Anyone who has been paying even cursory attention in recent years, including around the most recent election, will recognize that the state of discourse in this country is in sore and urgent need of repair. Our collective conversation has broken down on virtually every major issue, from immigration to policing to inequality between groups to our response to COVID-19.
The most fraught subjects are often those that touch race or identity. When these topics come up, anything less than a full-throated endorsement of discrimination and racial animus as the primary and root cause of current tensions can lead to conversation-killing accusations of racism, sexism, transphobia, or other forms of resentment and hostility. While sometimes warranted, these verbal attacks are too carelessly applied.
