I would like to thanks Skull for inspiring me and helping me doing this podcast. Here is the script. Enjoy !
SCRIPT
ALYIAH: Hi everyone, it’s 7am and you are listening to your favorite radio « Play Mouth » with your favorite radio host: ALYIAH ! Today we are gonna talk about a specific subject: we are gonna talk about safe spaces! We hear more and more often about these safe spaces.
Last year, the Imazin.Reine collective (a feminist collective created by Brussels-based Fatima-Zohra) created an online event supported by a group of actors from the literary world. This event was controversial because it was only open to racialized queer women. It was then a single-sex event, without cis male and without white people. For this reason, some politicians have denounced a “racialist and sexist drift supported by a part of the left”.
There are many cases like this in today’s society. A lot in the American Universities.
Well, to discuss this topic, I am pleased to welcome Skull, a dear friend who brought this topic to my attention and thus made this podcast possible today! Hello Skull!
SKULL: Hi Alyiah !
ALYIAH: So, Skull, let’s get started. What do you think of these spaces of speech, called safe spaces, where marginalized people come together to talk about their experience?
SKULL: I am very proud to be invited in your radio station today and I really hope I’ll able to raise the debate on this sensitive subject. For my part, I do not believe at all in the efficiency and the rationality of this concept either in France or America. Communitarization generates a lot of insecurity feeling in all the students. Those who are for the concept will comfort in self victimisation and between oneself. The silent mass will not dare discussing about it whereas those against will be excluded from the debate. This is not really inclusive.
ALYIAH: I understand your point of view, but don’t you think that the social reality today is marked by undeniable social discrimination which is increasingly complicated to live with. It is complicated in the daily life of women, racialized people and LGBTQI people. These safes spaces are, then, important for social minority groups in order to allow a space for speech and liberation without judgment, nor moral aggression and which meets a need for security, kindness and inclusiveness.
SKULL: Indeed, but the main trait to notice in this kind of place is a high sensitivity to contradiction and to the slightest aspect of confrontation which will not help things and will encourage the development of a potentially sectarian point of view, if he is not at least discriminatory. This is without, obviously, mentioning the fact that it is illegal to discriminate people on sexual or ethnic criteria.
ALYIAH: And do you know that these safes spaces often take place in university or during higher education? We can also note that discrimination often leads to greater university failure! Because of that, a lot of students obviously need help to improve and stand the curses. Are not the safes spaces becoming a way of helping students not to give up their studies?
SKULL: The scientific and universitary world must be presented upstream to students through education. We must therefore teach and use the most important fundamental principles of this discipline : knowing how to use his critical sense en endure criticism because without it, it’s impossible to find a consensus on the reality of observable phenomena. Removing creticism from a discussion space is in itself problematic. Discussing an unfouned point of viex and trying to prove to each other the reasons for unverified things to be considered trus RAISES questions about the academic seriousness of these students
ALYIAH: But these spaces are supposed to be temporary and one-off spaces. Precisely the fact that it is punctual in this way, makes it possible to offer to marginalized people places where they will be able to temporarily exchange ideas, understand that they are not alone and that other people are going through the same thing but above all gain in strength. A bit like a boost from the strength of the collective. If, indeed, it was daily and regular gatherings I would understand the risks of safe spaces, but here we are on a way of breathing by having a space for self-care. This question of temporality, doesn’t it change the idea?
SKULL: That is not the question. The problem that arise is the one about academic and public sphere. To prohibit a debate space to an ethnic or a sexual orientation group is a sectarian consensus decision. Let’s notice that a person living in his unhapiness will want to get more and more involved in his organization in which he believes, comforting him in a vacuum thought.
ALYIAH: Well I see that time is passing! I would have appreciated continuing this exchange with you SKULL but it is time for us to close our discussion to make way for the next program! I hope you enjoyed this moment and that we can meet again very soon for new discussions, each more interesting than the last! As for you, my dear radio users, don’t forget, Play Mouth is a hot topic every morning at 7am! See you tomorrow !