Posted on 04/18/2014 3:33:09 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
It used to be that if you went to a college-level debate tournament, the students you’d see would be bookish future lawyers from elite universities, most of them white. In matching navy blazers, they’d recite academic arguments for and against various government policies. It was tame, predictable, and, frankly, boring.
No more.
These days, an increasingly diverse group of participants has transformed debate competitions, mounting challenges to traditional form and content by incorporating personal experience, performance, and radical politics. These “alternative-style” debaters have achieved success, too, taking top honors at national collegiate tournaments over the past few years.
But this transformation has also sparked a difficult, often painful controversy for a community that prides itself on handling volatile topics.
On March 24, 2014 at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Championships at Indiana University, two Towson University students, Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, became the first African-American women to win a national college debate tournament, for which the resolution asked whether the U.S. president’s war powers should be restricted. Rather than address the resolution straight on, Ruffin and Johnson, along with other teams of African-Americans, attacked its premise. The more pressing issue, they argued, is how the U.S. government is at war with poor black communities.
In the final round, Ruffin and Johnson squared off against Rashid Campbell and George Lee from the University of Oklahoma, two highly accomplished African-American debaters with distinctive dreadlocks and dashikis. Over four hours, the two teams engaged in a heated discussion of concepts like “nigga authenticity” and performed hip-hop and spoken-word poetry in the traditional timed format. At one point during Lee’s rebuttal, the clock ran out but he refused to yield the floor. “Fuck the time!” he yelled...
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
“White privilege” involves skin pigmentation that is well-suited for survival in the high northern latitudes under the economic conditions of the past. With the economic conditions of today, it is irrelevant, as are the privileges associated with other pigmentations.
With regard to drawing debate judges from college faculties, this is such a biased and privileged group as to question the relevancy of college debate. A possible solution would be to draw judges from a range of professions, not merely from college faculties, so as to have a pool of judges representative of the range of professions for which college is to be a preparation.
It is bad enough that college faculties are hopelessly left-wing, if this is true of the professions in general our country is doomed and there’s no use to worrying about it.
There will always be sore losers.
Ok... I am stealing that word...”victimidation”
Nobody has been able to explain exactly what this “privilege” is supposed to encompass. So it’s nothing more than a vague catch-all excuse for white success and non-white failure. And the beauty of it, its power, arises from the fact that your very denial of its existence is ... wait for it ... because IT exists!
Marx — and the whole postmodern movement — relies on these tautological syllogisms to immunize themselves against any criticism. “You can’t argue with me because you’re wrong. The very fact that you’re arguing with me proves it.”
In the field of Logic, this is known as “Byproduct of Bovine Digestion.”
Affirmative action in progress. Measurable standards be damned. I see no moral difference between the Towson technique and resolving a difference with a bullet.
“You can’t argue with me because you’re wrong. The very fact that you’re arguing with me proves it.”
This assumptive belief encompasses far more of leftist thought than just the “race issue”.
They believe that their ideological opponents are unworthy of conducting discussion with because they’re immoral, and the proof of their immorality is that they hold an opposing viewpoint.
To arrive at this convoluted reasoning, liberals have this inherent base assumption that since their intentions are “good”, any policy they support must be inherently “good” and moral. Any opposition to those policies is therefore immoral and evil and not worthy of debate.
Words only do so much justice for this. Keep in mind, this is a liberal writing this stuff, as y’all have seen, so it’s written in the best light possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFbQftMe6qY
Here’s the actual video of the debate if it hasn’t been posted yet. I was taken aback when I read the article, but when I actually saw this with my own eyes, I was positively mortified.
“The beginnin’ of the tournament, you know what I’m sayin’, in this context, or whatever, how do you articulate this mode of suffering?”
“Hold on, I’m identifiying how niggas ain’t livin’, you know what I’m sayin’, hol’ up... hol’ up, hol’ up”
“This whiteness kills the black imagination so we can only envision racist visions, where they are dying on the street, where they are Treyvon Martin. [...] The negro should live... no, no, the nigga will live.”
“They reflecting my perspective,
for the shit they don’t care!
[...]
They ain’t pop a shot,
they niggas don’t care!”
This is just scratching the surface. I didn’t even get to the part where one of the “debaters” told he judge to “fuck the time”. I didn’t need to. There were curse words abound.
My God. National debate champions. I’m absolutely horrified.
I had watched some of it earlier. Several of the participants were speed-reading and gasping loudly for air their entire time. It was unintelligible; I actually couldn’t understand most of the words, much less discern any cogent thoughts.
I suppose that’s the point of this “method”: avoid the question, complain about white people, and use it as a platform to start one’s career as a rapper before an imprisoned audience. Entirely narcissistic.
It was interesting at the beginning when the clock started, but then it was reset because the guy spent the next four minutes thanking people and making comments and shout-outs.
Oh, here’s another quote: “I’m glad Reagan’s dead.”
Wiley Collage.
Next silly question?
Okay, thanks. Admittedly, I just skimmed the piece.
Okay, thanks. Admittedly, I just skimmed the piece.
Yep, and what you’re describing is the same close-mindedness the Left accuses religious “zealots” of having.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
As a one-time debate coaching assistant, I can tell you that you missed out. It is one of the best exercises in learning how to handle detailed, conflicting information under pressure that a student can possibly have for entering any sort of business or profession.
See post 55. You should also know that the questions were usually quite general, broad issues. I imagine this may have changed recently. It is still understood that the judges are looking for your skills, not your morals. It is an intellectual development exercise. The debaters do extensive research and bring cartons of it with them -- some of the aspiring lawyers bring it on dollies. The judges and participants are a closed shop. They are well aware that people are presenting their "cases" and can be called upon to argue either side at any time, without warning. It is helpful to think of it as a sport, in that regard. The skills on the field of battle are what is judged.
Wow, sounds like you waded into a liberal stronghold. I was fortunate that our league was center-right.
It's like the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century. Suspected witches were repeatedly ducked in water, tied to a levered "ducking stool." If they lived, they were a witch, and would be hanged or burned at the stake. If they died from the ducking, they were probably not a witch.
It's just that religious zealots are not running the fascist government.
Still, morals do not cease to exist.
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