“Dialogue” - You keep using that word...

“Before we can help others deal with racism we have to be honest about ourselves," says Mark Cuban, who is under fire for his candid discussion of the issue.

But he is right. If we are going to "have a dialogue" on race, it has to be two-way, three-way, ten-way, 15-way. It cannot be one way.

A one-way dialogue is (apart from being oxymoronic) just a scolding, and doesn’t move our society forward at all. In fact, it pushes the issue down and backward.

A lot of people think that there is only one way to talk about race, or gay marriage, or size of government, or abortion, or pick an issue. And anyone who strays from that one accepted way of talking about the issue is condemned, shamed, driven from their job, driven from society.

We must be allowed to speak freely, and make mistakes, and admit mistakes, and learn from others and about others through free interaction. If we shut down conversation by invoking the death penalty for every mistake or worse for every instance where someone disagrees with us, then we will never never never NEVER come together as a country.