This might come as a shock to some of you but saying “I’m not informed enough on this particular topic to have an opinion” is about 100 times more respectable than being misinformed
I know in school they often teach us that ‘I don’t know’ is the worst possible answer and that you are better off making your best guess than admitting ignorance, but that’s because the educational system is a dumpster fire, and this is a habit that it pays to un-learn.
Have any of your friendships ever ended because you were always the first one to talk to someone and one day you stopped to see if they would talk to you first and they never did so you just stopped talking to each other?
Hey so I see this post a lot on my dash, and so I’m gonna take this moment to say something about it. When you are always the one initiating contact or hangouts with your friends, then it sets up a certain expected dynamic between the two of you. And so when you stop contacting them, they may be so used to you being the one who reaches out that when you don’t, they’ll assume it’s just because you’re busy. Or because you no longer want to hang out with /them/. So instead of just cutting off contact, talk to your friends. Let them know that you feel like you’re the one always making plans. You’ll be surprised at the number of them willing to make a change to help you feel more appreciated and loved. People can’t read minds. If you don’t tell them what you need or how you feel, then they’ll never know.
A hard lesson: some people are intellectual flashers who go out into public spaces and open their mental raincoat and waggle their awful opinions at you without permission. You do not have to engage with these people.
lately i’ve been replacing my “i’m sorry”s with “thank you”s, like instead of “sorry i’m late” i’ll say “thanks for waiting for me”, or instead of “sorry for being such a mess” i’ll say “thank you for loving me and caring about me unconditionally” and it’s not only shifted the way i think and feel about myself but also improved my relationships with others who now get to receive my gratitude instead of my negativity
do people not know the 5 minute rule????? if there is something “wrong” with someone’s appearance and it can’t be fixed in 5 minutes don’t tell them!!!! don’t be an ass!!! food in someones teeth? sure! let them know! wrinkled shirt? smudged makeup? messy hair? yes! talk to the person if you want! tattoos/tattoo placement? crooked nose? obnoxious laugh? shut the fuck up!!!! don’t make someone selfconscious about something they can’t fix!!!! dont be a dick!!!
also if they’ve only been on the ground for 5 minutes it’s still safe to eat them
@funereal-disease asked some people on Facebook what kind of environment they needed from a safe space. I thought the responses were really interesting. It seems like you could break down needs from a safe space into a couple categories:
tone: “I need a space where I won’t be scolded for my anger”/”I need a space where people aren’t acting angrily”; “I need a space where you’re expected to communicate compassionately and patiently”/“I need a space where I won’t be punished for being bitter or impatient or unable to extend the benefit of the doubt”; “I need a space where jokes and flippancy are encouraged”/”I need a space where people take the things we’re discussing seriously”.
content: “I need a space where I don’t have to debate whether I deserve to exist”/”I need a space where I can try to explain and empathize with and inhabit the opinions of my political opponents, even where their beliefs are abhorrent and scary”; “I need a space where people like me are not discussed as scary violent abusers”; “I need a space where I can talk about my scary violent abusers”; “I need a space where my religious beliefs will be respected”/”I need a space where I can complain about the religious beliefs that harmed me without worrying about being respectful”.
social rules: “I need it to be easy to leave”; “I need it to be easy to change your mind”; “I need to know that if I make a mistake someone will talk to me in private instead of calling me out in public”; “I need transparency about moderation and what people get banned or excluded for”; “I need to know that if someone harasses me they will get excluded”.
In other words, needs about how to communicate, what to communicate, and how to handle transgressions.
I would be so delighted if instead of ‘this is a safe space’ posters on doors it became conventional to have signs that said “this is a safe space for emotional expression and venting” or “this is a space where harassment procedures have been refined a lot and work really well” or “this is a space where you can express hurtful and wrong ideas and expect people will try to argue with you but not shame you or attack you or exclude you, with an expectation of confidentiality, and with really emphatic moderation on the ‘not attacking people’ rule”.
I guess it’s a little too big to fit on a sign.
This is interesting! And these various dichotemies sum up a lot of what, I personally, run into as difficult with safe spaces, and interacting with people in SJ communities. Theres a lot of ‘seperated by a common language’ that goes on with some of these concepts and I think a lot of these safe space definition incompatibilities sum up a lot of them.
I’ve got a fair amount of thoughts about this. I think that all of these types of spaces are necessary and that explicitly defining what sort of space something is would be a super great thing.
Possibly-obvious corollary, but I feel like it needs to be made explicit:
If your sign says “This is a safe space” without further elaboration, then once people figure out in practice which of these conflicting needs you’re prioritizing and which you’re kicking to the curb, it’s inevitable that some of them will walk away having been told, “Your needs are not safe, you are not safe, and your idea of what safety entails is dangerous and harmful.”
If your sign says “This is a safe space for [group],” then the same thing will happen, except with the added sting of “You are a danger to the very group you’re a member of, and also you’re doing group membership wrong.”
If you’re asking, “Why can’t we make the entire community/school/world a safe space? You, person in charge of [space that exists for a completely different purpose], how dare you not declare this a safe space, how could you be so heartless?” This is why. This is how. One person’s safety is another person’s misery, repression, or even danger, because people’s needs conflict. Wanting to extend the safe space out to blanket the rest of the world inherently means going from telling people “your needs and way of existing are dangerous” to telling people “the dangerousness of your needs and existence means they’re wrong, and anyone who cares about what really matters should forbid them.”
Also:
When you don’t specify what “safe” means and who/what it’s for, people will try to figure it out. Some of them will come to different conclusions than you expected. Obviously this means false positives–people coming into the safe space thinking they’ll be allowed and supported for something you formed the safe space to get away from. But it also means false negatives–people assuming the thing they need will be rejected and labeled “unsafe,” when really you meant nothing of the sort.
The more aggressive you are about expanding the unspecified “safe space” and conflating “unsafe [for this space]” and “not okay,” the more people will hear that as “the way you are, the things you need, the thoughts you’re burning to express, are bad and dangerous and in a just world you’d either be brought into line or kicked out.” Whether your implicit idea of “unsafe” applies to them or not.
Please consider this next time someone reacts to the idea of blanket “safe spaces” with fear or hostility.
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