ABSTRACT
In education, it is common to put the condition of ‘safety’ around public race dialogue. The authors argue that this procedural rule maintains white comfort zones and becomes a symbolic form of violence experienced by people of color. In public settings, people of color find themselves between the Scylla of becoming visible and the Charybdis of remaining silent. If minorities follow an analytics of color, they run the risk of incurring white symbolic racism at best or literal violence at worst. A hegemonic system of violence–one that necessitates a relationship of both active force and consent–functions so that the colonized either are forced into or acquiesce to their declared inferiority. One of the main premises of safe-space discourse is that it provides a format for people of color and whites to come together and discuss issues of race in a matter that is not dangerous as well as inclusive.
