If by “one-sided,” you mean that I carefully read your points, and took the time to engage them and respond to them in detail and at length, pointing out in various ways that the situation is far more complex than your simplistic “blacks are victims of discrimination idea so they should be beneficiaries of affirmative action” idea, then I guess, yes, I’m very one-sided … though I have to say that’s also a very odd definition of “one-sided,” isn’t it? I actually pride myself on being willing to think about, engage with and rationally discuss points of view completely different from my own, and I think my history on Medium and elsewhere shows that very convincingly. I regularly read articles from everything from Jacobin, The Nation, Dissent and n+1 on the left to Chronicles, The American Conservative and National Review on the right, as well as everything in between. I also don’t support either one of the two big American political parties, and don’t find that even any of the smaller parties that we have here fit my grab-bag of views. So you’re not speaking here to some closed-minded, entrenched ideologue. But I guess if you have the view that “[t]here’s no way [I’m] going to convince [you]” of anything on this issue, that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn’t it? And it’s also ironic because you’ve said several times already that you’re not at all certain about whether or not affirmative action is a good thing. If you’re not certain, why not be open to reasoned arguments? Generally, I find it sad and disappointing that people seem increasingly unable to handle reasoned disagreement. Whenever they feel their point of view threatened, they either lash out with ad hominem insults or profanities or else call for their opponent to be silenced or just disengage and run away.

Remember, you’re the one who engaged me and responded to something I’d written, not vice versa. I have no particular need to continue the discussion of the issue of affirmative action with you, and if you’d simply written, “Well, it looks like we both expressed what we believe, so let’s think about it more and leave it there,” that would have been totally fine. But you felt the need — I have no idea why — of labeling me as “one-sided” simply because I disagreed with you. It’s unnecessary, unproductive and, ultimately, just a low-class, low-character rhetorical move.