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Hey, PC, y'all. This is Gerardo holding it

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down for you today on the most dangerous

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podcast

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in the schoolhouse, two dope teachers and a

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mic, where we remix the conversation

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on race, power, and education.

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How y'all doing? On this, emergency

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episode,

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I actually wanna talk about debate.

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Not just classroom debate, but the way debate

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gets taught,

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the way it gets rewarded,

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and the way it gets turned into a

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culture.

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Because it's not neutral.

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It's not just about sharpening minds. The way

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we teach debate has long term implications, and

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the headlines we've been seeing for a good

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minute drive that home.

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Now I wanna be clear.

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The recent killings of Charlie Kirk and representative

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Melissa Hortman, which have dominated the discourse the

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last twenty four hours, are not the same.

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Kirk

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built a career on cruelty, disinformation,

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and stripping empathy from public discourse.

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I bring in speaker of the house, Hortman,

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because her name has been invoked as part

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of the emotional discourse

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around the shooting death of Kirk, but these

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are not the same.

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Congresswoman Hortman was a leader

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elected by her constituents

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who worked to build a better Minnesota.

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So I'm not drawing on equivalence,

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But both deaths remind us that rhetoric doesn't

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just stay on

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the page.

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It spills into the world.

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It shapes how people think, how they act,

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and sometimes how violence

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erupts.

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For representative Hortman, her killer was fueled by

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the rage bait peddled online

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and in person by people like Kirk.

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For Kirk, he is a cautionary tale of

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what happens when just words

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are more than just

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words. So traditional debate

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leans towards

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domination. I would even say that traditional debate

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culture rewards domination.

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You don't have to care about truth, you

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don't have to care about justice or compassion,

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you just have to care about winning.

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And when young people are trained up that

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way,

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some grow into adults who treat each other's

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existence

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like sport.

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For them, argument

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is an ego trip.

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For the rest of us, it's the foundation

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of past,

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present, and future dangers that we face.

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When I coached high school debate,

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patterns emerged and were

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internalized by young people with quickness.

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So you have two sides, the affirmative and

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the negative.

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The affirmative has to build a real case,

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evidence, logic, a roadmap for the judge that

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leads to a plausible conclusion.

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And the negative

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just has to burn it down.

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Judges reward the negative

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even if the affirmative

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misses just one point,

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fails to answer one question,

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fails to defend against one attack.

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So, what's the lesson?

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Well, first, the negative is much easier to

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argue. Don't build, don't imagine, don't solve, just

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win.

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And when that becomes a mindset, it produces

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people who think they've won

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if they've humiliated someone,

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even if their arguments are in bad faith

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or detached from reality

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altogether.

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And look,

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there were really some incredible debate coaches

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around me at the time, educators who coached

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with heart, purpose,

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and intentionality

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in giving our students the tools they needed

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after graduation.

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My point here is that there is a

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culture there that is hard to disrupt

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even for the most well intentioned among us,

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but we have to try.

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I'll never forget

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around

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where two

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brilliant

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young women of color faced

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two young white men from middle class suburban

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backgrounds.

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The young women came prepared, thoughtful, engaged. They

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had pored over their case files,

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tried to have every piece of evidence aligned

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to the affirmative argument that they were making.

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And the dudes?

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They mocked,

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they bullied,

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they condescended,

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and they were rewarded.

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Even losing a speaker point or two didn't

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matter. They undermined the affirmative side and took

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the win.

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And it's not just unfair.

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It's actually training.

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It's training that produces a style of public

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life that values force

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over substance.

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And some of those same boys grow into

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the talking heads

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who shape toxic political discourse

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today.

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It's crazy to me how

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Charlie Kirk graduated high school in 2012.

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I was in my thirteenth year teaching and

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was coaching debate.

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It was literally coaching students his age,

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which makes this all the more jarring. It

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actually makes me reflect back. Did I push

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my debaters to think beyond the when?

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Did I play into this

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dominant white supremacist,

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patriarchal,

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capitalist

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mode of debating?

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I actually don't even know if

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Charlie Kirk was a

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debater,

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nothing on Wikipedia to that account. Hit me

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up if you know the answer to that.

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But, one way or the other his method

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is something that we've definitely seen in the

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traditional debate

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discourse.

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And, it's something that others have written about.

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About how so many thought leaders, particularly on

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the right,

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are engaging

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current issues,

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the challenges facing

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our society today,

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as a debate round.

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Nothing more.

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You know, people love to say that in

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the marketplace of ideas the best argument wins.

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That if you don't like an argument, make

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a better argument.

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And this is often

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a the case made

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against any form of censorship.

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I'm not gonna talk about censorship today.

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I'm a hip hop head. You can recognize

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that I have

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complicated

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views on censorship.

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But let's really be honest about this marketplace

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of ideas.

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The marketplace is an equal.

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Sometimes the marketplace is a Walmart.

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Yeah, you can find something decent,

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but more likely there's cheap shit that people

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are gonna consume readily,

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voraciously,

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and without shame.

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So for cisgendered

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heterosexual

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white males,

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debate is abstract.

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They can play with ideas that don't show

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up in their daily lives.

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For marginalized communities,

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our survival is literally what is being

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debated.

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So when someone argues that empathy is weakness,

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or that DEI hires are underqualified,

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or even dangerous,

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or that teachers are groomers,

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or that LGBTQ

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folks should be put to death publicly,

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or that Latine people should be fed to

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alligators.

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That shit ain't academic.

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It's fuel for harassment,

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for harmful legislation,

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for violence.

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Ever wonder who these debaters become?

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Because they don't just disappear. They don't just

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go and live quiet lives, being good people,

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voting and mowing the grass every day.

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Sometimes they emerge in the same way that

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people like Charlie Kirk, or people like Ben

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Shapiro, or people like Jordan Peterson,

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or people like Donald Trump

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appear.

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And that's why

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I feel urgency

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in saying this.

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We are living in a moment where rhetoric

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can radicalize,

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where debate as sport

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spills into real world violence and harm.

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Charlie Kirk's death is a product of the

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very culture that he helped to build

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and in which he thrived.

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A culture that glorifies aggression,

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dehumanization,

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and winning the debate round at all costs.

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Congresswoman Hortman's death shows the other side of

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it, the danger faced by people who dare

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to lead with compassion and equity in the

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toxic climate.

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The affirmative is always

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under more pressure

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and under more threat than the negative is.

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These deaths are not the same. I really

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want to emphasize that.

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But they both show us what happens

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when words are weaponized,

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when they're trivialized by some,

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and a matter of life and death for

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others.

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So,

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what does this mean

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for

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teachers? What does it mean for the two

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dope teachers around us?

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It means we can't just teach kids to

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win.

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We need to teach them to listen,

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to imagine,

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to build,

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to humanize,

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and to live those values with consistency.

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Because

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for most of

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us, this ain't just intellectual.

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It ain't a game.

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It's life and death.

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This has been Gerardo.

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Two dope teachers and a mic.

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Stay urgent.

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Stay building.

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Stay human.

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Stay dope.