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Towson University Debate Team members Ameena Ruffin ‘15 and Korey Johnson ’16 made history at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national championship Monday night.
“Ruffin and Johnson are the first African-American women’s team to win a national tournament,” said Mike Davis, president of the Cross Examination Debate Association. In a sense, it’s a double record. “No [individual] African-American woman has ever won our tournament before,” Davis confirmed.
Congratulations, right? Wrong. This is a politically correct fraud. The winning round is in the video above. Fast forward to the 1:08 mark, and let it play. You won’t believe your eyes and ears. This Dada performance is what won a national college debate competition. Believe it or not, the teams were debating the War Powers Resolution. The Atlantic reports that the strategy of the Towson team was deliberate. Excerpt:
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 “***** 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. “**** the time!” he yelled. His partner Campbell, who won the top speaker award at the National Debate Tournament two weeks later, had been unfairly targeted by the police at the debate venue just days before, and cited this experience as evidence for his case against the government’s treatment of poor African-Americans.
This year wasn’t the first time this had happened. In the 2013 championship, two men from Emporia State University, Ryan Walsh and Elijah Smith, employed a similar style and became the first African-Americans to win two national debate tournaments. Many of their arguments, based on personal memoir and rap music, completely ignored the stated resolution, and instead asserted that the framework of collegiate debate has historically privileged straight, white, middle-class students.
In other words — and this is no exaggeration — we must privilege gibberish and racial harangue that has nothing to do with the question under debate, because facts and logic are — wait for it — racist. If you want to see what, exactly, this insanity produces, watch that video from the 1:08 mark. You will see an adult woman appear to be having a psychotic break as she addresses the audience. You will wonder, “Why is no one helping her? She’s making a fool of herself.” It turns out that this was deliberate … and it helped her team win the national competition. It’s as if a team turned up at the Super Bowl, decided to play kickball instead of football, and won the game was awarded a victory.
After watching the video, I don't really have a comment. I just want to hear it discussed so I can figure out what's going on.
The more I think about it --- white Europeans should've just kept on sailing past Africa 400 years ago and headed straight to Mexico to find their slave labor.
Well, apparently this is a policy debate, which has fast speaking as part of its style. Doesn't explain the poetry, off-topicness, or rudeness, though.
If you see this video from 2010, you will see different students engaging in similar behavior. Go to about 7:33 to see some of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya6g36Co5ck)
(Argh. How do I just post a link to a video, like I would a link to an article? It keeps adding a picture preview to the post as well as extra code.)
The more I think about it --- white Europeans should've just kept on sailing past Africa 400 years ago and headed straight to Mexico to find their slave labor.
To me it sounds like a matter of style over substance. No one could reasonably be expected to understand and process that nonsense in a manner that is useful to the debate.
I've seen this before. Didn't Eminem make a movie about it called "8 Mile"?
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Keyboard courage in full effect. So ignorant.
