[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

Re: Comment on racial skew

The study results reported by Rogers are troubling, to be sure.  Another 
reminder (if we needed it) of the necessity for more aggressive efforts
to make debate a more welcoming environment for those traditionally
excluded.

I wonder at the extent to which the awarding of lower points reflects
aggressive discrimination, or more subtle attempts to perpetuate class,
race and gender positions, perhaps subconscious.  The situation may be
analogous to the tendency of some scholars who find evidence of ongoing
discrimination even in companies with fairly recently implemented but
very aggressive efforts to correct historical inequities.  The evidence
of continuing disparity in those cases may simply not reflect the fact
that there is a lag time during which (say) women work their way up the
corporate ladder.  In a similar way, populations represented in debate
competition, whose members are the first or second "generation"
participants produced by newer programs, may not yet have fully
assimilated the national circuit culture.  

I am not making this pointto denegrate the skills or work efforts of
debaters from historically (and presently) disadvantaged groups.  I just 
think Rogers' results (to the extent they've been soundbite reported
here) evidence the same problem (discrimination) in a different way.  By 
contrast to those who might see continuing results disparities as
evidence of racism/sexism on the part of judges, it may actually prove
how far we have to go to ensure that participation and coaching
opportunities are made more equitably available and not individual cases 
of hostility.

Its a distinction that makes at least a potential difference.  If
results disparities are a function of case-by-case individual acts of
disparagement or overt hostility, then the extent to which debate can be 
made a welcoming and educative environment for all who wish to and ought 
to benefit from it is limited indeed, at least until individuals can be
made more sensitive to their own bigotry.  If it reflects continuing
resource and experiential disparities, then (although that too is a
tough problem) there is more hope that in the very near term changes are 
possible.  I guess I hope its the latter and not the former, although
undoubtedly both happens.  

To put it a bit differently, I hope people don't react to evidence of
results disparities dismissively, with the attitude that "well, I
certainly aim to be fair, and I'm sure it's just those bigots from
Patriarchy U who perpetuate discrimination."  We all need to think about 
how we judge.  But we also need to take aggressive efforts to foster
program development in our regions and at home to provide students with
experience and educations so strong as to overwhelm remaining vestiges
of hatred...

David Cheshier



On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Doyle Srader wrote:

> "Statistically significant" can be mighty small: five or ten percent.
> One round out of every ten or every twenty might be decided differently
> based upon race. I think the results of Dr. Rogers' study could be
> replicable, ironclad, ready for the axiom list, and *still* not prove
> that _bias_ existed.
> 
> Communication, and persuasive communication in particular, is a process
> whose effectiveness is heavily influenced by identification between
> communicator and audience. People's communicative practices are heavily
> laden with cultural influences: language use, grammar differences
> <I have to smirk whenever anyone refers to grammar as "standardized" ---
> I'd love to do my own CLS move on the alleged "rules of grammar">,
> anecdotes, archetypes, etc. So a white male judge evaluating the
> relative persuasive force of the arguments presented by someone from
> within his cultural sphere versus those of someone from a different
> background might find that in one out of every twenty rounds, the
> difference <because we all know debate is a game of inches, and a lot of
> rounds could justly be awarded to either team> is the cultural
> proximity. <I am assuming, obviously, that differences in these practices
> exist and break down along race *and* gender lines. In fact, I think
> to a degree that's true.>
> 
> The question is, is this a problem? Not is it bad -- in a perfect world
> there would be no misunderstanding, but is it a problem? Gravity is an
> influence in the alarming epidemic of people falling down, but is
> gravity a problem? Can we do anything about the fact that there exists a
> significant <but not *overpowering*, I suspect> skew along the lines of
> similarity between judge and debater? Could I *not* identify more with
> debaters who are similar to me than with debaters who aren't, down to a
> level where it would influence fewer than one out of twenty rounds I
> judged? Would consciously attempting to correct for such a bias create
> more problems than it solved?
> 
> Tough questions.
> 
> Doyle Srader
> University of Georgia
> <706> 548-9938
> 
>
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page