Sherry, The first four sentences of your post are interference to divert the discussion. My response to you in the backchannel discussion was that our differences over what constituted racial harassment, likely prevent us coming together on a policy. Any policy, whether an NDT edict, a banner posted on Tribble Hall, or a blip in a judging philosophy. The community differs with what Louisville believes constitutes racial harassment was and is my claim. Now to your examples: they only prove the point. Sherry believes that a racist joke constitutes racial harassment, but what happens when my debaters cry foul of examples you don't agree with (the ones you have consistently ignored). Picking the obvious examples of overt intentional racism are the easy ones; easy because the law and white culture has agreed that those are evil and should be removed. Problem is: those are rarely going to see the debate round. Occassionally, much like the extremes of sexual harassment: wild displays of pornographic material are the exception and not the norm (and I'm not saying that is what happened with SFSU cuz I have no idea, I just no that Wende was offended by whatever they were doing). So your updated philosophy does a great job of reducing the racial occurrences to those least likely to ever be a question. But what if those examples produce very little of the aggregate pain minorities perspectives feel in the community. What if the examples that produce the pain are viewed by many as small and insignificant: like gendered language, and not the big obvious oens? What if only the smallest and most resolute group feel this constitutes sexual harassment? And the pain for them was severe: not just because of the injury, but because of the community response to their explanation of how the injury makes them feel. Then what? What happens if that small group starts to win a lot of debates because they are able to express that pain in ways that make judge's uncomfortable enough to say, "you know what, this isn't an issue to me but I need to affirm them. Perhaps I need to make this an issue for me as well."? What happens when the majority of the community starts making structural changes to accomodate what began as a small group? But then what happens when the majority of Black women WHO AREN'T offended, because they feel the language issue for them is trival compared to their issues as Black women and that the white women could care less, all they want is the "obvious" support for their language issue? How does the harassment policy operate then? Where are the structural changes for them? What happens when Louisville says speed creates that pain for a population of students? Any structural changes coming or just adaptation in Louisville debates? Are those solutions the same, are they equal, are they just? What happens when Louisville says the standards for evaluation are cultural bias in favor of the privileged whites and that creates severe pain? What happens when Louisville says that the legacy of this game as it currently exists is a product of segregation where the white teams got to make the rules we play by today, while the Black debaters sat in prisons and HCBU's, only getting to debate whites on terms established by whites? When a new Black population shows up and says the rules of debate don't interest us and we have a right to exist here differently? Or is that pain an acceptable consequence because it doesn't affect you? Because it's not in your judging philosophy defined as racial harassment? Or do you attempts to say that there are other Blacks who feel differently than the collective pain of Louisville, so I can ignore Louisville's pain? How does your harassment policy work then? Your political choice in your philosophy lets someone know what offends YOU, that's it: no more, no less. That is little protection for those who aren't as concerned with what offends YOU...And that begs the quest ion: is it really about the student crying an offense has occurred? Or is it about a judge deciding which of that student's feelings bother them enough to get affirmed and validated through a ballot and which ones will be made invisible or even worsened after a debate when a judge says, "that shouldn't offend you" or "that wasn't what the other team meant?" My objection that you can't seem to understand is how will a judge responds to the objections that DON'T bother them personally but bother the student. And is that judge willing to conclude that raical harassment is present, even if THEY aren't bothered? And is there enough specificity in your policy (judging philosophy) so they can protect themselves, their emotions, and their feelings from YOU! Because you are the most dangerous of them all. The conservative majority that openly says I don't about your issue is a lot less dangerous to a minority, than someone who believes they sit in the comfort of addressing that minorities' best interest, while at the same time, not realizing that they can only do so in a self-centered, paternalistic way within their level of comfort. It's alot easier to train my students to protect themselves against the honest claim, and much harder to challenge those who believe they are righteous and our your side, when differences in perspectives says they are not. Kind of like when most teams went from spewing down in an effort to dominate my students untrained in speed, to a strategy of strategic adaption that only serves to avoid the original criticism, not solve it. But don't feel bad, frankly, that's human nature we all operate that way, and as you can tell, I have a lot more questions than answers. But when you say that "I can't imagine what possible objection you have to my philosophy stating that I think that Civil Rights protections for a non-racially hostile learning environment should apply to debate rounds.", I say yea, she's the most dangerous. My objection is that you are picking what I or we should be concerned about, instead of letting us pick: which was what most harassment policies say should happen. My students learned how to handle the choices Harvard made to stand up and spew them down when everyone involved knew our students were trained differently! Was that racial harassment? When our students said, "we want to debate to have a personal confrontation with whites" about racial issues on the topic and teams responded with intention acts, was that racial harassment. Then when our debaters figured out how to defend themselves against this onslaught, the new strategy was to "adapt" against Louisville, which eliminated a symptom of the problem (the visual trainwreck judge's had to endure watching Louisville debates), but left the problem there to see: how does this community accomodate difference? Yes, you can call to protect the non-Louisville racial minorities as if that means something to us. They should be protected in whatever ways work for you and them. That does not and will not escape the personal responsibility that you and every person in this community has to address directly the problem that remains: does the culture privilege norms, procedures, and issues that disproportionately created a safer culture for some more than others? And if it does, what should be done about it? And if you don't think issuing a statement with specific language for the most recent occurrences and absolutely nothing for the other is proof of that, then I don't know what is. Then on the back end to simply list a bunch of things important to you and the law as your solution, without any real understanding of whether those things mean anything to the minorities in debate, Louisville as one of them, is well, exactly the problem now isn't it? We are coming to compete and to win. We will defend the choices we make and as always, we expect others to do the same. Tell us what specificity offends you in your judging philosophy and be willing to d efend those choices. In return, we will tell you what offends us about both your choices as well as how the opposition finds ways to cater to those choices, creating further offenses on us. Again, we should not address legal questions, create a very narrowly tailored approach to defining events in a debate round as "harassment", and really take a good look at how we want to handle offensive speech and offensive actions. That's what I said to you the first time and that's what I'm saying today. Louisville will continue to fight for their ability to exist in a way that's comfortable for them: despite the hallway jokes, or mischaracterizations of what we do, or the accusations that we are the racists and uninterested in anyone but ourselves. We've gotten quite desensitized to it all. Not sure whether it's a good or bad thing. We will continue to fight for justice: meaning the SAME types of structural changes that Rachel, Sarah, Kate, Kenda and others initiated in this community to address their issues of harassment. No more, no less. With love, albeit tough Ede Even now, you minimize the importance of adding the specific examples with language
>>> From: "Sherry Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:"Ede Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 11/8/2007 9:56 AM Subject: Re: [CEDA-L] Stop the hypocrisy NOW! Don't include race! I didn't realize that the private backchannel -- which was an attempt to answer the attack you made on my efforts to address questions of sexual harassment 15 years ago as ignoring other forms of harassment and hostility specific to race -- meant that I was supposed to not express an opinion on racial harassment. I invited your input because I value your opinion as someone who has taken the lead on issues of racial exclusion over the years. You said that you did not agree with my approach of having the NDT adopt a specific policy. You did not say that you had any objection to the strategy of having each individual judge say for her/himself what s/he thinks about hostile learning environments. I can't imagine what possible objection you have to my philosophy stating that I think that Civil Rights protections for a non-racially hostile learning environment should apply to debate rounds. The types of actions/speech that I am referring to would include: racial slurs, racial jokes, offensive racial symbols such as the display of a noose in the round. You are correct that the examples I listed were more relevant to the assessment of sexual harassment, since that has been the main focus of the recent complaints, but that does not mean that instances of racial harassment could not be an issue. I see no reason to say that one type of harassment matters and the other does not. If all you are saying is that I need to include the same level of specificity for race as I did for sexual harassment, I will gladly add these examples in. If your argument is that my understanding of what constitutes a racially hostile learning environment is wrong, and too much tied to my understanding of a sexually hostile learning environment, then plesae enlighten me and the rest of the community as to what constitutes a racially hostile learning environment. We can have open discussion about those factors like we have been doing about sexual harassment. All I am trying to say is that I view both forms of harassment to be illegal and unethical, and nothing in position against racial harassment is hypocritical. I believe that my judging philosophy would address your concerns regarding Louisville debaters being told that they shouldn't feel racially offended in debate rounds by judges. That is exactly the issue permeating all the debate on edebate last week about the SFSU incident. If I had been judging the round you related to me where your debaters asked the other team to quit using the "N" word, I would have considered that to be an objection to racial harassment and would have insisted that the team stop or lose the round. I do not mean to be obtuse, but I don't fundamentally understand what your objection is. I also don't think that the fact that you and perhaps all of the rest of the Louisville debaters and coaches have decided that any mention of racial harassment in the judging philosophy is hypocritical means that everyone else in the community feels that way. There are other debaters than Louisville debaters who may find themselves in a racially hostile learning environment that would like to know what the judge thinks about the issue, and would like to invoke any protections that the judge offers against offensive language and conduct. Sherry ----- Original Message ----- From: Ede Warner ( mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 8:41 AM Subject: [CEDA-L] Stop the hypocrisy NOW! Don't include race! Dear Sherry and the rest of the Community, I tried having this conversation with Sherry backchannel but clearly that did not dissuade her from moving forward on this. But everything happens for a reason, we just have to figure out what it is. I think I've got ours. We will strongly, strongly, strongly object to the inclusion of the statement "and/or racial harassment". By her own admission privately and implicitly through her post, Sherry is unsure what constitutes racial harassment. Look at the difference below between the specificity of what Sherry thinks is inappropriate for sexual harassment cases and the lack of any specifics on race. Remember the old feminism arguments: you can't add women and stir. Why isn't that equally true regarding racial harassment? Simply adding the words, "and/or racial harassment" is not only insufficient but problematic and risks doubling the injury to a student who invoking the philosophy's racial harassment clause. I am in love of the general idea of having statements in philosophies, that is the purpose of a philosophy. But I hate the idea of having statements that selectively don't mean anything tangible. It is wrong to decide to just add it to make myself feel that I'm more inclusive without also recognizing that the ability to have a common understanding of what qualifies as racially offensive enough to warrant elimination is exactly what most of the race problem is in America today. Here is why we are so vehement about this: my students over the years have said that many, many things said by opponents in debates are racially insensitive or intentionally racist. In many of those debates, judges who don't see the same offensive recontextualize the comments, explaining why the judge doesn't think those comments are offensive or why Louisville SHOULDN'T be offended. As Mari Matsuda says, "not repairing the injury is to create it again." To add the statement on racial h., then deny my students the same treatment because YOU PERSONALLY don't see the injury is wrong. And that will be compounded by adding the statement, then challenging student experiences that don't jive with what your experiences as a judge. Many of you see contradictions regarding racial sensitivity in ways that a majority of Blacks don't. Use of nigga in rap songs or by Blacks but personal offense when whites use word is a great example. And if you don't believe that Blacks should be offended only when whites use the word, guess what? You probably shouldn't have racial harassment in your philosophy. And if your solution to this problem is too say "no one can use the word" but my students want to play the song in debates, aren't we back at the same problem? If you can't deliver on the promise that when my students say what is going on is racially insensitive, and accept unconditionally what your logical self tells you is a contradiction, you have no business putting race in your philosophy. Bothered by my decision to capitalize Blacks and not whites? If so, you shouldn't have a racial harassment clause in your philosophy. I believe that Sher ry's heart is in the right place, but her privilege and liberalism blinds her to the dilemma she creates. Why is solvency less important on the race part of this? At a minimum, race should not be added without specific examples of what she sees as racially offensive in the same why that she lists potential objections on sexual content, so that students have some context for where Sherry is willing to go with her claim. I suspect she doesn't because she can't. And what happens if her examples aren't consistent with what a racial minority feels is racially insensitive. Race shouldn't be added until she figures it out. Otherwise, you are going to replicate the injury when it occurs. The only question is: is it more important to feel better about your personal inclusion at the risk of further injurying the students your statements claim to protect? Or is it more important to critically examine the contradiction that is being pursued here and find an alternative that's consistent: at this point doing both the same way or not doing them at all. And if you solution is not at all, then how are you all going to deal with the example you've just been confronted with? Think I'm exaggerating. While we speak, I'm engaged in a discussion with Elliott where he repeatedly makes the claim that all Louisville does is cry foul on race in debates? Do you really think he is the only person who believes this in the community? In fact, I'd argue that most of you likely agree with that assessment. As I sit and write my book today, I unsure you I have more examples of judges dismissing the feelings of my students by saying "it isn't race", then I have judges who demonstrated empathy and validation for those feelings. In the same way Sherry feels outraged that people are dismissing Wende's feelings about her experiences, which NO ONE can challenge, this community is so hypocritical and complicit about this with regards to racial sensitivity it isn't funny? But wait, making jokes about our collective over-sensitivity is how most of you handle it, isn't it? Here's how it's going to go down: you put racial harassment in your philosophy, you best be prepared to defend it. You leave it out and include sexual harassment, you'd best be prepared to defend that too. You choose to not put anything it, you'd best be prepared to defend why that choice won't create more ugly situations like the injuries to Wende. Sorry if that creates the proverbial no win situation for you folks, but we will not allow issues important to us continue to be treated with less specificity just to legitimate others who want to feel good about themselves. That's called inferiority and further demonstrates why racial disparities exist so heavily here. This entire community owes more than lip service when it's convenient to the race issue, and creating workable and consistent solutions is only just and fair. Even if that forces reconsideration of many existing beliefs in this community. Tiffany forward this to the troops...we can and will mobilize around this issue. Yea, that's a top down decision. It's called leadership. I'm very, very comfortable that when I speak for my students, they will be down with my call. That's because we share a set of experiences that create a shared frustration. When they understand what is going here, I won't need to beg them to act accordingly. More proof of racial difference. Will all of them agree? Likely not, a couple won't. Do I have a problem with requiring collective action as a precondition to move forward strategically in an effort to make our movement? Not at all. You see that's another contradiction that most in the community can't get past: the absolute belief in individualism and the need at times for minorities to engage in collective action. You see, it is still voluntary...if they don't want to march with the rest of the soldiers, then can quit. What they can't do is undermine the mission of the collective? Why is this justified? Becaus e the nature and scope of the social injustice that is going down at this moment is a level of severity that I'm willing to risk the alienation of a few for the souls of the many. Y'all do it...don't believe me. Go back and reread the above paragraph carefully then get back with me. We will be using Affirmative Action judging this weekend to increase diversity in the judging pool. Our choice increases the likelihood that more women and minorities participate equally in this community which is a benefit to the entire community. However, coalition building is not and should not be one-sided, it should require consideration on both sides. Demanding that all judges, especially women, create equal treatment to protect the minority interests of students for a fair and equal racial climate is not too much to ask. I hope others consider our lead, to prefer unrepresented groups and to accept the responsibilities that go along with participation in this community, beginning with equality and justice for all. Sincerely, Ede >>> From: "Sherry Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 11/8/2007 6:59 AM Subject: [CEDA-L] Judging Philosophy I'm still trying to figure out how to post my now updated philosophy. Perhaps it was not as easy as I said in the last message. Once I get a definitive answer how to do it, I'll pass it along. For your information, here is the new language that I have added to my philosophy: In addition to the theoretical preferences, I do have some views regarding decorum in the round. 1. As I mentioned above, I view myself as an educator and consider the debate round to be a learning environment. I believe that both basic civil rights law, as articulated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent state laws, as well as basic ethics requires that debaters and judges conduct themselves in rounds in a manner that protects the rights of all participants to an environment free of racial/sexual hostility or harassment. I am inclined to disallow language and performances that would be considered harassment in a regular class-room setting. I have no problem with discussions that include sexual issues, but if the incorporation of pornography, sexual simulation, sexual threats against the other team, nudity, etc., creates a hostile environment for the other participants in the round, then it should not be presented. If you think your debate performance potentially crosses the line and could constitute sexual and/or racial harassment, your safest bet is to warn the other team before the round and ask if they have any objections. I consider a request from the opposing team or me to not use explicit language/material/performance to be a signal of their/my discomfort and deserving of your respect. I view the intentional decision to create a hostile environment without respecting the feelings of the opposing team to be an unethical practice that will be treated the same way as other ethical violations such as fabricating evidence loss and zero speaker points. Sherry _______________________________________________ CEDA-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.ndtceda.com/mailman/listinfo/ceda-l
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