In pursuit of safer spaces

When Ohio University College Republican students painted ‘Trigger warning: There are no safe spaces in real life! You can’t wall off the 1st amendment,’ on their campus, or when the University of Chicago issued a letter to incoming freshmen stating the university does not support safe spaces or trigger warnings, it begged the question why people endeavor to create safe spaces and why they’re necessary.

“A safer space is a space people can express themselves especially if they’re a marginalized identity,” said Lucky Liu, an owner and operator of 3 Moons, a Richmond DIY venue, which has been throwing house shows and events since June. “It’s a place people can come to feel safe. ‘A safer space’ because safe spaces don’t exist.”

You make a safer space by setting up expectations for behavior beforehand, Liu said. She said this helps enforce accountability. To emphasize this, one or more of the owners of 3 Moons reads their venue’s statement two to three times a night, Liu said.

“3M is a sober creative space that centers people of color, especially queer POC (people of color) and POC femmes,” reads a statement on the 3 Moons Facebook Page. “Here, the presence, agency, and comfort of POC take priority over those of white people. As a bare minimum, whites and in many ways, non-black POC, should listen more than they speak and carefully consider how much space they’re taking up. White people, you are bystanders here.”

Arguments against safer spaces accuse people of being too sensitive or wanting special treatment, said Mitchie Shue, a Richmond artist and organizer for Great Dismal, a group that sets up DIY and venue shows across the city. This fails to recognize the realities of being a part of any marginalized group, he said.

“We live in a rape culture. We live under white supremacy in a male dominated society,” Shue said. “The very fact that this exists is more than enough to make safer spaces necessary.”

Shue said operating and attending a safer space involves unlearning a lot of things we’ve been socialized to believe and that it’s important to recognize that there are certain things one knows that are just wrong.

“Safer” is important because not everyone experiences spaces in the same way as others, states the New York Coalition for Safer Spaces’ website. Any one set of guidelines established to create safety may not meet the requirements of everyone, and there may be complications or lapses in fulfilling those guidelines in practice, the website states.

“I like to paint my nails or cross dress or wear eyeliner, and these cis straight rap n(…)as will look me up and down and try to undermine my work,” said Richmond artist Shaheed Chambers. “People look at you like you’re queer, you’re trans, you’re different.”

According to Chambers, “white fragility” goes a long way in undermining safer spaces. He says people who don’t want to admit that they’ve been programmed with toxic and discriminating ideologies won’t conduct themselves appropriately and cause problems in these spaces.

Richmond artist and Great Dismal organizer Drew Necci said challenging the default assumptions of people in safer spaces is key and without standards of behavior set in advance, people will revert to behaviors they assume are acceptable in the space.

“It creates a self-selecting environment, where only the people who feel most comfortable in the environment, usually cis white males, will populate it,” Necci said.

Necci said another key element of building a safer space is being willing to have conversations about who can and cannot be in a space. She believes this starts with coming from a place of belief with victims of abuse and harassment, but also having conversations with everyone involved.

“People don’t want to do the work, they just want to throw accusations and be done with it,” Necci said. “Otherwise I’m ostracizing someone based on a rumor, or ignoring it and letting someone stay and risking that rumor being true.”

Necci herself was temporarily banned from 3 Moons for escalating a disagreement into an argument with another attendee.

“What I should have said was ‘I don’t know if I agree with that. Are you willing to have a conversation about it?’ But the guy felt so uncomfortable (because of the argument) he left,” Necci said. “You’re going to fuck up. It’s important to be accountable.”

You can’t always ask someone to be less emotional about an issue, said VCU student Jafar Cooper, one half of The Ice Cream Support Group, which organizes social events and collaborative spaces for people of color and those with marginalized identities in Richmond.

“It can be hard to ask someone to slow down. We can’t always expect the person to take a step back and be less emotional,” Cooper said. “Always have people designated in the space to diffuse those situations.”

Cooper said if someone is part of a group that has the privilege of not experiencing discrimination and marginalization, then they should be invested in making safer spaces so that everyone can experience those luxuries.

“It’s a constant learning process for everyone,” Cooper said.

Christian Something, the other half The Ice Cream Support Group, said if you get an invite to a party and just go and have a good time, understand the luxury you have. Something said there are people who have to check over the entire invite list to see if their abuser is going.

“The people that need a safer space can’t go to most events because of who they are,” Something said. “They won’t have a good time. They won’t be comfortable.”

Ultimately, making safer spaces is a necessary conversation; things constantly change. Talking to people and finding out what they need and want in a space and balancing that out is important, according to Something.

A large part of the problem in Richmond is that there’s a lack of social education and accountability, said Richmond artist Robalu Gibsun.

“The reality of a safe space is to know there’s been so much violence that you need an asylum. And music is a healing tool,” Gibsun said.

Models for creating your own safe spaces at events and in homes can be found on the New York Coalition for Safer Spaces’ website.

SPECTRUM EDITOR

Jesse Adcock
Jesse is a junior print journalism major and Arabic and Middle Eastern culture minor. He has walked in the valley with no water and bitten the heads off of snakes.
Facebook
adcockj@commonwealthtimes.org

PHOTO EDITOR

Julie Tripp
Julie is a senior photo major, minoring in media studies. She worked as a staff photographer for the CT for two years before becoming photo editor. Julie also works for the VCU Libraries handling and preparing books belonging to VCU or are borrowed from other institutions. Last semester Julie studied abroad at UWE Bristol.
Facebook | LinkedIn
trippjm@commonwealthtimes.org