I know that, as a white, middle-class, physically fit male, I am not allowed to have an opinion on anything. The reason I know this is because I’ve been told time and time again by the narrative that is relentlessly pushed by the media that only members of protected classes are allowed to speak on pretty much everything. I also know that I should probably say something here about this editorial of mine containing “trigger warnings” for people who’ve ever been bullied—which, as far as I know, includes everybody, including me. So consider yourselves warned that what’s about to follow may hurt somebody’s feelings.
Okay, glad we got all that out of the way.
Now, let me tell you how I feel about “safe spaces” on college campuses. I can basically sum it up this way: Fuck all that nonsense.
There are only a couple of things that any college student has the right to feel safe about:
- Students should have the right to expect that their physical persons are safe from violent assault of any type (provided that they don’t go around sticking their fingers in the faces of people who can whip their asses).
- Female students should feel safe from the threat of rape. No qualifiers needed here.
That’s it.
Students should not feel safe from the following:
- Ideas that are in direct opposition to their own
- Words that are “hurtful” or “hateful”
- Political positions that conflict with their own
- Facts and/or truths that don’t support their own myopic worldview.
In the wake of all of racial tension at the University of Missouri this week (about which, in all honesty, I don’t feel compelled to have an opinion), University of Missouri Police sent an e-mail to all students that they should report “hurtful or hateful speech.” Not only that, they should take a picture of the individual and his/her license plate.
I’m sorry. The world has lost its damn mind.
This is the United States of America. As far as I know, the First Amendment is still in place. We have the right to say hurtful things to each other. Sometimes, we are obligated to say hurtful things to each other. A college campus is supposed to be a place where young people challenge ideas, express new thoughts, encourage discourse—not report people to the police for saying things that hurt their feelings. If you can’t have your preconceived notions challenged on a college campus, then where CAN you? Even Orwell might not have believed that such Thought Police activity could occur here.
I can’t even begin to remember all the “hurtful” things that were said to me on the campus of The Ohio State University when I was a student—and some of them came directly from faculty members. I was a white kid trying to major in Jazz Studies, for goodness sake. I was in classes with a virtual salad bowl of cultures and ethnic backgrounds, including White, Black, and Hispanic students. You know what was crazy? We all got along just fine.
None of the black students felt unsafe because I was in a Jazz Studies program. They didn’t complain to the faculty that I was trying to appropriate or minimalize Black culture by playing Jazz. They didn’t need a “safe space” where they could “decompress.” We all hung out together. We played in bands together. We went to the clubs at night together. The lack of a “safe space” meant that I, a white kid from Dublin, Ohio, could play in a quintet with two black kids from the ghettos of Philadelphia, and a hispanic trumpet player from Miami, and the music we made together was nothing short of spectacular. Did I share their life experience? No. Of course not. How could I? But we learned more from being forced together than we ever could have in our own, voluntarily segregated safe spaces.
One can only imagine how the future employers of such pansified children will have to deal with such things as corrective action or performance reviews. “But it’s your job to create a safe space for me to work! How dare you give me a “Needs Improvement” just because I failed to achieve a single one of my Key Factors? Why did you take this job? Who the fuck hired you?” Good God.
I’m thrilled that my children will get the opportunity to compete against these fools. However, I’m concerned that by the time my young children are of college age, that none of the institutions of higher learning in this country will be “safe spaces” for independent thought. Can you homeschool your kids for college?