confusion all together by avoiding the value-laden term and call it something else.

My only problem with this is that it seems to imply that the listener is aware that 'safe space' has two meanings, and is simply assuming one rather than the other in a specific instance. I think it's more that there's a lack of awareness of the 'place without disrespect' meaning.

Uh that really doesn't sound like it's a thing to be honest.

I don't think it's a thing which anyone would request in a particularly self-aware manner, but I think it is essentially what some people are after. So for instance, it might be said that a lot of Trump supporters on, say, reddit, are keen to preserve a 'safe space' where no contrary opinions are allowed to exist. I suppose this might be best called something other than a 'safe space', but the use of that phrase is simply picking up on the way in which those same Trump supporters would be likely to define the phrase.

 

[Arwon]

Ah, I mean, in terms of university policies where the phrase "safe space" usually gets used in this weirdo paranoiac derisive manner it's started to be used lately. You know, where not paying attention to people's Very Important Opinions at all times and in all venues is tantamount to Stalinism. It rings of the caricature by idiot Young Liberals* of things like the queer space at my old uni. People who of course miss that the "perspectives" being censoriously "run away" from are banal, hegemonic, internalised by most, and not exactly revelatory.

Obviously plenty of people choose not to listen to every possible political/ideological viewpoint they could be listening to. That just seems truistic and probably universal to be honest. I suspect that to voraciously seek out everyone's diverse dumb opinions is a bit of a niche hobby at most.

I'm pretty happy to admit my Twitter feed deliberately isn't filled with 9/11 truthers or Hungarian revanchists or tech singularity enthusiasts or whatever, so you could easily describe that as "running away" from such perspectives. And none of our corporate and public media broadcasters tend to be plastered with the opinions of flat-earthers or (for the moment at least) white supremacists. Or of revolutionary socialists or deep ecologists, for that matter.

(One could refer here to the national cross-partisan journalistic freakout we just had in Australia because the new boss of our trade union peak body pointed out that sometimes it's right to break unjust laws. Could these people possibly have never been exposed to that fairly straightforward and historically grounded notion before?)

*Young Liberals = Young Republicans or Young Tories or whatever tedious right wing youth political wing you prefer

 

[El_Machinae]

Uh that really doesn't sound like it's a thing to be honest.

That's why I like the insight. Because the concern is mostly that the two people are using different understanding of a simple phrase. It colloquially means something different to each, and so they argue. If you note the argument, you can just point out the different definitions. We run into this a lot. BLM and ALM. Calling Islamophobia racism, etc.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Cameron Okeke recently pointed out that there are two definitions of safe spaces. One is a place where one could “run away from people’s perspectives” and the other being “places where people didn’t question who I was.” The first is a place free of challenges, the second is one free of “pestering,” i.e. a place where discussions are held in a “respectful manner.” (all quotes of Okeke)

So one definition is a place free of contrary opinions. The other is a place free of disrespect.

A problem with dialogues around safe spaces is how the easily a speaker may mean one type of safe space and a listener may assume another. This miscommunication leads to confusion and worse. The solution is for the speaker to clearly define safe spaces in front of any discussion. Or just avoid the confusion all together by avoiding the value-laden term and call it something else.

The term "safe space" always refers to the former. Arguing the latter is just ignorance of the concept. Even South Park knows it. Come on.

THAT is "safe space". Always.

The WORST is when it's institutional, championed by educational faculty or moderators. They had might as well be bashing people over the head with hammers, they're so intent on making the safe space people remain ignorant/clueless.. or worse want to victimize the people themselves and manage it by controlling incoming information. (called grooming)

 

[El_Machinae]

ADH, the person who's using the term might literally be using a different definition. You've two options - get them to change the name of what they're describing and then continue the conversation. Or you can just shift your mindspace to understand the definition they're using and then continue the conversation.

If truly bored, you can just contribute to the endless threads about whether babies are atheist or not. Cause people like to argue about the definition of 'atheist'.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

ADH, the person who's using the term might literally be using a different definition.

They might literally be ignorant of the fact or in denial, too. The might literally have a Reddit addiction, the source of both "safe space" fandom and mangled concepts.

 

[Lexicus]

The might literally have a Reddit addiction, the source of both "safe space" fandom and mangled concepts.

Hmm, I admit this is a new one, usually reactionaries seem to think Tumblr is the place from which all this stuff emanates.