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David Campt

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    Civic Ed

    Through compassion we can transform the current culture war

    David Campt
    Allison Mahaley
    December 23, 2021
    Critical race theory discussed at school board meeting

    People attend a school board meeting to debate critical race theory in North Carolina's Alamance-Burlington School System.

    Anthony Crider/Flickr

    Campt, a dialogue specialist, and Mahaley, an anti-racism organizer, are principals at The Dialogue Company.

    America is immersed in a culture war that is a new manifestation of its age-old problem with race. School board meetings across America have devolved into ugly protests about critical race theory. The strategy to rebrand CRT was created, organized and executed intentionally as a political wedge issue. Right-wing operative Christopher Rufo publicly admitted: “We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

    CRT, like all wedge issues, is forcing the public into binary thinking, further polarizing the right against the left. Anti-racism allies on the left have made things worse by belittling the arguments, defending CRT and ultimately adding to the already dangerous polarization of our country. Instead of this divisive debate, what is needed is a nuanced dialogue grounded in compassion, one that can surface legitimate concerns on both sides.

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