As a person of color and a recent graduate of the University of Colorado, I am deeply frustrated with the demands of minority students across American universities for “safe spaces” and the penalization of “microaggressions.”
These students are limiting their own personal growth as individuals. How are we as minorities supposed to be civically engaged when we hide in fear at the first sight of opposing views?
It is no longer acceptable on college campuses to voice opinions that do not meet the standards of sanitation set by the sensitivity police. Yet the purpose of a college education is to challenge students and to encourage them to scrutinize their ideas and the ideas of their peers. Safe spaces go against this principle. They treat students as infants who are incapable of fending for themselves, and it suggest it is the job of the college administration to protect them from ideas that make them uncomfortable.
I was brought to the United States when I was 10 by my parents as an undocumented child from Mexico. In other words, I was here illegally, which prevented me from being able to fully engage with my community and society at large. I was not able to hold a job, have a driver’s license or obtain financial aid for college. My father was a drug addict who was constantly in and out of prison, and my mother worked at Burger King, making minimum wage.
At the age of 17, my house was broken into and I was beat up and held at gunpoint by the perpetrators. I am also a first-generation college graduate.
Despite all of this, I have known the United States to be a welcoming country that has offered me far more opportunities than I would have ever had in Mexico. Far from being oppressive, the United States has allowed me to thrive and has made me a resilient individual. I know that this would have never been the case if I had been taught to interpret every opposing view as an oppressive force.
I feel so fortunate for my life and for the education that I have received here, and in order to pay back something of the debt, I donated one of my kidneys to a stranger in the U.S. in August 2013. As a person of color, I am convinced that the best way to improve our lives is by demanding more of ourselves and not of others.
No one can deny that racism exists and that it needs to be addressed. However, when individuals are accused of racism for making innocuous comments such as, “You are very articulate,” or asking, “Where are you from?” it creates a hostile learning environment where people fear voicing their opinions so as to not risk being labeled a racist. What these students fail to see is that preventing someone from voicing his views does not prevent him from holding these views. Forcing dissenting opinions to be silenced hinders the very sort of dialogue that can foster change and encourage social justice.
Students of color need to be empowered by being told that they are capable, resilient and autonomous. We do not need people to feed us with a spirit of grievance or victimhood that only cripples our judgment. People of color living in the United States — and particularly those of us who have only recently become Americans — are determined and competent. This is what we need to be told, not that we need protection from hearing views that may be offensive or hurtful to us.
It is time that we stop expecting to be coddled and instead be allowed to confront the ideas that we disagree with. This is what has always made Americans stronger and maybe even allowed us to learn from the views of others.
José Amezola Beltran works as a paralegal at an immigration law firm in Boulder.
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