National Debate Championship winners

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Message Posted by Tigerlaff What in the actual frick did I just witness?

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On March 24, 2014 at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Championships at Indiana University, two Towson University students, Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, became the first African-American women to win a national college debate tournament, for which the resolution asked whether the U.S. president’s war powers should be restricted. 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 “n*gga 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. “frick 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.

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That simply can not be the open national debate championship.

What kinda national debate championship was it? I do not see harvard or yale competing in that kind of debate.

It was a subset of a very small number of school national championship I would guess

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I remember reading something about this before.

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Towson State

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I've explained this once before on this board. Probably should have gone in more detail. So, here it is, pay attention..

In the late 1970s Prof Shanahan, of U. Texas, came up with a strategy he called The Kritik. Not a misspelling.

The strategy was to ignore the topic and draw your opponent into the area where you had superior knowledge.

Think of it this way... if a monkey played an alligator in soccer the monkey would win. But if the alligator demanded that the game be played in a river, the alligator would win.

So, the kritik debater becomes expert in one area.. like race. He studies it for 2 months. If the topic is War Powers then all the race debater has to do is compile a lot of arguments in those 2 months why race is more important than War Powers.

The opponent has not spent 2 months compiling evidence why race is NOT more important than war powers so he loses if he is going to play on that ground.... (the river of the alligator).

The judges, who are hipsters, view themselves as Tabula Rasa. IE, I shall accept any argument that is not refuted. It's a farce. It's the lazy student's way to debate.

It is promulgated by grad students who run summer shops for HS debaters at major universities. They get paid to amuse HS kids. They don't care about logical thought. They simply want to do the least amount of research and concentrate that research on what issue they care the most about. War Powers does not interest them. Race does.

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Wrong. Don't use any. My big weakness is eye sight. Without contacts I'm blind as a bat. Also, when I drop something on the floor I always check around to see if there is anything else down there before I get up.

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My mom was in love with LW. Lucy does not allow me to watch it on PBS. I do a great IRL impression of LW: "Anda now ladies anda gentlemena...here isa our version of a popular tune for the younger people...by AC anda DC .. Hiway to Hella!!!"

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OK, Zach is gonna reveal another secret. Those Towson kids are from UDL... Urban Debate League. It started in the 1980s by Prof. Unger of Georgetown. He realized that debate coaches could get big time grant money by bringing the debate experience (white and male) to the inner city (black and female). He got charged with some type of crime and was forced to resign. But the idea caught on during the 90s. It's still going on. It's a money maker for white debate coaches. NADL The problem is that inner city kids are too stupid to debate in traditional argumentation styles. So, to win, they have to create new rules.

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No. Because there is no way of verifying truth of personal experience in a debate. I debated Viet Nam intervention policy while in HS. I was beating the shite out my opponent. Then he used the argument that VN was wrong because his dad died there two months ago. He started to weep. He won. After the debate he admitted to me that he way lying. His dad wasn't even in the military.

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On March 24, 2014 at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Championships at Indiana University, two Towson University students, Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, became the first African-American women to win a national college debate tournament, for which the resolution asked whether the U.S. president’s war powers should be restricted. 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. It's a long read and kind of sad for those of you who believe argumentation should be logical. Here is a short illustration of what 'rule changing' is about for those who don't want to read the whole thing. Let's say I'm debating Rex. I have prepared all of my arguments in rhyming couplets. In my first speech I read the couplets proposing that all arguments in the round should be in rhyming couplets or they should be dismissed by the judge. I warn the judge than any counter arguments by Rex asserting that this is stupid must be dismissed if Rex's arguments are not in rhyming couplets.

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