Brave Spaces

By Sara Gavin, Journalism ‘01

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It’s the second week of the spring semester in Stella Rouse’s Racial and Ethnic Politics course.

Rouse asks who watched the State of the Union address two days prior.

Nearly everyone raises a hand. What follows is a 30-minute discussion that begins as a critique of President Donald Trump’s speech and dovetails into a debate over immigration, gun control and military spending.

Rouse’s classroom, like so many others at the University of Maryland, is a space where students are encouraged to speak their minds and engage in rigorous debate.

“At the beginning of each semester, I make sure students know they need to be respectful of diverging opinions, and then I enforce that,” Rouse said. “I also don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable if they don’t want to share who they are, how they identify or what their background is.”

These days, society doesn’t seem to operate under the same rules that govern Rouse’s class. In a deeply divided national climate where people are reluctant to listen to viewpoints that don’t mirror their own, political discussions can quickly turn into confrontational, personal attacks—both offline and online.

The question many Americans, and many Terrapins, are asking themselves lately is, How do we narrow the divide?

Associate Professor Rashawn Ray from the Department of Sociology champions creating “brave spaces” both on- and off-campus. “‘Safe spaces’ is a term I find problematic,” Ray said. “I don’t necessarily see any place at work or school as a safe space—I’m not sure there necessarily should be. So, we have to create brave spaces. Brave spaces are where we actively work to build bridges.”

Faculty and staff members throughout the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences are embracing this concept every day. We asked four of them to share their personal approaches to creating brave spaces for students and themselves.

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ROUSE SAYS THE CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE has made her job as a researcher and an educator more challenging than in years past. While moderating debates in class ensures they are civil and respectful, Rouse says she regularly fields questions from students struggling to find common ground with family members or friends who don’t share the same political or ideological opinions.

“I had a student last semester who came and talked to me and said ‘I’m liberal, but my parents are Trump supporters, and I just avoid any conversation with them. What do I do?’” Rouse said. “I think we used to be much more of an open society that valued opposing opinions and tried to take something away from them.

I’m just sort of navigating it as we go along.”

Nevertheless, Rouse is committed to helping students cultivate informed opinions, no matter where they lay on the political spectrum, and the confidence to speak out on subjects about which they are passionate. Part of that involves sharing her personal history as an immigrant who came to the United States from Colombia at 2 years old. Rouse tells students about her

“ People are not monolithic. They have varying opinions about different things. If you explore and have those conversations, you might find people are much more moderate on some issues than you would expect if you just presume

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based on one factor.

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background when they discuss immigration policy and the current debate over what to do with people known as Dreamers—those who came to the United States in childhood but do not have legal status as citizens.

“I tell my students all the time, I could have been a Dreamer,” Rouse said. “My parents fortunately had permanent visas, but it could have been a situation where they brought me here and then lost their legal status. So I can certainly relate to this being the only country I know even though I wasn’t born here. I think it’s important to bring that personal aspect so students understand that it’s not just me sort of spewing material. This is something I’ve lived, and I understand it.”

Rouse encourages students to pick their battles: to recognize when a discussion is futile and to leave it alone, but also to focus on specific issues, rather than on politicians themselves.

“Find a particular area where there might be some opportunity to have a conversation, rather than having a broad discussion like ‘Why did you support Trump?’” she advises. “People are not monolithic. They have varying opinions about different things. If you explore and have those conversations, you might find people are much more moderate on some issues than you would expect if you just presume based on one factor.”

It’s advice junior government and politics major Darius Craig takes to heart. As an aspiring politician, he aims to be able to connect with people across ideological divides.

“I’m not going to speak about anything I’m not confident in,” Craig said. “However, until every stakeholder in an issue is willing to talk about it and speak about how we can solve problems, nothing’s going to change. If anything, it’s going to get worse.”

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caller’s sentiments and wanting to offer Nichols support. To date, WHEN JASON NICHOLS AGREED TO APPEAR as a guest on the it has received more than 2.3 million views and has been shared Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight, he knew he would be more than 35,000 times. speaking before an audience with views likely more conservative “I didn’t think it was going to go as viral as it did, but I did think it than his own. was important to make it public because this woman said she was “I think people with my viewpoint should be in every conversaan educator and she said she was a parole officer. I thought about tion in America, and there are conversations happening on Fox all the lives she probably affected,” Nichols said.

News in front of the biggest audience in America that we’re not a Although it’s been months since the infamous voice mail, part of,” Nichols said. “If it takes that I have to go out into that space Nichols said he still receives emails several times a week from all and even get some backlash for it, I’m willing to do that.” over the world, encouraging him to After a segment in which Nichols keep speaking out. He hasn’t shied away referred to Christopher Columbus as a from appearing on Fox News again or terrorist and criticized the practice of offering dissenting opinions via other celebrating the explorer with monumedia outlets. ments and a national holiday, Nichols “In some ways, it validated what I do was inundated with emails, comments every day and what I’m fighting every on social media and voice mails at his day and why I’m here,” Nichols said. “If office on campus. the wrong people don’t like you, that’s Although the majority of the mesnot always a bad thing. That might sages were critical of Nichols’ viewpoints, Nichols appears on a Fox News program to discuss the complexities of commemorating Columbus Day. mean you’re doing the right thing or one voice mail in particular stood out. In (YouTube/Fox News) you’re moving in the right direction.” a lengthy message, a woman—who does It’s a philosophy Nichols uses in the classroom as well. As an not identify herself by name but says she has worked as a parole instructor for Introduction to African American Studies, as well as officer and as an educator—uses a barrage of racial slurs and repeatcourses centered on black masculinity and race relations, Nichols edly refers to African Americans as “inhuman” and “primates.” tries to help Terps navigate tough topics. However, he makes sure “I’ll admit I was affected after 25 minutes of being berated on to emphasize—as his own experiences have taught him—that the basis of my race, and I’ll admit it got to me when she says standing up for your opinions and beliefs is rarely easy. ‘you’re not even human,’” Nichols said. “But it wasn’t even about “If you are doing something that is going to bring about change me. She only talks about me directly for about 10 seconds. And in any way, people are going to attack you, because change is then it’s just ‘you people.’” never comfortable,” Nichols said. “You have to be willing to have Nichols decided to share the voice mail via a Facebook Live uncomfortable conversations.” video post. In the video, Nichols sits calmly at his desk while the audio of the expletive-filled rant plays out. The video quickly spread throughout the internet, garnering comments to Nichols’ Facebook page from all over the country, mostly from people shocked by the

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FOR A FACULTY MEMBER who studies social movements and political violence, now is a busy time to be a researcher. Kanisha Bond has spent the past couple of years attending both white nationalist and anti-fascist movement rallies around the country to “learn more about what this brand of racist and anti-racist organizing looks like in the wild.”

“I’ve been spit on, I’ve had stuff thrown at me, I’ve been called all kinds of names,” Bond said. “Nothing shocks me anymore. I get scared, but I’m not necessarily shocked.”

While current events have provided Bond with ample research material, they also supply rich context for the course she teaches on social movements. In class, Bond encourages students to look critically at both violent and non-violent social movements to understand how they’ve shaped the course of history.

Last August, Bond traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to observe the “Unite the Right” rally, organized by several white nationalist groups, and the expected counter-demonstration. She was walking in the middle of a crowd of counter-protestors when, for her, the line between researcher and participant quickly blurred.

As the crowd was walking down the street, a car rammed through a downtown intersection, striking and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 other people. Bond and her husband, who traveled to the rally along with her, were unharmed but helped injured people get out of the street to receive medical attention.

“I had never been in the midst of a terrorist attack before,” Bond said. “I’ve been in violent situations before, but this was unique.”

Just a few weeks after the rally in Charlottesville, Bond was back on campus for the beginning of the fall semester. Although still shaken, she felt it was important to share the experience with students.

“One thing it does is humanize the research for all of us,” Bond said. “Last semester was a little bit different for me because it was so new, and it really was a fairly traumatic event for me. So recalling

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what had happened there was important for me to work through my experience—not only as a researcher and teacher, but also just as someone who was there.”

Bond said her students were naturally curious about what she experienced in Charlottesville and how it affected her personally.

It also spurred discussions about the state of political turmoil in America and the broad ripple effects of how polarized the country can be.

“One thing that’s very clear from all of my students is that they are very fatigued by the sort of open conflict that comes along with this sort of conversation,” Bond said.

For senior Katelyn Turner, who is double majoring in government and politics and philosophy, her frustration stems from other people being unwilling to engage in dialogue about controversial subjects.

“What’s really been difficult for me is knowing people aren’t interested in having the conversation because they see you as an enemy, or they distance themselves,” Turner said. “People aren’t willing to compromise because they see the other side as evil, and so what’s really been difficult is trying to separate these political identities from the social identities in order to see that we’re all just people trying to prosper and succeed.”

Bond tells students the best thing they can do is to focus on themselves first and make sure their opinions are grounded in fact and evidence. Like Rouse, Bond encourages students to avoid engaging with people who are especially combative, but says if someone is willing to listen, extend them the same courtesy.

“You gotta get in the ring, and our classroom is hopefully a space where everyone’s working with the same ground rules,” Bond said.

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SOME STUDENTS ARE SURPRISED TO DISCOVER a white man teaching Introduction to African American Studies. But, Jonathan England is OK with that. In fact, he calls attention to it.

“I think it’s important for people to know where I’m coming from, because if I want to talk about who you are, I should be comfortable talking about who I am,” England said. “We often act like African Americans are the only ones responsible for talking about race and addressing Civil Rights, and I think that’s a flawed way of thinking.”

REMEMBER T-E-R-P-S When it comes to responding to comments deemed offensive or inflammatory, England advises his students to remember T-E-R-P-S:

TAKE A MOMENT: Compose yourself, take a deep breath.

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XPRESS YOURSELF: How does that comment/question make you feel? It’s OK to say, “I find that offensive.”

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EAFFIRM AND REDIRECT: Let the person know exactly who you are; correct them if necessary. Direct a similar, but more properly worded response to them, or reframe their statement and respond accordingly.

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ERSPECTIVE: Talk about both of your perspectives in a way that gives the other person the impression that what they said was acceptable, and illustrate why you find it problematic.

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EEK HELP: If you don’t feel comfortable progressing with the conversation, report it. Talk to a co-worker, HR representative, faculty or staff member.

BSOS Online In addition to the introductory course in his department, England teaches classes Watch Jonathan on African American politics, and race and England’s Alumni sports. He also routinely leads seminars Association and webinars about navigating conversawebinar, “Can We tions related to race and multiculturalism.

Talk? Navigating “To me, race is not a difficult conversaConversation in a tion to have if you enter it in a mindset Multicultural World”: that you’re going to respect everyone and go.umd.edu/ look at facts and truth,” England said. “I’m canwetalk not dismissive of the gravity of the issue, but I think sometimes we overcomplicate things. When you treat topics as taboo, it makes people even more resistant to conversation.”

England says one of the hardest things to teach students is to value opinions that don’t match their own and to put in the work to try to understand them.

“Whether you agree with someone’s feelings or not, you never dismiss those feelings,” England said. “If you do, you can’t really talk to them. We do that way too often.”

q Faith in the Future Back in Rouse’s racial and ethnic politics course, she has to cut the discussion short in order to leave time to go over new material for the week. Rouse says that enthusiasm gives her confidence that Terps will go out and create their own brave spaces and, eventually, bring the nation closer together.

“My students are just terrific, and I look at them and talk to some of them and I think ‘Oh I have faith that you guys, once you take over government and business institutions, you’ll put us back on the right track,’” Rouse said.

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