Triangle university students come together to help peers engage in productive political dialogue

Emotions have become so inflamed that people have been assaulted and arrested in multiple protests surrounding the monument.

The Silent Sam statue, in honor of North Carolina's Confederate dead, stood on the campus from its dedication in 1913 until August, when a group decrying its racist history dashed it from a pedestal. Since that time, campus leaders have considered next steps.

The conflict is just one example of how passionate views about politics, or any issue, can reach a boiling point.

Over the weekend, students from area universities, including Duke, UNC, North Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University came together for a conference at Duke to help their peers engage in productive political dialogue and reach some common ground.

"We carry a hammer and see everything as a nail," said Anne Parton, a political science major at UNC.

During the two-day forum, participants had a lesson in empathy.

"You had to fully embody the other person's experience and be able to synthesize and give emotion to that and retell that story as if you were them," she said.

"We have a melting pot of so many different beliefs," said Chiquetta Harris-Leathers, a student at NCCU. "We can have our strong opinions, but also be compassionate about listening to others and not be so quick to speak, but listen."

Zachary Kronsberg, a Duke freshman who grew up talking politics, came to learn.

"Everyone seems to want to argue about politics or just completely avoid it," he said he hoped to learn “how to have safer conversations that won't resolve in a big family dispute."

A family feud might make for good television, but it takes dialogue to make for the common good.