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Racism and Relevancy of Debate

Racism
First, I think I should start out by saying that I have never, EVER
felt any overt racism in the debate community. I debate primarily in
the Midwest (I can't really speak for other regions), and on the
whole I would say that most of the people I meet judge each other
more on their skills as a debater and the way that they treat other
people than any other thing.  Debate lends itself to people who are
not given to pre-judging, or making assumptions about people.  And
so, I don't feel as if 'racism in the community' would be a factor in
determining the racial composition of the collegiate debate
community.  I think that a VERY relevant factor, however, is the
'stocks' from which collegiate debaters are drawn, and how debate is
perceived.  My parents have many, MANY times tried to convince me to
quit.  Why?  Your second argument.  Debate is relevant,
superficially, to nothing but itself.  From an Asian parents'
perspective, at least, there are a million things more important than
being a 'good debater.'  Thus, high school minority debaters many
times will either (1) not try as hard or put as much time in (and they
are then less recognized and less often offered scholarships), or (2)
simply give in to parental pressure and not pursue debate after high
school.  Even if debate were 'relevant' to some social science, I
think that many among the non-Asian community don't recognize that
many first generation Asian parents don't recognize social sciences
as 'valid' life pursuits.  Most of these parents feel that their
children must be in a scientific profession, IE engineering, medical
school, biomedical things, etc.  This only adds to the pressure for
many potential Asian debaters.  The racial composition of the debate
community is therefore, at least from an Asian-American perspective,
highly controlled by social pressures outside of the debate
community's control.

Relevancy of debate to the real world
This may have an influence on some debaters decisions not to continue
the activity or enter into it, but I'm not sure that any policy
approach could solve it.  From what I understand, debate as an
activity is constantly evolving.  Ranging from value debate to policy
to parli, the way that the people INVOLVED (IE the debaters) feel is
best to approach the activity constantly changes.  But none of these
is controllable by a CEDA policy, nor do I feel that it should be.
Debaters as a whole should be able to adopt whatever style they want,
from spreading with 10 nuke wars on case to a value oriented
evaluation of the topic to whatever.  The point of debate, as I see
it, is not an end in itself.  I have learned a lot from debate.  How
to structure an argument, how to evaluate the validity of another's
argument and effectively present a counterargument, how to research a
topic thoroughly and maximizing available resources, how to question
somebody to examine a point they are making.  I may not do well as a
debater in the activity proper, but that is a thing less to do with
how I think as the way it must be presented within the context of a
debate round and the time constraints imposed.  In the end, I have
gotten more 'real world' understanding from debate than from any
single or combination of classes I have taken yet -- not in  specific
information, but in a paradigmatic approach to THINKING.  That, I
feel, is more important that anything else, and makes debate
'relevant.'

Peace,
Vikas
MSU Debate


--
*******************************
Vikas Shah
Biochemistry/Philosophy Junior
Michigan State University
snail: Bower Co-op, 127 Whitehills Drive, East Lansing, MI 48823
telep: 517-351-4490 or 517-351-9976
email: shahvika@pilot.msu.edu
*******************************
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Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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