SAFE ROOMS ON CAMPUS

Seriously, are you fucking kidding me?

Many of you hear the term “safe room”, and you undoubtedly think about either a bank vault or the enclosure that Jody Foster and Kristen Stewart jumped into in the two star movie “Panic Room” which had a respectable $95M box office back in 2002.  Our heroines jumped into a specially built room impervious to break ins.  This was to protect them from three hoodlums looking to steal money, or kill them, or read them Al Gore speeches, or some other heinous crime.  Justice prevails of course.  But I digress.

If you did not immediately think of the special rooms being constructed on college campuses nationwide, you have somehow missed one of the most hilariously disturbing phenomena impacting our best and brightest young people.  These rooms are being made available to shelter young pinheads who are so traumatized by the presence on campus of a speaker brought in to espouse a point of view other than the ones they hold most dear, that they need special protection to feel safe.

There are many of my loyal readers who are saying to themselves, there goes that clown Billy Bushwood, making up ludicrous stories to get a laugh..  I wish, so sincerely, that this was just fiction and we could all have a Moscow Mule (or similar strong beverage) and chuckle about the over active imaginations of obscure bloggers.  (Where do they get their ideas?  I bet it’s that LSD, or something…)

However, I have attached several links to the on line websites that absolutely prove that safe rooms on college campuses are the new reality.  So you have to imagine the actual, I swear its true, scenario.  A speaker, likely of the conservative persuasion, is invited to campus.  A student of the neurotic persuasion has heard they are not 100% sympatico with their views on say, saving the whales, or Global Warming, or the Chinese oppressing Tibet, or whatever is their bowl of soup.  Such students have several choices here.  One, attend the speech, and test their beliefs for validity.  While they are not likely to be t be persuaded, hey you never know right?  Two, they can decide to go about their usual student activities, completely oblivious to the clearly misguided twerp who does not agree with the views that they and their encounter groups have adopted.  Three, they could watch old episodes of Storage Wars, or play 24 hours of Grand Theft Auto, or get stoned and listen to sitar music.  Fourth, they could (heaven forfend) do some homework, with headphones on to block out any long distance sound waves that might be emanating from the auditorium.  Fifth, they could gather their likeminded friends and respectfully protest the speaker, attempting thereby to persuade others to their  views and collective wisdom.

 

However, there is a growing number of students for whom none of these logical, constitutionally protected options are just simply inadequate.  These students have gathered together, requested (often threatening force) a meeting with the campus president, or dean, or designated pandering flunky, and demanded that there be created a “Safe Room” where they can go to ensure that they are not scared shitless (let’s face it they are already clearly witless, humorless, and gutless) by the offending speaker.

You may think I am being a little harsh on these cowardly twinkies, er…sensitive souls.  I have tried to understand how someone could need a special place to hide from the presence of a speaker they don’t agree with.  Possibly that speaker is really, really, a meanie.  The offending speaker may favor fracking, or support Scientology, or some other potentially offensive viewpoint.    No matter where anyone happens to  stand on these issues, however, I just can’t imagine how a speaker that NO ONE IS REQUIRED TO LISTEN TO, could possibly be threatening.  You don’t even have to be on campus with them, there are many ways to leave campus for an hour or so.  Public transit, Uber, walking, hover boarding, chartered helicopters, bikes, roller blades, running, unicycling, pogo stick bouncing, hitchhiking, these are all available to the sensitive twit who can’t be on the same campus as a speaker they don’t agree with.

HOWEVER, the logic and efficiency of just going away is not acceptable to the twinks.  Instead, they have to have a place where they feel safe.  Wondering what about any room could be safer than say, a dorm room with the door closed, I did extensive research (OK, a quickie Google search) to discover the answer.   According to Julie Shulevitz, and editorial writer for the New York Times (All the news that fits our personal world view), this is an example from Columbia University.  (Remember this is the Ivy League, where presumably we have the BEST of our college students.  Instead they apparently also admit senseless bedwetters).

From the NYT Sunday Review 3/21/15

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

There you have it folks, a real life example of actual people (although we have no  evidence that they are aliens from the planet Sissy-Mary, it is optimistic to think they may not be humans,)  who can’t stand a person with opposing views speaking on campus.  Just how do these people expect to get along in life after college?  Hell, everyone in a relationship is bombarded daily with uncomfortable, opposing views on such major issues as finance, politics, personal hygiene, the TV remote, and online browsing habits.  Are these people going to create a safe room in their own house, so their spouses’ intractability will not overly traumatize them?  (The good news is that you can buy a safe room for about $3,000.  See the link, below, if you are feeling an onset of cowardly insanity).  Will these persons need a safe room if one of their neighbors posts a “Trump” sign on their lawn?  How will they deal with the emotional free fall from such a blatant display of a world view dissimilar to their own?

And there are practical matters to consider.  Who is going to keep the place stocked with cookies?  Will people want to play with bubbles and play doh into their fifties, or will they graduate to more age appropriate palliative measures such as worry stones and qualuudes?  (Wait a minute, adults ARE playing with coloring books now, so maybe adult play doh is going to be a thing?)  Just how is the safe space going to work after graduation, when there are no special counselors or popcorn machines made available by a feckless college administration?

I am as appalled as you are that young people able to gain admission to any college, much less a reputedly GREAT one, are as lame brained as this bunch.  I gather that not enough college presidents said, “You want therapy, hire a shrink.  You want a safe house, go home to Mama’s family room and suck your thumb.  You want to learn, and be given a degree that conveys that you have displayed some modicum of intellectual curiosity, or even the maturity level of a three year old toddler, then ignore people you don’t like.  Or listen to them, maybe come to appreciate that they may have some valid points even if you never agree with them.  Either way, this college won’t waste real money on counselors and play doh.”

I leave you all with this thought.  I think that it is society that needs protection from people who need safe rooms at college.  People that emotionally fragile shouldn’t be allowed out in public, right?  I propose that since the we citizens finance these safe rooms (either in subsidized or forgiven college loans, tax support  for public colleges, or Pell Grants) we are entitled to know the names and social security numbers of anyone who uses a safe room.  Then there can be a national registry, so that employers can avoid hiring them.  What boss would want an employee that runs to the restroom the first time their budget proposals are rejected, or someone steal s their stapler, or whatever minor offense is a REAL PART OF LIFE?  I am fairly certain that the Chamber of Commerce will pay for the database upkeep.  I suspect that online dating sites would pay for the information also.  Wouldn’t you want to avoid such a person as life partner?

To those of you that inadvertently read this note, and are deeply offended and traumatized.  I offer my most sincere and humble apologies.  Shall I have the counselling staff change your nappies?

Real Articles about this Phenomenon:

This article is about 20 colleges that offer safe rooms, with a listing of variety and different types of safe rooms offered.  So some colleges have different ones depending on your gender, religion, etc.

20 Great Value Colleges with Safe Spaces

 

http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/07/shakespeare-safe-spaces-and-segregation

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html?_r=0

 

Safe Rooms for Sale:

https://www.google.com/search?q=safe+rooms+for+sale&biw=1024&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzn5rlxJ3NAhXL6iYKHXkuBNIQsAQIQw&dpr=1