What is or how do we define the word "belong"? Belong is defined as to be in the relation of a member, adherent, inhabitant, etc. It also means to have the proper qualifications, especially the social qualifications to be a member of a group (dictionary.com). Etymologically it means "to go along with, properly relate to". I think through evolution by natural selection we were hard-wired with the need to belong. Our species lived in small groups and communities in which they cooperated and worked together in order to survive and pass-on their genes. We are a social species and being an outcast was detrimental to survival. For example, on the African plains if someone in the group was forced out they were an easy meal for predators, it probably wasn't uncommon to see the remains of an outcast shortly after their removal, and so the need to belong was reinforced. We want to fit in and be part of a group. As a result, when African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, LGTBQ people ask for a safe space they are innately saying I don't feel like I belong here by their fellow students and the institution's actions, policies, and refusal to acknowledge that they do belong. To give you an analogy, imagine a Germany public university putting up statues of Adolf Hitler or buildings named after Nazi war generals, or Nazi war heroes statues after World War II. Yet there are public institutions especially in the South who do such things praising the Confederate State of America's (CSA) treason against the United States of America; for example, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have a statue dedicated to Confederate State of America soldier (i.e. Silent Sam), until recently they had a building named after a former North Carolina leader of the Ku Klux Klan William Saunders, it was Saunders Hall (built in 1922) and 93 years later they changed the name to Carolina Hall. Why did it take protest for the university to change the name? Moreover, you have so-called groups like Students for Fair Admissions or Project on Fair Representation trying to use so-called model minority group (i.e. Asians) as a front for suing Harvard, UNC - Chapel Hill possibly other PWI's (predominantly white institutions) and the Abgail Fisher and Edward Blum of the world who feel black, brown, or non-white students are not qualified to be admitted to PWI universities; they are indirectly and directly saying to so-called minorities you don't belong here and you wonder why they are asking for a safe space. In other words, so-called minorities groups are saying dear fellow students and institution I want to "belong" but your actions say that I don't, for if it did then I wouldn't have to protest. It's just like people saying Black Lives Matter, if they did they wouldn't have to say so. Think about it...
