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Re: Racism,judging et al

>Mr.Kuss says
>It seems that Mr. Madrid would rather have such issues not
>discussed, regardless of the positive implications.
>
>- Mr. Kuss sees the positive implications. But he is assuming
>that others view things as he does.  It would also seem that the
>positive implication is granted.  Because a card says it will
>happen is no guarantee for those who have personally
>experienced it that it will.  If there are positive implications,
>there may also be potential negative ones if the wrong side
>loses. It is only a game? Maybe not for those who are sitting
>there.

Well, first cards are never guarantees, on any issue. Second, if we assume
any truth to the cards, there is some point where we must risk the
possibiilty of offending someone on the way to ending racism. Not everyone
is happy with everything.

>Mr. Pittelli says
>  Iwas mugged once -- quite a horrible event in my life. I will
>still accept positions, think they should be weighed by the judge
>in a round, like "Mugging good".  
>
>-Try being mugged two or three times a day every day of your
>life and see what your reaction is when they want to run a
>Mugging Good position. Yeah, I know, it is a game and you
>would disassociate yourself. Right.

Why, or perhaps, how, can you assume that there will be no disassociation?

>	A lot of what I am trying to say is that a lot of us,
>myself included, just do not GET IT. We can not, without
>having experienced it. But when someone who has experienced
>it tells me that the thought of sitting through a position
>regarding it in a debate round disturbs them, who am I to tell
>them that it is only a game and that they should be able to
>handle it?

There is no reason why "we" cant "GET IT." I have never been in shackles due
to my skin color but I sure as hell know that I would never want to be and
that such as action is outright illogical and morally disgusting. 

Who are you to tell them it is only a game? A participant, perhaps. Does
that mean you give free reign to any judge that has come in contact with
something a debater hasn't? Doesnt this eliminate the use of evidence in the
round, if empirical experince takes priority? What if the author I am using
has had more experience than the judge?   

>	This is where I would like to mention judge adaptation. 
>We make a big show of wanting to say that we do it all the
>time.  Personally, I think that what we do is pretty close to the
>antithesis of judge adaptation. Judge adaptation should not be
>listen to what the judge says they like and then do it. IMHO,
>adaptation is to run what you want and then to respond to what
>you see and pick up from the judge. If you ran racism is good,
>and you see your judge curl into the fetal position and grimace,
>it should tell you something. Now, I certainly do not expect
>debate to change to this, but now I am hearing that if a judge
>tells you outright that they do not like something, like racism
>positions, we are going to come down on them and tell them
>they should not say that.  So what it has come down to is, tell
>me about your judging. But if you tell me something I do not
>think you should, then you should not tell me that. Just sit there
>and swallow it anyway. I have a problem with this.
>	If a judge tells you that they do not like a certain
>position, racism or anything else, do not run it. It is as simple as
>that. Do you only have a single position in those files?  If you
>run it anyway, then be willing to accept the consequences. The
>judge can not magically turn off their predispositions.

I dont think anyone would argue this, to any extent. If the judge warns you
ahead of time, there isno excuse for offending that judge later in the round
on that issue. I have had personal experince with this. On the Nat'l news
Media topic my partner and I defeated a much better team at the USC
Earlybird with a simple overview on what the judge indicated what they
wanted to see in the round. The judge said that he wanted to see first and
foremost national news media impairing understanding, and all of the impacts
are secondary. Apparently he had seen a few too many untopical cases.
Regardless, the aff then ran Radio Free Europe will cause nuke war because
it  led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

No debater should ever simply ignore anything the judge tells them. My fear
is simply that the judge wont tell the teams that racism args are disliked,
and expect the debaters to know of any suffering that has occurred.

Matt Kuss
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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