College safe spaces don’t cover macroaggression violence against conservatives

This isn’t a microaggression--It’s just hate

On the night of the election, a student in the Pause threatened to beat up [College Republicans President Emily] Schaller, calling her a “f***ing moron.” Over the next couple of days, she overheard multiple students threaten to hurt the next conservative or Republican they saw. Vice President of St. Olaf College Republicans Kathryn Hinderaker ’19 had a similar experience. “I think one of the hardest things was, the second day, I went into Buntrock and someone yelled from the bottom, ‘if you voted for Trump, you better be f***ing scared.’ Everyone clapped and applauded,” Hinderaker said. “Obviously, it didn’t feel super safe.” On Feb. 18, a student posted an unsolicited photo of a group of students that supposedly included Trump supporters and encouraged fellow students to “remember their faces.”

Safe spaces are spaces of privilege

This isn’t a microaggression. Threats of violence are macroaggressions. Overt abuse is a macroaggression. This isn’t a case of “your unthinking assumptions are making me feel alienated.” It’s just hate. Safe spaces are spaces of privilege. They reaffirm the right to abuse the “Other” who are not illegal aliens or Muslims. Those groups are “allies” who get to set the terms of any discussion. And whose credentials are above and beyond question. Whose feelings can’t even be indirectly hurt by addressing reality for fear of inflicting a dreaded microaggression. The “Other” is the Republican and the Conservative. The article first appeared at FrontPageMag.