[Marxism] Identity politics gone mad in the academe

[Aaron Aarons]

>Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:13:55 -0400
>From: "Ruthless Critic of All that Exists" <ok.president+marxml at gmail.com>
>Subject: [Marxism] Identity politics gone mad in the academe

That's the kind of Subject header I'd expect Dinesh D'Souza or Lou Dobbs to put on an article like this, but not anybody on the left.

Moreover, the article, especially its alleged connection to "identity politics", is incomprehensible as excerpted, and the link to the full article is only useful to those who want to pay money to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

 - Aaron

>Colleges Call Debate Contests Out of Order
>
>Postmodern strategies pose challenges to traditional forensics
>
>By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
>
>Towson, Md.
>
>The world of college debate is an insular one. So when a prominent
>coach mooned a judge during a tournament in March, officials in the
>national debate association planned to handle it themselves. [...]
>
>"[...]It began during the quarterfinal round of the association's
>national tournament last March, when a Fort Hays State team was facing
>off against a team from Towson.
>
>"One of the Towson debaters, Deven Cooper, began the round by
>criticizing a procedural matter that is not usually discussed during
>competitions. Each team was given the opportunity to remove one judge
>from the panel, and Mr. Cooper accused the Fort Hays team of turning
>down the only African-American judge, Shanara Rose Reid-Brinkley,
>because of her race. Mr. Cooper called the move "an act that is fully
>offensive and exclusionary."
>
>"We feel that we cannot address the policies within this round until
>we address the fundamental issues of white supremacy as well as
>whiteness in this activity," Mr. Cooper argued in his opening speech.
>
>The debaters from Fort Hays countered that race had nothing to do with
>their decision, arguing that the request was made for competitive
>reasons because the judge had been tough on the team in the past. But
>the Towson team continued to pursue the issue, which dominated the
>entire round. Mr. Shanahan sat on the floor on the sidelines.
>
>"Towson's team won the round, with two judges finding for them and one
>for Fort Hays. After the judges explained their reasons, Mr. Shanahan
>and Ms. Reid-Brinkley, an assistant professor of communication at the
>University of Pittsburgh, got into a shouting match -- trading
>obscenities and personal insults as a camera recorded the scene. At
>one point, Mr. Shanahan briefly dropped his shorts and exposed his
>underwear.
>
>"Mr. Shanahan has been a controversial and influential figure in
>college debate for decades. He helped introduce a style of debate that
>incorporates postmodern theory; in it, debaters question the position
>from which their opponents are arguing rather than tackling the merits
>of individual points.
>
>[...]
>
>"It was another debate coach, Ede Warner Jr., who first focused on
>issues of race and identity during debate rounds about eight years
>ago. Mr. Warner is an associate professor of communication at the
>University of Louisville, and many call the approach "the Louisville
>project."
>
>"In the 1960s, debate began moving to a format in which participants
>talked fast and tried to lob as many arguments as they could at
>opponents, and in the 1990s, the pace got even faster, according to
>some longtime debate coaches. The result was a move away from oratory,
>as debaters focused on absorbing information and responding to it.
>Meanwhile, the demographics of debate had become more and more diverse
>in a competitive system that is unusually open. Teams from community
>colleges and small colleges often go head-to-head with those from Ivy
>League institutions and large state universities. But Mr. Warner felt
>that the "cookie-cutter style" of standard policy debates left little
>room to discuss matters of race.
>
>" "It was easy strategically to make those issues less relevant to the
>debate," he says, and he saw his approach as a way to force the issue
>of race to front and center.
>
>"But in 2005, after debaters at several other colleges had embraced
>"the Louisville project," Mr. Warner abandoned it, concluding that it
>had become unproductive. "I thought the community was becoming
>desensitized" to the strategy, he says.
>
>"When asked whether Mr. Hammond, the president of Fort Hays State, was
>correct in calling debate too uncivil, Mr. Warner conceded that
>"there's some merit in some of those charges." But he and others
>inside debate wonder whether it is possible to impose new rules on
>conduct without destroying the essence of the activity. [...]"
>
>Full: <http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i06/06a00103.htm>