Category: Thoughts and Dreams

Life After Softball

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When I was in high school, I played on an incredibly competitive softball team that in my four years never hit all the right spots to win a conference title. Every year we’d get to the semifinals or the finals and just blow it. During one of these dramatic games where girls were crying or visibly frustrated with the game, my coach said, “There is life after softball.”

When I was a freshman in college, I walked onto a team that was building. We were in our final provisional year of Division III competition, and I joined the first ever recruited players to build the program. In that year, I quickly became the only pitcher, one of a handful of the team that had ever played softball before college, and one exhausted player. Our season record was 6-26. That’s 6 wins and 26 losses, many of those by more than 10 runs. It was one of the most physically and emotionally exhausting seasons of my life. And about halfway through the season, I turned to my coach and said, “There’s life after softball,” to which he replied, “No there’s not!”

Today I begin my life after softball. Yesterday I finished my senior season with a pair of devastating losses keeping my team out of the playoffs. And I could write a book about the experience of playing college softball, the experience of playing softball at this school, the experience of making most of my college friends through this team. But I am going to reflect on my life and what I have given to this sport, and what this sport has given me.

I’m a lifer. I have been playing this sport since T-ball, not taking a season off since then. I really don’t even know what spring is without it, and I’ll let you know next year how it goes. It has been and will forever be apart of who I am. I cried more than I thought I was going to yesterday because I realized I’m not just closing a chapter in my life with this team, but I’m closing this subplot of what has really been my entire life, and it literally feels like I’ve had a death in the family. I know there might be a future in playing beer league or coaching for me, but there will never be anything like what I’ve been playing all these years.

Softball was a huge part of the relationship I had with my dad. He was my coach for many seasons, and even when he wasn’t the official coach, he was coaching me. And that didn’t even hit when he died nine years ago. I mean, it did literally because he was coaching my little league team and someone else’s dad had to step in, but I kind of obviously was more focused on losing a dad than losing a coach. But in reflecting on this big softball thing, I started remembering those last few months with him. I remember crying in the car after I was put on the “B” team for middle school softball. I knew I was good enough for the “A” team, but the B team needed a pitcher (I realize just how ridiculously presumptous that sounds). I sobbed at the thought of playing with girls I deemed worse than me, and missing out on the glory of being on the “better team,” and he comforted me knowing I would be a leader and learn more about myself this way. I remember being annoyed when he came home from the early coaches meeting with maroon uniforms when I instructed him to get a color that would match my red cleats. I remember running laps for him when I got cheeky at practice one summer. I remember him pushing me to throw a hundred pitches a day, and me finding any excuse to avoid doing so. I remember going to Dick’s every season and picking out new equipment and the thrill of it all.

One summer, my dad picked me up from practice and asked how it went. “It was great! I haven’t been hitting well, so Coach Tom made me just hold the bat out while he pitched it at me, and then I could hit again! It was awesome!” I was ecstatic. My dad smiled, “Ahh well then, maybe it’s time someone else coaches you.” Puzzled, I asked what he meant. He just said, “There’s only so much I can teach you before you have to learn from someone else,” and he left it at that. My smile faded. My dad had always been my coach from the stands, even if he wasn’t in the dugout. He came before any coach, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

So here I am, nearly ten years and probably as many coaches later, trying to figure out how to say goodbye to this part of me. I don’t think there’s a moral here. I am very sad. I have gotten so much out of softball. I understand people better, I understand leadership better, and I know the importance of patience. I could tie in a lot of metaphors about striking out or running everything out or being on a team, but I don’t want to get preachy about sports and how they make you a better person. I’m just going to move forward and keep on swingin’.

Right on Time

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Hello—is it me you’re looking for?

It has been way too long, and I apologize for my absence. Junior spring kicked my butt, and this is going to be both a life update and thought piece on coming of age, because that’s all I think about these days. I am preparing to enter my final year of college and therefore doing a bit of panicking about my future. I am excited to earn my degree and go out into the big bad world and show it what Kamaron McNair is made of, but that comes with this intense anxiety that the big bad world is going to reject anything that Kamaron McNair has to offer. I have expressed this anxiety to a few of my mentors and they all say the same thing—I’m right on time.

This is apparently the moment in my life and all of our lives where we do this panicking and feel like “Oh my God what am I going to do with the rest of my life because it starts tomorrow and I’m not prepared and I’ve spent 16 years in school and haven’t learned a thing and why does everyone keep posting these articles about how my generation is so miserable and we can’t buy houses or diamonds and we ruin everything and I’m going to ruin everything and the world is a mess and I want to fix it but I’m broke and have no connections and I got the wrong degree and and and and and…”

Here we are. Right on time.

I am frustrated because you all know that I don’t want to be put in a group with another person, much less the whole of humanity with this idea that everyone does this panic dance at the same time and I’m not special. I know. No one is telling me I’m not special, they’re just looking out for me and telling me that it’s okay to not know but here’s why I am special and why this panic has thrown me into a whirlwind whereas it seems most of my peers are just casually panicking. This year was incredibly difficult for me emotionally. I try not to get too personal on here (a website named after me), but I’m going to because I’ve reached an important milestone and there was little to no cake involved.

I got my heartbroken this year, romantically. I add that qualifier because I’ve been heartbroken before. My dad died, after all. I didn’t get into the college I set my heart on. I’ve been hurt before. But I had never been hurt by someone who I adored in this way, and I want to apologize here to every woman I have discounted for grieving romantic relationships. That’s a lesson that I needed to learn firsthand, and now I am glad that I have learned it because I have even written about it on here before. Grief is not a spectrum, it’s a scatter plot. There are different kinds of grief and measuring by comparison is not helpful to anyone, so I’m sorry.

I’m writing about this now even though it happened a few months back and I am just about completely over it because it really did rock me to my core in a scary way, but it taught me a lot about myself. The boy was not worth my time or my heartache, but that’s not something we can help. I was attached, and he was not. A telling scene from our short-lived relationship was a time I was saying a lot of funny things (as I do) and he said that we should get a TV show because we were so funny together. It’s kind of a stupid example, but a perfect one that showed he used me to make himself look better.

I did a lot of self blame after the end of the relationship because I knew that he was going to hurt me. The entire time we were involved I was afraid of it happening. He hurt me a lot of little times, and then the kicker at the end was completely predictable, but I was the greater fool. But, I learned (in therapy) that none of that was my fault. Even if I knew he was a bad person it was not my job or anyone’s to make him a good person. I gnashed my teeth and tore my clothes because I felt like I let this thing happen to me, but my therapist really reminded me that in general, we don’t let bad people do bad things to us. They just do them because they’re bad people.

The next lesson came this summer when I was admittedly still stewing a bit about how this boy wrecked me for a little bit and ruined a lot of things that should have otherwise been a great time for me. Lorde release an incredible album this summer, Melodrama, and she wrote a song called “Writer in the Dark,” which is about her breakup. The song is kind of ruthless in its beauty because she’s saying “You hurt me, and I’m going to write a song about it and it’s going to be huge because I’m Lorde and you’re not” (very Taylor Swift on her part, which I was not ecstatic about, but I respect the artistry).

Lorde talked about writing the album and how she felt a little guilty writing about a person and immortalizing them in her lyrics, but this song is her way of saying they know what they did, and they knew what they were getting into. She said in an interview “But it was important for me to say. And I don’t think that song is apologizing for it. It’s more like, what did you think was going to happen? I was doing this before I met you and I’ll be doing this after you’re gone… I felt quite empowered.” I read that interview, and thought “That’s it! This is what I feel!” Some of you may have been reading this blog post and thinking it’s super petty of me to trash this boy on my website, but he knew I was a writer. And he trashed my life.

That’s enough on him, though. This is about me and career aspirations and what the heck am I doing with my life? Well this whole experience was important because the breakup made me question a lot of things about myself—my confidence, my relationships, etc.—which coincided perfectly with my plans for the future panic where I started questioning a lot of things about myself—my confidence, my qualifications, my passions, my financials, etc. However, I know it’s all going to be okay. I found a quote from a Samuel Beckett play while researching one of my papers this spring that says, “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” It’s a simple sentence that became my mantra. The comma is the most important part because it forces you to believe in your fortitude without coming to a full stop in your doubt. You tell yourself there is no way I can get through this, but you quickly remind yourself that of course you can.

I did not intend for this post to go the cliché route, but here we are. This is special because while it sounds like I’m heading for an inspirational moment, I feel as though I cannot inspire any of you, readers, because I am still in this moment of panic, and still striving to learn as much in this moment as I possibly can. I’m going to figure it out, and I will take you on this journey with me, so long as you show up on time.

Semantics

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Words kind of run my life as a writer. So I think about them all the time—how they work together, how they change with context, how they define all these aspects of our lives—semantics, essentially. Words carry weight, that’s undeniable. But too often we get caught up in the semantics that we start to miss the point. We can’t see the forest for the trees—we think if we call something by another name, it changes the meaning entirely, and that cannot be true.

Politically, socially, and practically I’ve lately been paying more and more attention to the way we use and manipulate words to get what we want or to get a point across. We add weight to words to make issues seem larger than they are—often to a fault. We decorate sentences with flowery language to hide something in the tangles. We act one way and speak a different way because words are disputable when actions are not. Think about the word “literally.” In an epic scene from one of my favorite shows, The Newsroom, Jane Fonda brings to light the fact that the dictionary has added a definition to the word “literally” which states that the word can mean “figuratively.” She blames the fact that people continually misused the word “literally” so much that the dictionary made the definition cater to those who used the word correctly, so now when someone says “literally” we don’t necessarily know if they mean actually or figuratively. How wild is that?

I don’t think I have a point here. Semantics is the point. Words do have meaning, but maybe keep an eye on the actions that follow the words. Don’t miss the forest for all the trees.

Noise

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I have this weird form of claustrophobia where it only affects my well being in super specific conditions. The fear that makes my heart race and breath irregular appears whenever either the use of my feet or my ears is compromised. The feet is just one of those comfort things I think is somewhat normal. I can’t sleep with my feet under the covers or in socks, and footie pajamas give me angina. I just like to know when the boogeyman reaches out from under the bed I’ll be able to kick back and maybe poke his eyes out with my toes.

The hearing issue is different, though. It is affected in even more specific situations, but also in the metaphoric sense. For example, I can be driving by myself and blasting music with no problem. But if I’m in a car with other people and music is blasting and someone tries to have a conversation, it feels like the walls are closing in. Or if I’m in a group and we’re trying to decide something and everyone is shouting ideas in a competition to see who can be the loudest, a part of my soul starts screaming. I just have this real sense of panic whenever there’s too much noise I can’t control.

I bet you thought this was going to be a political rant. Surprise, it’s not, and you’re welcome. I know we’re all tired of hearing about it. I am going to speak to that, though. I am excruciatingly tired of it. All I wanted was for the election to be over so we could carry on our everyday lives, but something unprecedented has happened, and everything has changed and no one really knows where to go. Or so it feels. It feels this way, at least to me, because there’s so much noise. It’s not even two-sided anymore. Everyone wants everyone to do something differently and we’re all just screaming at each other trying to be the loudest. We can’t even claim we’re the most correct because who knows what correct even looks like. I just want it all to be quiet again.

And even that, I’m told is wrong. I know it’s wrong in the sense that we should not continue to be complacent with the systematic issues like racism and sexism, but I can’t help but wish we could be complacent because at least it was the devil we knew. It’s funny because we know that with Hillary the world was not going to get better overnight. It may not have even improved much in four years. We know under Obama things got better but surely a black president did not do much for racism, and a woman president would likely do the same amount to fix sexism. But at least we knew they were trying. Trump isn’t even officially president yet and it seems someone picked up America and started shaking it like a snow globe. I want the snow to settle so we can see what’s going to happen. I know he’s the bad guy. I loathe that man, but it’s so loud in this country right now that I don’t even know what’s going to happen.

 

The Mean Reds

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In his masterpiece, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote wrote, “You know the days when you get the mean reds?…The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?” I have that feeling.

It’s 12:30 on a Sunday night and I was thinking about that book, that quote, and the Holly Golightly character. She is admired as the essence of class in her little black dress, but anyone who’s actually seen the movie or read the book knows she’d be institutionalized if she was a real person in the 60’s. She’s nuts.

I hate this character trope. She’s the manic pixie dream girl we all hate to love, but what happens when we become her? You think things aren’t going your way because you’re just too flighty and too tied down to the mundane musings of everyday life. You get the mean reds.

I’m suffocating. I love everything that I’m doing. I love my classes, my school, my activities, but when I let everything settle and I look at what’s in front of me, I get short of breath and wonder if I’m doing anything at all. My stomach is in knots thinking about the future but doesn’t untangle if I think about the right now.

It sucks because I know that I’m not depressed. I feel blessed that I don’t have the type of chemical imbalances that make people feel this way all the time, but what do I do when I feel this way? When I’m not “bad” enough to be medicated, but I’m not “good” enough to not feel like this today? I want to slap Holly Golightly because she’s being ridiculous and making everyone else miserable, but then I realize I’m doing the same thing. I’m watching myself do it, but I can’t slap myself and tell me to stop.

But I’ll get over it. It’s just the mean reds.

xoxo,

Kam

Age of Nonsense

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Since I was a child, I have never felt like I’ve been the right age. Part of that may be attributed to the fact that I have three older siblings, but I’ve also just always felt a bit like a misfit in my age bracket.

When I turned 14 I was eager to get my first job. In New Jersey, you can’t legally work before then, so I had previously stuck to babysitting. Everywhere I tried to apply seemed to tell me the same thing: they only hire at 16. When I was 16 I went around again with two more years of babysitting under my belt, some volunteer work, and everyone told me the same thing: they only hire at 18. Then I turned 18 and everywhere I wanted to work wanted me to have 1-2 years of experience.

Now I’m at the ripe age of 20. I’ve had a few jobs at school and when I’ve been home in the summers. I have a resume I am constantly updating and distributing. Yet I still have this nagging feeling that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Nay, I know I’m not where I want to be.

I spent the first half of my life wondering when I was going to be old enough and now here I am wondering if I’ve earned my admittance into the twenty-something club. Maybe I’m a victim of my own generation. We have this obsession with infantilizing ourselves by calling everyday tasks “adulting” and accepting defeat as these millennial babies that no one wants near their workplace. I know I’m not a part of that. I’ve been doing my own laundry since before I could remember. I am confident that if I had a full-time job I could support and take care of myself.

The problem is I’m in the weird limbo that is college and I can’t figure out exactly what that means for me on this societal timeline. I’m supposed to have job prospects. But I’m also supposed to still be learning. I’m supposed to be getting my life together, but it’s also apparently cool to be letting it fall apart.

I’ve written before about how I don’t really believe in this concept of “wasting time,” yet here I am feeling like I’ve wasted so many years. People younger than me have incredible internships and are starting their careers and I feel like I missed my window of opportunity. Is it possible that in the blink of an eye I went from waiting to be old enough to wishing I had more time?

 

Rules of The Dance Floor and Life

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It’s summer, which for a lot of people means weddings, barbecues, and other parties of the like. In the summer I work at an event hall, and that means I see a lot of these events and a lot of dance floors and P!nk once said, “If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor.” I have compiled a list of my own rules for the dance floor accompanied by what they mean in the metaphor of life.

  1. Do not be the person texting on the dance floor. I see this all the time with people who are near my age. You’re dancing and having a great time, but then your friend who is somewhere else texts you about her boyfriend troubles or your own boyfriend is texting you making sure you’re not stepping out on him or hatever it may be. 90% of the time, it can wait. You look dumb trying to dance and have fun while staring into a screen. In life, need I say much more? Yes, technology is great. We all love our iPhones and Snapchat and everything. But take a minute and look up sometimes. You don’t need to keep everyone updated on every second of your life. Enjoy the moment in which you are present with those who are around you in real life.
  2. No one cares about your diet on the dance floor. Stop thinking about how many times you went up to the buffet. Stop wondering how long you have to Dougie before you burn off that piece of cake. Have fun. On an everyday basis, no one wants to know about how restrictive your diet is. If it makes you happy, and you enjoy what you are or aren’t eating, do it. But if you go to dinner with me, I’m getting a burger regardless of whether or not you’re just having a salad.
  3. It is [almost] always acceptable to be the first person on the dance floor. So in reality, if it’s a wedding and the dance floor is not open yet because they’re waiting to announce the bride and groom, do not be the first person on the dance floor. However, if the DJ says the dance floor is open and everyone is just looking around, be the first person. Everyone will silently thank you. Similarly, if you’re the only one willing to start something new, you should probably do it. There is a word derived from an indigenous language of Tierra Del Fuego known as Mamihlapinatapai, which refers to “a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin.” We don’t have a word for this sensation in the English language, but we all know exactly what that is. Pro tip: be the initiator.
  4. If a dance circle opens up, take a turn in the center. I know not everybody loves being the center of attention as much as I do, but I think it’s always a good idea to take a step outside of your comfort zone, even if only for a minute. Take the spotlight sometimes. Even if you’re really bad at dancing. If you’re having fun, no one cares that you don’t have the best rhythm.
  5. Even if you hate the song, if everyone’s dancing, and you are otherwise having a good time, dance with them. You all know how much I hate Taylor Swift. But if I’m at a party, and Shake it Off comes on, you can bet I’m getting down to this sick beat™. It’s not worth my time to stand in the corner refusing to dance solely because I can’t stand the singer. Obviously in life, if you hate doing something or you are uncomfortable doing it, don’t do it. But if it’s something so minuscule as dancing to a Top 40 song, you might as well sing along.
  6. Learn the words to Bohemian Rhapsody. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 40 years and still don’t know the words, or the gist of the words, do it now. Period. It’s basically the National Anthem. Just do it.
  7. Being single on the dance floor is usually more fun anyways. I have danced many a dance floor without a date. It’s fine. Don’t pout about it. Own it. When Single Ladies inevitably comes on, own that. Every living human being born not as a conjoined twin has had to be alone for some event in their life, and they have survived. You will survive if you make the most of it. It is okay to embrace singularity. On the dance floor and in life. It is okay to be alone. You’re never even really alone, there are 7.1 billion people in the world. Some alone time does us some good sometimes, anyway.
  8. Have a go-to song. On the dance floor, for karaoke, for the worst days of your life, have a go-to song. Learn a dance routine, learn the lyrics and the harmonies, make it your own. Get it tattooed on your body forever, if that’s what you’re into. Impress your friends with a flawlessly memorized Nicki verse, or some perfectly nailed choreography. This goes great for when you put #4 in practice. In life, you should figure out how to make yourself happy. Find your ultimate happy place that grounds you and brings you back into yourself for when the inevitably crappy things happen throughout your life. Find the thing that’s going to help you say “I’m okay. I’ll get through this.”
  9. Dance like nobody and everybody is watching at the same time. There is a psychological phenomenon called the imaginary audience when humans tend to believe that everyone around them is noticing them. Like when you’re having a bad hair day and you think surely everyone will notice. Truth is, no one really notices, and if they notice, they don’t care. So when you’re dancing and you don’t actually know how to dance, dance anyway. But don’t be afraid to show off if you are a really great dancer. Use the dance floor as a stage every now and then.
  10. What happens on the dance floor stays on the dance floor. Have fun. Life is short. Embarrass yourself, laugh about it, move on. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

 

xoxo,

Kam

Why is That Girl Crying About the Black Eyed Peas?

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Spoiler alert: I’m the girl.

We all have that one song that whenever we hear it, wherever we are, we are sent into an emotional trance be it ecstasy or dejection.

For me, one of those songs is “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. I am not kidding. And the trance I go into is not necessarily happy. Every time that song plays I fight back tears. I was working my catering job last night for a Bar Mitzvah. The DJ played that song, and I had to tell myself, “Kamaron you are NOT about to cry in front of these 13-year-old kids.”

I sound crazy at this point, I realize that, but I’m so serious and I’m not totally proud of it. The Peas literally sing the days of the week in this song. It’s not exactly a lyrical masterpiece. Yet what it evokes in me would suggest something like that notion.

I remember when the hit song came out. It was huge, and 7 years later remains iconic. The song marked the unofficial (and shortlived) comeback of the Black Eyed Peas. It was regarded as the most successful song of the 21st century until it was surpassed by Pharrell’s “Happy” in 2014.

For me it means a lot more than the records and its cultural significance, though. It brings me back to middle school and the year following the untimely death of my father. I was getting ready to transition to high school and leave all my friends behind when I transferred into a private school. It was this moment of uncertainty for my life, but then will. i. am proclaimed, “I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night.”

That obscure but simple message is the tale as old as “Don’t worry, be happy.” BEP assures us, we don’t really know what the future or even the night holds, but they’ve got a feeling it’s going to be good, so we should enjoy it.

Maybe it’s just a catchy pop song. Maybe it’s just one of those fun songs we’ll keep playing at weddings and basketball games until we’re dead. Maybe I’m reading way too far into it, but maybe who cares? I’ve gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night.

I’m Different, Yeah, I’m Different

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Peter Griffin, of Family Guy fame, once sang a song that speaks to me on many levels:

What makes you so special/The fact that you are special/But if everybody’s special/that kinda waters it down/So some of you ain’t special/I can tell you who is special/like you and you ain’t special/ and you are, and you’re not.

We’re all pretty much raised to think that we’re something special, and have the ability to change the world. Every parent thinks their kid is the greatest thing. Even if you have siblings, your parent likely brags like “My kid is THE best!” And you ask them which one and your parent is like “All of them . They’re all the BEST.”

I have this weird complex in my head that I always felt like I was actually super special. Like I will be a celebrity or something because my brain can’t function as an average person. This is a real thing that goes through my head.

But I’m in college now, and I’ve met all these people that are incredible human beings. I sit in my writing classes and think How am I supposed to compete in the industry with these people? I sometimes wonder about people who went to my school like JJ Abrams. Did his professors and peers know he was going to be a huge Hollywood director? I don’t even really want that kind of fame I just want to be better than a lot of people.

But then I think about the average people. The ones who kind of just keep their head down, work hard, and live out the American Dream. By that I mean, they graduate, they get a job, settle down, find a spouse, have kids, then work until they die. That’s an “average life,” right? It’s not a bad thing. Some of us look at that and think it looks miserably boring, but like that’s what most people do and that is what life looks like.

That freaks me out a little bit, though. I don’t want to be average. I have to be special.

There’s nothing wrong with being average, though. We need average people, or else nothing would get done in the world. We all have our talents and gifts. I just like to think that my talents and gifts are going to put me on the map. Like Peter Griffin said, “If everybody’s special, that kinda waters it down.”

I’m the worst. 🙂

xoxo,

Kam

What is a Safe Space?

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Because I constantly face nagging from the side of my generation against the improvement of society, here I am talking about coddled college students again.

So much of society (or people on the internet) spend their days complaining about how college kids “need their safe spaces” these days. The theory is that we’re not going to make it in the real world because none of us know how to function without a “safe space,” and we’re too easily offended and so forth.

Wikipedia defines a safe space as:

“In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space), safer-space, and positive space are terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body does not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech, but rather is open and accepting, thereby creating a safe place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all students.”

This is a little outdated, at least in my own definition, because now I think a safe space—or at least the safe spaces I know—are broadened to support anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. Either way, the point of a safe space is to designate a space that is free from hate.  But there’s more. A safe space supports discussion, debate, and disagreement. A homophobic person is allowed in the safe space, but they’re not allowed to spew hatred when they come in. They can ask questions and try to seek understanding, but they should not come in with a closed mind.

We know the world is not a safe space. We see it every day on the news. How stupid do you think we are to think that we assume everyone is trying to make us comfortable when we pay witness to not just offensive words, but murders happening in our world because of sexuality or race or gender or ability.

What is the point of a safe space? The point is to try. If one room starts as a safe space then turns a whole college into a safe space which turns a town into a safe space, couldn’t the world eventually be a safe space? I know that is wishful thinking. Look at our presidential candidates.

Someone at my school said, “There are no safe spaces, there are only safer spaces,” and that is true. But when people say “there are no safe spaces, we just have to deal with that,” they are promoting violence. I understand where they are coming from. It is difficult to imagine a world where everyone gets along. Equality is a really big word. But why would you be complacent? Why are you okay with the fact that black men and women are being murdered for the color of their skin? Why are you okay with police officers shooting unarmed people in wheelchairs? Why is it acceptable for women to on average make 21 less cents per hour than men?

A safe space is not a bubble. A safe space is an opportunity to learn without being attacked. A safe space is not a barrier we put up so we don’t have to listen to oppression. A safe space is a hope that one day no one will be seen as inferior for things they cannot change. A safe space is not an attack on the freedom of speech. A safe space is a counter-strike on violence.