10th Reflection, An Open Letter to My Debaters Past, Present, and Future
by Dr. Ede Warner, Jr – Louisville Professor of Affirmative Action
The costs of white privileged forms of competition were that the quality and truth of arguments really didn’t matter, so when I wrote great arguments about racial issues, the techne and arugment strategies of the game allowed those arguments to be ignored or dismissed in the evaluation process. None of this was inviting to African American students interested in using debate as a training ground to become a better advocate for their desire to address the problems of the black community through logical, reasoned, advocacy training. So I struggled to make good on my promise to use debate as a tool of empowerment for African Americans.
