The Role of the Safe Space

As Professor McKinney said in class the other day, we are in place and at a point in our lives where we can voice our opinions have dialogue about issues that are important to us. However, on this campus, it does not really work that way.

Take for example the Rhodes Bias Education Response System, which aims to:

1.       engage community members in dialogue, build awareness of on-going biases among us in order to help foster a learning, working, and living community free from hate, discrimination, harassment, disrespect, and intolerance.

2.      receive information in a sensitive and timely way.

3.      assess the circumstances of any reported incidents as thoroughly and quickly as possible with the information available.

4.      make referrals to appropriate campus officials so that action can be taken; and

5.       assist in implementation of a coordinated and appropriate community response (engaging partners as needed) and/or communicating with the community in an appropriate and timely fashion as often as is necessary.

Does this really accomplish this goal? No. By creating a place where people are able to escape so called harm because their feelings were hurt does not help anyone, nor does it aid in anyone’s educational experience. If you are working in the real world, your feelings do not really matter to your employers, it is instead, your output as an employer. If you put up poor numbers or do not perform your job as expected you will be fired, regardless of your opinion on an issue.

In this sense, Rhodes College is creating a community that truly embraces the “Rhodes Bubble” and is setting up people to fail. Instead of meeting every Monday with freshmen students to talk about whatever misguided, thrown-together last minute mess that the school can come up with, we should be teaching applicable job skills. For example, how to network, how to build a resume, how to work as a team, etc. Instead, we pile 20 freshmen into a room, and ask them to stay awake for an hour on a Monday evening when it is already dark outside, to talk about their privilege and how others may be offended by it. Tough shit. The world isn’t fair and if you don’t like the hand you were dealt, work to change it.

I am graduating from here this spring, and it cannot come quick enough.