White Supremacist Website Makes Cheapshots at Towson, Community

[Startop]

This made me so fucking angry I had to e-mail the ignorant fuck that wrote it. If you get the inclination, I encourage you to do the same. His email is Add1dda@aol.com

This is so absurdly racist and ridiculous that I had to post it here. There are some posts on e-debate about it as well.

http://www.vdare.com/stix/080626_judges.htm

June 26, 2008

Towson U. "Great Debaters" Mau Mau Liberal Judges
By Nicholas Stix

The Great Debaters (2007) was a black self-esteem movie about the talented Negro debating team from small, segregated Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. With the inspiration of its legendary coach, English professor Melvin Tolson (1898-1966), Wiley beat the University of Southern California (USC) to win the 1935 national championship.

The heavily-promoted film, starring Oscar-winning actors Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, was produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Movie critics praised it as "inspirational" and "uplifting" despite glaring historical inaccuracies. (For example, Tolson’s team never debated Harvard in winning the national championship).

Fast forward to March 24, 2008. Baltimoreans Deven Cooper and Dayvon Love—the black duo from Maryland’s Towson University dubbed "the great debaters"—are crowned champions at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament in Wichita, Kansas. In the final round, Cooper and Love beat a top-seeded, white University of Kansas debate team, led by Nate Johnson and Chris Stone.

The topic for CEDA, as well as the year’s other collegiate debate tournaments:

"Resolved: that the United States federal government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign assistance."

In each match within a tournament, one team is assigned to argue "affirmative", supporting the proposition, and the other "negative", opposing it.

But Cooper and Love evaded the debate resolution altogether. Instead the dynamic black duo argued "their chosen topic"—"racism, sexism, and homophobia" and the "problems of exclusion in the debate community". CEDA’s white bosses decided, not only that they would not disqualify them, but that they would crown Cooper and Love champions.

According to the Baltimore Sun’s Nick Madigan,

"what made the duo's achievement not only remarkable but groundbreaking was that they had turned debate traditions upside down deciding not to argue their chosen topic … Instead, in a direct challenge to the judges and the system under which they operate, the pair made their central premise the notion that, as Cooper said, ‘the problems of exclusion in the debate community need to be addressed first.’"

"By that, Cooper said, he meant the ‘racism, sexism and homophobia’ that pervade the kind of tournament at which they were speaking. ‘We have a responsibility to talk about these things. We talk about racism the most because it's the one we're most affected by. Even at awards banquets, they make jokes that the community laughs at, but the people who they affect don't laugh.’"[Towson U. Debaters Take National Championship, March 26, 2008 (PDF)]

A real reporter would have asked Love:

"What awards banquets? What jokes? What community? And what ‘racism, sexism, and homophobia’? After all, the ‘racists’ gave you the win, and fell all over themselves praising you".

Cooper and Love, says Madigan, "used various forms of expression, including hip-hop, clips of songs and ‘spoken word,’ to accentuate their points, a far cry from the more straightforward, evidence-laden presentations of some of their competitors".

Evidence and logic are just so white.

Cooper and Love say that debate has been based on "white principles." But there are no "white" or "black" principles. A principle is by nature universal. When you throw out evidence and logic, you get lies, contradictions, appeals to emotion and loyalty, and sheer stupidity.

Consider the predicament of a team that plays by the rules, yet after spending hundreds of hours preparing to argue each side of constructive engagement, is matched up in the CEDA finals against a dishonest team with a racial agenda. The honest team never had a chance.

While not as theatrical as the video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright celebrating the 911 terrorist attacks on America, what the Youtube video of the final round between Towson and KU shows about the moral collapse of the American university is every bit as disturbing.

Some of the cheating judges’ explanations as to why they voted as they did, amount to racial loyalty oaths.

In Deven Cooper’s eight-minute opening performance of his script, he jumps from pillar to post—"white supremacy" (seven times), "whites live in a racial fantasy land," "Who believe the shit that they write in books," "white male judges favor only the white male," etc.

Cooper, who denounced American society in general and the (leftwing) debate community in particular, combines what scholar Lawrence M. Doss (PDF) referred to, in a discussion of Leonard Jeffries, as the "paranoid style" in black rhetoric, which consists of slogans denouncing "racism, sexism, and homophobia," and class privilege.

While being careful to speak of destroying "white ideas," rather than white people, Cooper also evokes the genocidal black supremacy of Frances Cress Welsing, according to whom blacks are in a war of defensive racial annihilation against whites and the "global system of white supremacy."

During cross-examination following his first speech, Towson’s Deven Cooper acknowledges to Kansas’ Nate Johnson that a "revolutionary black aesthetic" is "an anti-white aesthetic." Cooper and Love openly identify with the black arts movement, which sought to destroy white culture, and through it, white society, and whose most famous writer, biracial playwright August Wilson, in his play, Fences, referred to the white man as "the Devil."

The Baltimore Sun’s Nick Madigan quotes CEDA President Darren Elliott, of Kansas City Kansas Community College, as saying of the cheaters:

"They debate in a style that is definitely outside the conventions of most teams. It's a very nontraditional style. That was clearly their strength."

"Non-traditional": Like a boxer who specializes in low blows and head-butting.

In a telephone interview, Chris Baron, one of Towson’s debate coaches, argued:

"[Cooper and Love] made an argument that said that the structures of debate themselves need to be looked at, and need to be discussed and debated and need to be changed in a way that will make them more accessible, more fair, and just make them better.

"And some teams argued that, you know, they should be debating the topic about constructive engagement in the Middle East.

"Our debaters beat them on that argument [N.S.: How?], but our debaters said, among other things, you should be prepared to debate—about debate. Especially, as regards the practices, and whether they’re fair, whether they’re good practices. So, if you’re going to defend that we should be talking about this topic, you should be able to explain why it’s important that we talk about this [constructive engagement], and not about kind of larger questions that might be implicated by the way that we engage in debate.

But, contra Baron, there is no reason in the world why teams entering a debate tournament would be obligated to "debate debate," instead of the official topic. Otherwise, why have an official topic? And what are rules for, if members of certain groups can break them with impunity?

Signing up for a tournament implies consent as to the topic and the rules. Nobody dragged Cooper and Love to Wichita in chains. The only reason for making an issue of the rules was to sabotage the competition—and thereby distract everyone’s attention from the saboteurs’ competitive shortcomings.

The sponsors and judges are obligated to conduct themselves in a spirit of predictability, equality, and impartiality, treating all teams equally under the rules, equally obligating all teams to follow those rules, and not rooting for any team.

Baron’s fallacious statements presuppose that Cooper and Love had a right to racially hijack the tournament, and that the burden of proof was on any who would oppose them. One may stick to the official debate question, or one may surrender to the cheaters. Baron, Cooper, and Love are celebrating intellectual incompetence and black chauvinism.

It is indicative of academia’s racial corruption that Cooper and Love were not disqualified the first time they tried their scam last summer, and told in no uncertain terms that if they ever tried it again, they would be barred from all future tournaments.

How long until a Hispanic team demands that it be permitted to debate in Spanish?

But white men must follow the rules.

In Madigan's Baltimore Sun article, CEDA President Darren Elliott [Email him] boasted about his lack of impartiality, saying that Cooper and Love

"showed courage in trying to ‘engage the community in changing how we talk about things, how we deal with these issues of race and sex and socioeconomic class.’ In doing so, Elliott said, Love and Cooper confronted their judges, the tournament's organizers and other debaters by ‘telling them that what they're doing is not as productive as some alternatives.’"

Towson’s Chris Baron proudly recounted to me that many of the judges likewise said, "To a large extent the arguments being made are arguments about privilege and about race."

The news stories I saw about the CEDA tournament barely mentioned the University of Kansas’ Nate Johnson or Chris Stone.

But in a KU promotional feature on the eve of CEDA, Jean Kygar Eblen wrote,

"One thing that drives this year's KU debaters' victories is their track record of introducing new arguments. Judges reward debaters who can take a position and defend it.

"‘I think our team has put forth more new arguments than any other squad,’ Stone said. ‘We bring up things people don't have answers for.’"

One would expect to find KU’s Stone or Johnson apoplectic over the unmerited loss. But my interview with Johnson revealed otherwise.

Nate Johnson: "[Cooper and Love] talked about how debate has been structured according to kind of racist principles, white principles…. And they criticized a lot of the ways that debate hasn’t really questioned itself, and maybe some of the ways society in general still has a lot of structural racism.

"We tried to approach it a little bit differently than other people. We didn’t feel that we should tell them that this is kind of a wrong forum for discussion, that maybe they should just stick to the topic, or anything like that. We really wanted to engage them on the issues that they were bringing up.

"They argued that their ethic is more revolutionary, and we said that when people have positioned themselves in revolutionary terms in the past, it puts them in opposition to and competition with other people that maybe are working for the same goal, maybe to end oppression like that, and kind of makes it difficult to get coalitions on your side, to get other people to be part of your movement. We argued that sometimes, trying to only focus on your social location shuts off other people that may be a little different from helping you out, or becoming part of your movement."

Johnson speaks very supportively of the Baltimore Urban Debate League. He feels he was helping Cooper and Love. But they don’t feel any gratitude.

Nate Johnson may not be the first white mugging victim who refused to press charges. But he’s the first white mugging victim I’ve come across who wasn’t even aware that he’d been mugged.

Unfortunately, Nate Johnson is the second generation of Johnson men to be mugged by politically correct racial realities. In 2004, his father Ron, a KSU journalism professor and much-beloved, long-time KSU student newspaper adviser, was fired from the latter job when the KSU administration caved in to pressure from the Black Student Government (BSG). The elder Johnson’s race crime: Advising while white. The BSG wanted to hurt an innocent white, Ron Johnson was handy, and an administrator sacrificed him rather than confront black pressure.

The Johnsons seem like solid Midwesterners. Very polite folks. I have friends like that.

Unfortunately, some Midwesterners are too polite for their own good.

Nicholas Stix [email him] lives in New York City, which he views from the perspective of its public transport system, experienced in his career as an educator. His weekly column appears at Men’s News Daily and many other Web sites. He has also written for Middle American News, the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Chronicles, Ideas on Liberty and the Weekly Standard. He maintains two blogs: A Different Drummer and Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.

[The Tick]

you should post your email!

[Chase]

Well, this is extremely fucked up and offensive, and I wanted to email him. But it seemed very unlikely that he would be willing to listen to arguments about how warped his understanding of the world is. On the other hand, if we are to have productive interactions with people like this, we need to begin engagement in some way.

So, I took the approach of trying to write a noncombative email focusing on a single idea, rather than the overarching issue of racism. Hopefully he will respond, and I can use this single issue as a starting point for a broader discussion with this man. I feel that would be more productive than me unloading anger.

Below is a copy of the email I sent. I did not edit it due to laziness, so there may be mistakes (I have not read it and do not know).


Subject: RE: Towson U. "Great Debaters" Mau Mau Liberal Judges

Hello Nicholas,

My name is Chase. I'm an ex-four-year high school debater, and will be a college debater when I start as a freshman this fall. I like the activity of debate a lot, although I think it would be nice if it changed in some ways. Nothing is perfect. I'm also going to mention that I'm white. I don't think that should matter for the purpose of this discussion, but you might disagree. I'd be interested in perhaps hashing out those differences later, but right now I'm interested in something else.

To be honest, I disagreed with a lot of things in your article I just read (see the subject heading). I disagreed with interpretations, assertions, presuppositions, and more. But I really doubt that I will be able to change your mind on any of those topics in this email, and I know you wouldn't be able to change mine with a response. Since debate teaches us to persuade the audience that we are correct, it seems pointless to have an email exchange about debate that involves yelling at each other with no resolution of arguments, doesn't it?

I'd like to try and persuade you to reconsider your view of one single point in your article, for now.

"Evidence and logic are just so white."

You wrote it sarcastically, but I think there's some serious merit to it.

Here's the thing - what is meant by evidence and logic? For example, if logic is "reasoning conducted or assessed according to a strict principle of validity" (the OED definition) and nothing more, in the abstract sense, you might be right - that doesn't seem very white.

But I don't think Towson (and I hope I'm not dead wrong about this, because I do not know the Towson team, nor do I speak for them) is critiquing the abstract concepts of evidence and logic, but rather a specific application of those concepts.

Here's what I mean: who decides what is evidence? Who decides what is logic? I could publish an article about iranian proliferation on my geocities page right now. Is that legitimate 'evidence' of something to cite in a debate? I know a lot of people who would say no. Interestingly though, I'm also pretty sure I know some people who would say yes (I'd go with the former, myself). So how do we determine what evidence is? And the same questions apply to logic. What makes something 'reasonable'? The OED says that reasonable implies "having sound judgement". I think that in many ways, it would be very possible for people of good faith and good intentions to disagree on what a sound judgement would be.

So where does whiteness, and race in general, enter the picture? How does this become relevant? Here's a link to a video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...MoOU-wHKocnNCA
Now, most of it is interesting, but not very relevant to this discussion (it's about the idea of scientific support for telepathic abilities). But the presenter does provide some useful information to think about. You can skip most of it if you want, but before reading further I'd appreciate it if you'd watch say, from 11:30-18:30. There's some other stuff in there, but in that area of the video the presenter explains some distinctions between western and eastern thought.

Have you watched that section? Assuming that you have, can you see how a question of 'evidence' and 'logic' in a specific context might very well be racial? Taking the question of the brain and whether it creates or is created by the mind - something that seems almost impossible to answer with absolute certainty, so I hope we can agree to disregard the concept of a 'right' answer to this chicken and egg question - we see very clearly that in different places, different groups have come up with different ways to answer it. And in the course of the presentation, you see how those assumptions that we are taught here in the West (and in the East) become capable of shaping and influencing what we consider legitimate science.

If you watch the first 10 minutes of the video, 'evidence' is presented for claims (say, that a certain experiment was the first of its kind and proved a certain thing - this evidence is presented in the form of a news article, quotable in debate) that the presenter is able to show may in fact not be true at all (there were four other experiments previously) but which are accepted as fact because of the way people in the West have been taught to evaluate what makes good or bad knowledge or sense.

Now, I don't have any special expertise or insight into what Towson talks about. But isn't it entirely possible that in a forum like debate, which is historically very white and male, a very white-male identity has had a prominent role in shaping what is considered to be logical, or what is considered to be good evidence? The abstract principles of evidence and logic might not be tied to any particular race, but perhaps the way those principles are deployed specifically in debate could be.

My point is that I feel as though the sarcasm of your statement doesn't give Towson's argument enough credit. How do you know what you know, Nicholas? There is a substantial field of study dedicated to the question of how we come to know knowledge. Towson may simply be asking us to question our presuppositions.

I hope you are able to take something from this,

Chase

[Synergy]

BAWWWWW


With all the problems in the world, you really dedicate so much time and energy to some asshole with a website complaining about a team in an activity that almost no one has ever heard of? You're the only one who looks pathetic here. Maybe next you should launch a crusade to win over their hearts at stormfront radio.

[Startop]

Originally Posted by Synergy

BAWWWWW


With all the problems in the world, you really dedicate so much time and energy to some asshole with a website complaining about a team in an activity that almost no one has ever heard of? You're the only one who looks pathetic here. Maybe next you should launch a crusade to win over their hearts at stormfront radio.

I do not think that writing an e-mail to someone who ignorantly affronts and denounces debate publicly, while defending his rational with racist hate-speech, is a waste of time. I'm sorry you feel that way. I question the rational behind why you think that ignoring stuff like this would be more pragmatic. If I were a "journalist", and I wrote an article that received a largely negative response from the people it was about, I may think twice before doing it again.

In a world where few people care about debate, and a large amount of the debate community cares about the article, it would seem we are in good shape to affect way this article is responded to. Very few will come to this man's side. I would also like to think that the people in our activity are more political, more intelligent, and more persuasive than the author of this story. This article is appalling not only for it racism, but also for its direct and uninformed challenging of debate itself. Despite all the bullshit, I care very much about this activity, and I do not appreciate people defamating it by standing behind eurocentric and oppressive rhetoric.

I in no way believe that my e-mail will end racism. I do however believe that there is something to be said for a community that answers racist and hate-mongering rhetoric directed towards its members with passive disengagement, especially one that is meant to breed active political interest.

[Little Miss Sunshine]

Does anybody know if they ran this at other tournaments?

[Startop]

Originally Posted by Hellfish

Does anybody know if they ran this at other tournaments?

Yes, they did. I'm pretty sure Towson is big on such arguments. I dont know the debaters personally, or how their argument has morphed, but I am pretty sure that challenging racism in debate is nothing new for this team.

[dan.]

The round can be watched here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...65162595544147

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Originally Posted by dan.

The round can be watched here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...65162595544147

Video's down. It buffers, then dies.

EDIT: fixed

[xtncshnoutways]

Originally Posted by Startop

This made me so fucking angry I had to e-mail the ignorant fuck that wrote it. If you get the inclination, I encourage you to do the same. His email is Add1dda@aol.com

This is so absurdly racist and ridiculous that I had to post it here. There are some posts on e-debate about it as well.

http://www.vdare.com/stix/080626_judges.htm

June 26, 2008

Towson U. "Great Debaters" Mau Mau Liberal Judges
By Nicholas Stix

The Great Debaters (2007) was a black self-esteem movie about the talented Negro debating team from small, segregated Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. With the inspiration of its legendary coach, English professor Melvin Tolson (1898-1966), Wiley beat the University of Southern California (USC) to win the 1935 national championship.

The heavily-promoted film, starring Oscar-winning actors Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, was produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Movie critics praised it as "inspirational" and "uplifting" despite glaring historical inaccuracies. (For example, Tolson’s team never debated Harvard in winning the national championship).

Fast forward to March 24, 2008. Baltimoreans Deven Cooper and Dayvon Love—the black duo from Maryland’s Towson University dubbed "the great debaters"—are crowned champions at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament in Wichita, Kansas. In the final round, Cooper and Love beat a top-seeded, white University of Kansas debate team, led by Nate Johnson and Chris Stone.

The topic for CEDA, as well as the year’s other collegiate debate tournaments:

"Resolved: that the United States federal government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign assistance."

In each match within a tournament, one team is assigned to argue "affirmative", supporting the proposition, and the other "negative", opposing it.

But Cooper and Love evaded the debate resolution altogether. Instead the dynamic black duo argued "their chosen topic"—"racism, sexism, and homophobia" and the "problems of exclusion in the debate community". CEDA’s white bosses decided, not only that they would not disqualify them, but that they would crown Cooper and Love champions.

According to the Baltimore Sun’s Nick Madigan,

"what made the duo's achievement not only remarkable but groundbreaking was that they had turned debate traditions upside down deciding not to argue their chosen topic … Instead, in a direct challenge to the judges and the system under which they operate, the pair made their central premise the notion that, as Cooper said, ‘the problems of exclusion in the debate community need to be addressed first.’"

"By that, Cooper said, he meant the ‘racism, sexism and homophobia’ that pervade the kind of tournament at which they were speaking. ‘We have a responsibility to talk about these things. We talk about racism the most because it's the one we're most affected by. Even at awards banquets, they make jokes that the community laughs at, but the people who they affect don't laugh.’"[Towson U. Debaters Take National Championship, March 26, 2008 (PDF)]

A real reporter would have asked Love:

"What awards banquets? What jokes? What community? And what ‘racism, sexism, and homophobia’? After all, the ‘racists’ gave you the win, and fell all over themselves praising you".

Cooper and Love, says Madigan, "used various forms of expression, including hip-hop, clips of songs and ‘spoken word,’ to accentuate their points, a far cry from the more straightforward, evidence-laden presentations of some of their competitors".

Evidence and logic are just so white.

Cooper and Love say that debate has been based on "white principles." But there are no "white" or "black" principles. A principle is by nature universal. When you throw out evidence and logic, you get lies, contradictions, appeals to emotion and loyalty, and sheer stupidity.

Consider the predicament of a team that plays by the rules, yet after spending hundreds of hours preparing to argue each side of constructive engagement, is matched up in the CEDA finals against a dishonest team with a racial agenda. The honest team never had a chance.

While not as theatrical as the video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright celebrating the 911 terrorist attacks on America, what the Youtube video of the final round between Towson and KU shows about the moral collapse of the American university is every bit as disturbing.

Some of the cheating judges’ explanations as to why they voted as they did, amount to racial loyalty oaths.

In Deven Cooper’s eight-minute opening performance of his script, he jumps from pillar to post—"white supremacy" (seven times), "whites live in a racial fantasy land," "Who believe the shit that they write in books," "white male judges favor only the white male," etc.

Cooper, who denounced American society in general and the (leftwing) debate community in particular, combines what scholar Lawrence M. Doss (PDF) referred to, in a discussion of Leonard Jeffries, as the "paranoid style" in black rhetoric, which consists of slogans denouncing "racism, sexism, and homophobia," and class privilege.

While being careful to speak of destroying "white ideas," rather than white people, Cooper also evokes the genocidal black supremacy of Frances Cress Welsing, according to whom blacks are in a war of defensive racial annihilation against whites and the "global system of white supremacy."

During cross-examination following his first speech, Towson’s Deven Cooper acknowledges to Kansas’ Nate Johnson that a "revolutionary black aesthetic" is "an anti-white aesthetic." Cooper and Love openly identify with the black arts movement, which sought to destroy white culture, and through it, white society, and whose most famous writer, biracial playwright August Wilson, in his play, Fences, referred to the white man as "the Devil."

The Baltimore Sun’s Nick Madigan quotes CEDA President Darren Elliott, of Kansas City Kansas Community College, as saying of the cheaters:

"They debate in a style that is definitely outside the conventions of most teams. It's a very nontraditional style. That was clearly their strength."

"Non-traditional": Like a boxer who specializes in low blows and head-butting.

In a telephone interview, Chris Baron, one of Towson’s debate coaches, argued:

"[Cooper and Love] made an argument that said that the structures of debate themselves need to be looked at, and need to be discussed and debated and need to be changed in a way that will make them more accessible, more fair, and just make them better.

"And some teams argued that, you know, they should be debating the topic about constructive engagement in the Middle East.

"Our debaters beat them on that argument [N.S.: How?], but our debaters said, among other things, you should be prepared to debate—about debate. Especially, as regards the practices, and whether they’re fair, whether they’re good practices. So, if you’re going to defend that we should be talking about this topic, you should be able to explain why it’s important that we talk about this [constructive engagement], and not about kind of larger questions that might be implicated by the way that we engage in debate.

But, contra Baron, there is no reason in the world why teams entering a debate tournament would be obligated to "debate debate," instead of the official topic. Otherwise, why have an official topic? And what are rules for, if members of certain groups can break them with impunity?

Signing up for a tournament implies consent as to the topic and the rules. Nobody dragged Cooper and Love to Wichita in chains. The only reason for making an issue of the rules was to sabotage the competition—and thereby distract everyone’s attention from the saboteurs’ competitive shortcomings.

The sponsors and judges are obligated to conduct themselves in a spirit of predictability, equality, and impartiality, treating all teams equally under the rules, equally obligating all teams to follow those rules, and not rooting for any team.

Baron’s fallacious statements presuppose that Cooper and Love had a right to racially hijack the tournament, and that the burden of proof was on any who would oppose them. One may stick to the official debate question, or one may surrender to the cheaters. Baron, Cooper, and Love are celebrating intellectual incompetence and black chauvinism.

It is indicative of academia’s racial corruption that Cooper and Love were not disqualified the first time they tried their scam last summer, and told in no uncertain terms that if they ever tried it again, they would be barred from all future tournaments.

How long until a Hispanic team demands that it be permitted to debate in Spanish?

But white men must follow the rules.

In Madigan's Baltimore Sun article, CEDA President Darren Elliott [Email him] boasted about his lack of impartiality, saying that Cooper and Love

"showed courage in trying to ‘engage the community in changing how we talk about things, how we deal with these issues of race and sex and socioeconomic class.’ In doing so, Elliott said, Love and Cooper confronted their judges, the tournament's organizers and other debaters by ‘telling them that what they're doing is not as productive as some alternatives.’"

Towson’s Chris Baron proudly recounted to me that many of the judges likewise said, "To a large extent the arguments being made are arguments about privilege and about race."

The news stories I saw about the CEDA tournament barely mentioned the University of Kansas’ Nate Johnson or Chris Stone.

But in a KU promotional feature on the eve of CEDA, Jean Kygar Eblen wrote,

"One thing that drives this year's KU debaters' victories is their track record of introducing new arguments. Judges reward debaters who can take a position and defend it.

"‘I think our team has put forth more new arguments than any other squad,’ Stone said. ‘We bring up things people don't have answers for.’"

One would expect to find KU’s Stone or Johnson apoplectic over the unmerited loss. But my interview with Johnson revealed otherwise.

Nate Johnson: "[Cooper and Love] talked about how debate has been structured according to kind of racist principles, white principles…. And they criticized a lot of the ways that debate hasn’t really questioned itself, and maybe some of the ways society in general still has a lot of structural racism.

"We tried to approach it a little bit differently than other people. We didn’t feel that we should tell them that this is kind of a wrong forum for discussion, that maybe they should just stick to the topic, or anything like that. We really wanted to engage them on the issues that they were bringing up.

"They argued that their ethic is more revolutionary, and we said that when people have positioned themselves in revolutionary terms in the past, it puts them in opposition to and competition with other people that maybe are working for the same goal, maybe to end oppression like that, and kind of makes it difficult to get coalitions on your side, to get other people to be part of your movement. We argued that sometimes, trying to only focus on your social location shuts off other people that may be a little different from helping you out, or becoming part of your movement."

Johnson speaks very supportively of the Baltimore Urban Debate League. He feels he was helping Cooper and Love. But they don’t feel any gratitude.

Nate Johnson may not be the first white mugging victim who refused to press charges. But he’s the first white mugging victim I’ve come across who wasn’t even aware that he’d been mugged.

Unfortunately, Nate Johnson is the second generation of Johnson men to be mugged by politically correct racial realities. In 2004, his father Ron, a KSU journalism professor and much-beloved, long-time KSU student newspaper adviser, was fired from the latter job when the KSU administration caved in to pressure from the Black Student Government (BSG). The elder Johnson’s race crime: Advising while white. The BSG wanted to hurt an innocent white, Ron Johnson was handy, and an administrator sacrificed him rather than confront black pressure.

The Johnsons seem like solid Midwesterners. Very polite folks. I have friends like that.

Unfortunately, some Midwesterners are too polite for their own good.

Nicholas Stix [email him] lives in New York City, which he views from the perspective of its public transport system, experienced in his career as an educator. His weekly column appears at Men’s News Daily and many other Web sites. He has also written for Middle American News, the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Chronicles, Ideas on Liberty and the Weekly Standard. He maintains two blogs: A Different Drummer and Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.

this is absolutely outrageous! everyone should be pissed that someone so ignorant of the activity can comment on it in such a way! this author has no right to speak about such a good activity in that matter, especially when he knows so little about it! i take this as a personal attack, for this author is insulting the activity, the judges at ceda, all the debaters at ceda, chris baron, devon and dayvon, and anyone who appreciates this activity! i know devon and dayvon personally, and they judge locally in baltimore as well as help at a debate camp for budl at towson during the summer! nobody should accept what this author has to say, and whether or not it will fix anything (i highly doubt it will), i believe that this person has no right to target something i love so much. i'm will not be passive when faced with such heinous racism!

[xtncshnoutways]

i personally do not care whether or not you respond to this, but i have been taught to stand up for my beliefs, and therefore i cannot accept such personal attacks and such ignorance and such racism! you know nothing about this activity, how dare you comment on it in such a way! i thought journalists were supposed to have an idea about what they actually talk about, but maybe i should listen to devon and dayvon! how can i use evidence that could be written by someone who is as ignorant as you about a particular topic! i take your words as a personal attack, for you are insulting the activity, the intelligence of the judges at ceda, all the debaters at ceda, chris baron, who is an amazing man who owes nothing to you, devon and dayvon who face opinions like yours all the time and have managed to surpass all obstacles, and anyone who appreciates this activity! i know devon and dayvon personally, and they judge locally in baltimore as well as help at a debate camp for budl (high-school debaters in baltimore county and city) at towson during the summer! you mention rules that debate supposedly has, but if you knew anything about debate at all, you would know that the debaters establish rules every round. your ignorance is, ironically, self-fulfilling, because your opinion is the reason why they argue the "black revolutionary aesthetic," and your opinion is the reason why they won ceda. you may have a right to speech, but i will not tolerate you attacking an activity that i love.

[tpeters]

I'm going to tread on eggshells and go out on a limb (to mix a metaphor).

The manner in which this author discussed what happened was deplorable. His choice of language was loaded and incendiary. He was insulting. He had no right to make such accusations about the judges or the CEDA organization. He went way out of bounds.

But . . .

Some of the observations he made were not too far from some other folks have made, even on this forum. And I'm talking about credible debate discussions.

1) I personally don't get the issue of racism as inherent in debate. Let me explain. I understand that there is racism, probably much of it subconscious, throughout society. I'm not convinced that debate is a place of greater or more racism than general society. We continue to fight racism in all its forms and all its venues. This topic came up last summer and I remember noting a number of students of African decent receive trophies at Nationals in CX, LD, PF, and Student Congress (as well as the non-debate events). I can't think of anything specificallly racist about what we do, some policy or belief that states or implies that kids of color cannot do what we do.

2) I do understand the financial strains top-notch debate can demand of students. Camps, evidence packages, out-of-state travel, etc. can add up. But it can be (and is) outside of the realm of possibility for white kids as well as those of other ethnic decent. Perhaps I am sensitive to this distinction because of the school where I teach. We have kids from million dollar+ homes and kids from run-down trailer parks at our 88% white suburban high school. I have had white kids on my team who couldn't afford to go to Goodwill to get competition clothes, so I did for them. Black, white, brown, purple or green -- poverty limits opportunities. Lack of family funds will keep any kid from competing effectively, especially on the national circuit. A poor neighborhood won't be able to fund such a program, regardless of whether those neighbors are white, black, Hispanic, etc. I can see debate, especially at the TOC level, being called "elitist" because of the financial considerations that could come into play.

3) The claim that debate is not accessible to young African Americans because of the language also perplexes me. Even my white students from million dollar+ homes don't come in talking about Foucault, counterplans, political capital, etc. It seems that the Towson debaters are actually using the language of youth: music, rap, "spoken word" are more the communication choices of YOUTH. Even rap is generally accepted by my predominantly white students as "cool" or "sick." Yes, rap was created by balck artists, but its appeal has broadened significantly. If we as a nation believe that ALL kids can learn, then surely students of a variety of racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds can learn the scholarly language of debate. I am becoming more intrigued with the integration of less scholarly language, and I see that as a positive; all youth should have the opportunity to experiment with different types of "proof" and "argumentation." But the fact that we have expected young people to speak like Masters candidates had nothing to do with race. (Just a side note: my neices (Irish-German decent) complained that they couldn't understand everything I said in my eulogy for their great grandmother because of my choice of vocabulary. Not understanding scholarly vocabulary is a "problem" of lots of white kids, too!)

4) There are many of us old-schoolers on this forum who have bemoaned some of the changes that have happened in CX debate over, say, the past 10 years. One reason some folks (I think of my father here, especially -- a coach for 40+ years) hate kritical debates is because they CAN diverge SO far from the original topic. The actual topic has become, seemingly, in some cases, an excuse to debate everything else. That, I supposed, is part of what disturbs me a bit about the approach of Towson, Long Beach Jordan, and the Louisville Project. The arguments about the state of debate have no connection (and don't even try to create a link) to the topic at hand. (I have to admit, though, that the Long Beach Jordan team in Resolved did connect the topic to their racism kritik fairly effectively -- from what I saw in the film).

I am not defending the method in which this author chose to make these points. A more civilized discussion could have been done. But, underneath the vitriolic rhetoric, this author brought up some issues very close to the bone in our community.

P. S.: I looked around the site to find out if it really is a White Supremacist Website. I found very little regarding specifically white supremacy, but the stated purpose of this site is to discuss issues regarding immigration. By the site's own criteria, this article should not have been published in that forum as it has nothing to do with the current issue of immigration.

[xtncshnoutways]

Originally Posted by tpeters

I'm going to tread on eggshells and go out on a limb (to mix a metaphor).

The manner in which this author discussed what happened was deplorable. His choice of language was loaded and incendiary. He was insulting.

But . . .

Some of the observations he made were not too far from some other folks have made, even on this forum. And I'm talking about credible debate discussions.

1) I personally don't get the issue of racism as inherent in debate. Let me explain. I understand that there is racism, probably much of it subconscious, throughout society. I'm not convinced that debate is a place of greater or more racism than general society. We continue to fight racism in all its forms and all its venues.

2) I do understand the financial strains top-notch debate can demand of students. Camps, evidence packages, out-of-state travel, etc. can add up. But it can be (and is) outside of the realm of possibility for white kids as well as those of other ethnic decent. Perhaps I am sensitive to this distinction because of the school where I teach. We have kids from million dollar+ homes and kids from run-down trailer parks at our 88% white suburban high school. I have had white kids on my team who couldn't afford to go to Goodwill to get competition clothes, so I did for them. Black, white, brown, purple or green -- poverty limits opportunities. Lack of family funds will keep any kid from competing effectively, especially on the national circuit. A poor neighborhood won't be able to fund such a program, regardless of whether those neighbors are white, black, Hispanic, etc.

3) The claim that debate is not accessible to young African Americans because of the language also perplexes me. Even my white students from million dollar+ homes don't come in talking about Foucault, counterplans, political capital, etc. It seems that the Towson debaters are actually using the language of youth: music, rap, "spoken word" are more the communication choices of YOUTH. Even rap is generally accepted by my predominantly white students as "cool" or "sick." Yes, rap was created by balck artists, but its appeal has broadened significantly. If we as a nation believe that ALL kids can learn, then surely students of a variety of racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds can learn the scholarly language of debate. I am becoming more intrigued with the integration of less scholarly language, and I see that as a positive. But the fact that we have expected young people to speak like Masters candidates had nothing to do with race. (Just a side note: my neices (Irish-German decent) complained that they couldn't understand everything I said in my eulogy for their great grandmother because of my choice of vocabulary. Not understanding scholarly vocabulary is a "problem" of lots of white kids, too!)

4) There are many of us old-schoolers on this forum who have bemoaned some of the changes that have happened in CX debate over, say, the past 10 years. One reason some folks (I think of my father here, especially -- a coach for 40+ years) hate kritical debates is because they CAN diverge SO far from the original topic. The actual topic has become, seemingly, in some cases, an excuse to debate everything else. That, I supposed, is part of what disturbs me a bit about the approach of Towson, Long Beach Jordan, and the Louisville Project. The arguments about the state of debate have no connection (and don't even try to create a link) to the topic at hand. (I have to admit, though, that the Long Beach Jordan team in Resolved did connect the topic to their racism kritik fairly effectively -- from what I saw in the film).

I am not defending the method in which this author chose to make these points. A more civilized discussion could have been done. But, underneath the volatile rhetoric, this author brought up some issues very close to the bone in our community.

P. S.: I looked around the site to find out if it really is a White Supremacist Website. I found very little regarding specifically white supremacy, but the stated purpose of this site is to discuss issues regarding immigration. By the site's own criteria, this article should not have been published in that forum as it has nothing to do with the current issue of immigration.

regardless of how you feel about kritikal debate, why should someone formulate an opinion about something which he knows nothing of! sure, there were/are various discussions about this debate, but debates are what decide whether such arguments are acceptable. public displays of hatred and ignorance are not! that article is a direct attack on this activity!

[Startop]

From wikipedia:

"VDARE.com, or VDARE, is a white supremacist website that advocates reduced immigration into the United States."

I think Ms. Peters' post makes some good points, but a few I don't agree with, and challenge the basis of. I have to go, so I will post more later, but I did want to make clear that this is a white supremacist website that is writing articles about our activity.

[Ankur]

i would prefer that instead of emailing the author, we just attack where it hurts - scrutinize the author's publications across the net, find the failures in journalism ethics (like actually researching the topic at hand), and then repeatedly (en masse) email:

Men’s News Daily
Middle American News
the New York Daily News
New York Post
Newsday
Chronicles
Ideas on Liberty and the Weekly Standard
(and anywhere else he gets his articles published)

and demand that his articles never be published in the future on the basis of a failure to respect journalism ethics.

there is nothing like a grassroots war of economics to change someone's mind.

of course, sending emails to those publications indicating his obvious racism (aside from his failures as a journalist) isnt a bad idea either.

[dan.]

Ankur, that's a great idea. People should start posting citations for his other articles right away. Let's just eliminate his income potential.

[tpeters]

Originally Posted by xtncshnoutways

regardless of how you feel about kritikal debate, why should someone formulate an opinion about something which he knows nothing of! sure, there were/are various discussions about this debate, but debates are what decide whether such arguments are acceptable. public displays of hatred and ignorance are not! that article is a direct attack on this activity!

Please reread the entire post.

Originally Posted by tpeters

I'm going to tread on eggshells and go out on a limb (to mix a metaphor).

The manner in which this author discussed what happened was deplorable. His choice of language was loaded and incendiary. He was insulting. He had no right to make such accusations about the judges or the CEDA organization. He went way out of bounds.

[Startop]

Awesome idea. How do you suggest we organize this? I dont think that sparse, delayed e-mails from various debaters will be as effective as forming a coalitional force with the community as a whole. This will take some form or organizing, and timing on the parts of those involved. I would love to hear any ideas for this that you may have.

[dan.]

I think we should start by finding a problematic article written by this douchebag in one of the bigger-name publications on his CV. Once we have that, we can send our complaints to the publisher and editors of that publication on the same day, as a group. The complaint should not simply be that the article in question is bad, but that the article is bad, and also that it reflects poorly on the publication in which it appears, because said author is a fucking xenophobic bigot with no journalistic integrity whatsoever.

Also, Tammie, watch the round if you haven't already. Towson's argument is compelling.

[xtncshnoutways]

i would love to take part in this. please continue posting ideas and updates. how should we get more people to take action?

[Ankur]

just do what dan said. start researching the author's articles and post them here. we'll dissect them, identify the worst offenders, and then we write a letter. we can even draft it here online. then, en masse, we email the letter to the contact information collected in the process.

dan has the right strategy. we start by emailing the most prominent publications, and then working our way down.


if you want to help, find his articles, especially those sent into the more prominent publications, and post them here.

[ChezCory]

Index of his VDARE articles: http://www.vdare.com/stix/index.htm
Articles in Blogcritics Magazine: http://blogcritics.org/writer/nicholas_stix
his blog, if anyone's interested: http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/

[tpeters]

Perhaps these sites will help with the revolution.


http://blogcritics.org/writer/nicholas_stix

This site includes several articles from Blog Critics, August 2005-July 2007

New York-based, dissident journalist Nicholas Stix, has the dubious distinction of being arguably America's most frequently censored writer, having at different times outraged black supremacists, socialists, feminists, white supremacists, paleocons, neocons and libertarians. Still, he has managed to get over 600 articles past the censors.

http://www.magic-city-news.com/Nicholas_Stix_86/

Articles from an online newspaper in Maine(?). Not sure if there is a paper version.

http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/Sho...r.asp?id=stixn

He seems to be a regular contributor to WebCommentary. 2006-2008

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/...olas-Stix.html

Articles from 2006-2007

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/aut...f-42839edf6334

Mr. Stix had 5 articles published here from 2000-2006. Odd that there are so few since the site says:

Nicholas Stix is an award-winning free-lance journalist who unearths the hidden secrets of New York politics, education, and race relations that elude the elite media establishment. His work appears in Toogood Reports; The American Enterprise; Insight on the News; Chronicle; Newsday and CampusReports.

These publications may not be carrying Mr. Stix anymore as the bio is dated. I went to the Newsday online site and put "Stix" into the search engine: nothing came up. When I searched the Regis University Library's indices for The American Enterprise, Mr. Stix came up for 3 articles: 2 in 1998 and 1 in 2001.



Side note: I find it notable that Mr. Stix's publishers seems to have fallen since the end of 2007.

One other note: I also searched 4 different libary databases for any articles by Nicholas Stix, including Lexis-Nexis, Academic Research, General Reference Gold -- No articles appeared. Apparently, Mr. Stix is limited to online publications.

[The Tick]

I am down for the revolution.

[Synergy]

Oh man, this is hilarious. Some nobody with the equivalent of a blog published thousands of racist articles but when he mentions debate you launch into a self-righteous crusade not, clearly, to solve any significant world problems, but to impress everyone on cross-x at how you totally love minorities, even though you started caring about this guy's (who's obviously such a big issue in the fight on racism!) only when this thread was posted (and this wasn't near the reaction in the CEDA thread when Towson actually won). yeah, let's bandwagon around fighting a nonsensical idiot online and thereby treat him as an worthy adversary. (Instead of, you know, ignoring it like you did the last thousand times.) Best of all, you aim to fight your crusade by RESEARCHING HIS ARTICLES (wow, I'd feel threatened already!) and giving his ramblings more views.