Building the argument, then fighting it

I coach high school debate in Atlanta and I have spent twenty years teaching teenagers to construct an argument from evidence, anticipate objections, and defend a position under pressure. I'm good at this and I believe in it. I also write essays that deliberately do the opposite. My essays build an argument and then turn against it. Not for rhetorical effect. Because the subjects I care about most are the ones where I genuinely don't know which side I actually believe. I write about American Black identity, about what success means in a city like Atlanta, about what it costs to teach civil debate to students who have every reason to believe that civil channels don't work. I start arguing one side. At some point the essay demands honesty. What I've found is that the side I end up on is never the side I started on. I've published in two literary journals and in a general-interest online magazine that covers race and culture. I live in the East Point neighbourhood and I write on weekend mornings at the kitchen table before anyone else is up. My students have occasionally asked what else I write besides lesson plans. I tell them essays. I don't tell them about the ones in which I contradict everything I've told them.