Conflating Dialogue with Debate

Part of the challenge of talking about difficult topics like systemic racism and racial injustice and White supremacy and other uncomfortable truths is that we conflate dialogue with debate.

We often don't make our intentions clear – to ourselves or others.

When we debate, we try to win the argument, prove a point, establish our rightness and/or our righteousness.

When we dialogue, on the other hand, we aim to introduce perspectives into a conversation, and we invite others to share their views.

In a dialogue, we can still challenge those views, and we can still offer countering perspectives, but we are genuinely interested in learning from the other person, from the interaction, and from the experience of having a dialogue.

We often go into debate mode because we are insecure, or because we lack fluency, or because we're not really interested in the topic, or because we're really interested in the topic.

It's perfectly fine to go into debate mode if in fact we actually intend to go into debate mode.

We just have to know that we will get a different outcome in debate mode than we will get in dialogue mode.

One is not right and the other wrong. One is not better than the other.

We just need to pay more attention to the difference.