Safe Space Rhetoric and Race in the Academy: A Reckoning

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was brutally killed at the hands of the police. Amplified by Donald Trump’s handling of the incident, Floyd’s death caused what some would term as a “racial reckoning”—a reckoning that pervaded different parts of American and even international life. As Floyd was killed during an arrest, the matter of public safety did not escape this reckoning, prompting some to call for the defunding of law enforcement and to question what is truly meant by safety in society. In Safe Space Rhetoric and Race in the Academy: A Reckoning, James Noel contends that national discussions about safety should not be excluded from conversations about safety in academia. Noel examines the presence of safe space rhetoric in academia and illustrates the ways that designating safe spaces can be a panacea for chronic institutional problems groups on campus may face. The book unflinchingly interrogates what it means to be safe in academia in the hope to find a starting place for radical possibility.