America should be a ‘safe space’ for everyone

Matt Pearl

I have certainly seen a great deal of chatter – mainly the anonymous, social media-based type – speaking negatively about the safe spaces that presumably every college in the country is establishing to insulate spoiled brat millennials.

Well, I like safe spaces, and I have a number of qualifying traits I like to see in them, and reasons for liking them.

My major qualification is that America should be a safe space. As should Missouri. As should King City, Stanberry, Union Star, Ford City, Empire Prairie – you get the picture.

As a parent, part of my job is to provide a safe space for my kids. As an employer, I need to have a mind for the safety and well-being of folks working for me. Yes, safe spaces are fine with me – but I’m talking about actual safety.

What concerns me is when I see the term safe spaces being used in reference to sheltering adults from conflicting ideas or philosophies. History is on my side, folks: you can’t protect folks from ideas that offend them.

If a person is truly afraid for his or her safety, believing that they are being persecuted in a very un-American way, then every cop, National Guard member and private citizen should take responsibility for standing against the persecutors. If a person is being challenged for his or her beliefs, then I say, That’s America.

There are folks who read this column who don’t necessarily agree with my perspectives, and on a few occasions they have voiced their displeasure with my ideas to me. That’s their right, and if I’m going to put my thoughts into print, it’s absolutely what I can expect from the public.

Secluding the ideologically opposed into safe corners of campuses might have to be the first step – a panicked person first needs security, and then will be of the proper mindset to reason out his troubles.

But the logical next step is to re-acclimate them to the realities of the world. None of us may run and hide from a world that causes us grief and confusion: rather, we must face it head on, determined to leave things better than we found them.

So a safe space is a temporary holding spot, not a solution. It would be wonderful if we could all snap our fingers and make the problems go away that drive people into fear and hiding, but such a quick fix is impossible.

No, the real-world solution to the issue is to teach those who feel their worldview has been assailed that all of us have gone through it. Consider this: conservatives claim to have gone through eight years of the Obama administration working against their ideas. Liberals would, of course, accuse them of being oversensitive, which I often felt to be the truth.

There is fear among several in this nation about the assumption of power by President Trump, and the first instinct of a few in that group was to seek a form of asylum. Are they overreacting? Perhaps. But is our goal as a nation really four more years of bitter divide?

I was asked a while back what would have to be done about all these liberal millennials who can’t stop crying about Hillary losing – their words not mine. My answer that I’ll offer comes from my experience raising children:

Sometimes uncertainty or change is difficult. Once everyone is more calm and cooler heads begin to prevail, we may return to the business of being Americans. You can scorn and scowl at others for their ideas and feeling – but all you will ever do is make enemies.