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Editorial: The REA Annual Meeting as a Brave Space?

With the approach of the 2018 annual meeting of the Religious Education Association (REA) in Washington, DC, this issue of Religious Education offers a forum section designed to provide a glimpse of the provocative theme chosen by program chair and president-elect Kathy Winings, “Beyond White Normativity: Creating Brave Spaces.” A theme like this promises to elicit some strong responses: there is plenty to love and to hate about these six seemingly ordinary words. Some REA members, for instance, may well respond to this theme with frustration, seeing in this title yet another context in which the agendas and needs of white people take center stage, while unsure about where people of color will find a place. Others may respond with appreciation for a theme that puts anti-racism work squarely on the table for our field, and that names whiteness/white normativity as a crucial dynamic to address, as scholars and practitioners of religious education continue to explore how our work and field can best participate in anti-racism work and critical race education. Still others may experience some trepidation about what will happen as we open ourselves to encounters engendered by this theme, which we inevitably will do from our diverse points of entry, within often-asymmetrical power relations, and in which participants will have different stakes in the conversations. And some in the REA will be excited as they resonate with the idea of “creating brave spaces” as a hopeful, constructive place to work toward new, liberatory modes of religious education. The idea of “brave spaces” in teaching and learning emerged somewhat recently in the writings of critical educators such as Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens (2013, 139), as an alternative to the idea of classrooms as “safe spaces.” They write, “We question, however, the degree to which safety is an appropriate or reasonable expectation for any honest dialog about social justice. ... We argue that authentic learning about social justice often requires the very qualities of risk, difficulty, and controversy that are defined as incompatible with safety.” They go on to suggest a reframing of guidelines from the usual rules invoked in efforts to create safe spaces. For example, in place of the rule that says “don’t take things personally,” Arao and Clemens propose as a way to ground their pedagogy a different guideline, “Own your own intentions and impact” (145). A rule to avoid taking personally a discussion on race is bound to lead to disengagement and disembodiment. In contrast, Arao and Clemens contend that their altered language contains an acknowledgment that words and actions have impacts on others that do matter; that benign or positive intentions do not necessarily outweigh the experience of negative impact; and that unintended consequences often are by-products of engaging justice issues. Brave spaces, Arao and Clemens note, allow for a more authentic engagement than is possible in educational spaces constructed to be safe. In the now-active campus debates between advocates for “safe spaces” and those for “brave spaces” there has arisen an important recognition of the role that safe spaces have played for many, including minoritized groups. This suggests that both kinds of spaces are needed. An important pedagogical question then becomes, “what kind of spaces will optimize learning around particular contexts of encounters with difference?” Can the REA