I am talking about both physical and emotional feelings of security, Greg. I don't think there's any great difference between being scared for your life and being scared for your emotional well-being when you are scared. But either way, yes, I think that's exactly the place where we can try to avoid that. Maybe you're comfortable with vulnerable people being uncomfortable around you, but I'm not. I'd like to make every effort to make a safe space, of any kind, anywhere I can. I don't even understand what you mean by it being undesirable, unless you're looking for like a cold, distanced hard-hitting debate arena tackling the tough questions like Youtube comments or something.

Why shouldn't NPF feel safe? Let's open that question to the whole forum.

Meanwhile, you might want to think about how people you talk to feel about you talking to them, if you're interested in continuing to talk to people. It may not be your responsibility to care about other people, but that doesn't mean you can't do it if you want to.

My opinion is that we can, and very much should be inclusive and non-threatening, but we fundamentally can't actually make anyone feel safe.

If I'm allowed to use the house party metaphor I brought up in my last post, of course you kick out the asshat making the sexist and racist remarks, and you should be considerate enough not to tell a 'yo momma' joke in front of someone whose mother just died, but the actual 'safe space' stuff is what therapists and tender moments with your loved ones are for and I really don't think a house party with dozens of people is the place where that can happen.

Yes, Nique, this is 'I think, I think'. That's why I want to discuss it, maybe I AM in the wrong, but I'll never know unless I bring it up.

We can't make anyone feel safe, but we sure as hell can provide an environment that is unwelcoming to people who make other people feel unsafe.

Greg this seems really pedantic and not terribly constructive.

"Dozens" of people might be an exaggeration, but anyway, why not? We don't have to be limited to trusting only close family members and professional therapists for a handful of seconds a week. Maybe we'll never be able to let ourselves be completely vulnerable on the Internet, but why not a little bit? Why not work towards NPF having that kind of atmosphere and see how good we can make it? You seem opposed to the idea, like there's some benefit to mistrust and discomfort.

If you are in control of an area, which we are here, why the heck wouldn't you make it one where you keep out bigots?

What sort of ~*precious prejudices*~ do they give us that we want? The only reason the world isn't a safe space is because of assholes, and why would you sit around going, "Well, he's a dick and makes my friends upset, but I don't want to ruin the potential for racist discussions going on in my house by kicking him out"? Has it occurred to you that maybe we do not want racist discussions going on in our forum? Has it occurred to you that to go, "Let's allow people to bloviate rhythmically, spewing bigoted rhetoric everywhere" is the issue, and things only get heated because of that? Or that allowing bigoted dialogue only encourages the bigots to come here, and discourages those who are oppressed from staying?

How the heck is it undesirable to have a safe place for everyone to be themselves without being attacked? If you want to be horrible, go out into the rest of the world and do it. That is already your place to do that! We don't NEED a forum dedicated to emulating the rest of the world where anyone can be horrible and have no consequences, because it is already RIGHT THERE. Instead, let's have a better version of the world we live in, where people can be who they are, and not fucking worry about someone throwing shit at them that they have to deal with day in and day out everywhere else.

It is coming across that way, which is why this conversation is getting a little frustrating.

What is happening is, Greg, you are sort of getting hung up on what YOUR idea of 'safe space' means when its actually being used in a more general sense, which I think has been explained in part by the acknowledgment that 'no, we can't make things perfect in this type of space, but we still want to respond in a way that shows we don't want bigotry here' (I am paraphrasing what Shiney and others have said here, in case that was unclear).

Reading everyone's posts closely, you are more in agreement than you think. Semantics is sort of getting in the way here.

You've succeeded.

I don't, as a rule, get involved when this kind of thing blows up, because it's not really my business, because it usually involves the same people over and over again, and because, quite frankly, it's just plain whacked no matter how you try to look at it.

Time and time again, however, I refrain from posting because I know pretty much how it's going to go. Safe place? That's a joke when 80% of the discourse on this forum begins when someone asks a question about some issue, and someone who self-identifies as a social justice warrior jumps down their throat and attacks them for trying to understand. Things spiral out of control from there, but that's where it always starts.

That's why I don't participate here. This has become such a toxic, insular community of zealots that it's pointless to try to have a discussion. I'm a feminist, but I'm also apparently the absolute scum of the earth for not being as gung ho or postmodern or SJW enough for certain people's liking. So is everyone else who isn't as zealous as they are.

Which is why there's no actual discourse, and why this community keeps having the same problem over and over again. There are people who are interested in discussion. And there are people who are interested in getting everyone else to believe the same things they believe.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ C.S. Lewis.

I don't know if this is a true quote or not, and as far as I'm concerned it really doesn't matter. Whoever wrote it/said it has a fair point. And this is the "safe" place you've built. I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't participate because the chance of getting jumped on for asking a question about something they don't understand is pretty damn high. Why bother asking a question if you know you're going to get vitriol rather than an answer?

Well, I've almost scrapped this post twice now, so I may as well just end it here.

LOL @ 'Nique as SJW'

Toast, if that's what you really think and you aren't totally full of it as is SO often the case with the 'boo hoo poor me the scary SJWs are being meeeean to me' complaints, you are 100% misreading this forum's history and the validity of your 'fear of vitriol'.

Like K-Resh, I used to think that politness was above all until I reliazed that it was being used, intentionally or not, as a sheild to mask actual bigotry.

Just, you know, so we all remember:
Out and out unashamed bigotry. Not asking for information, not making a mistake. Right up in your face bigotry.