By Hannah Black. Black is an artist and writer from the U.K. She is the author of Dark Pool Party, which was published last month by Dominica/Arcadia Missa.

The antiviolence politics of which the phrase “safe spaces” has become a metonym has inspired many criticisms, most of them condemning the participants’ lack of realism or resilience. A world without hierarchy and violence is impossible, say the pragmatists; the psyche itself is violent, say the psychoanalysts. To me, the college students who are attempting to highlight inequity seem more admirable than the people who sneer at them. To suggest otherwise…