Tournament: Sandburg Convocation of Eagles | Round: 3 | Opponent: FREEBUMP | Judge: FREEBUMP
I am a white, heterosexual, able bodied, economically advantaged male. All of these privileges intersect to give me access to this round and community.  The performance of my body is never scrutinized in these rounds. I don’t have to assimilate or sacrifice my culture to fit in. Judges in the back of the room and the authors that are cited, more often than not, look like me. I don’t have to worry about micro aggressions from judges, competitors, teammates, and coaches in and out of round. The way community norms exist, I am not even held responsible when I commit micro aggressions. This position isn’t a survival tactic, It’s not a necessity. This isn’t even close to all the benefits afforded by my social location; the invisible nature of privilege ensures that I will never fully understood how good I have it. But I have to try, We all have to interrogate and then attempt to deconstruct privilege in these rounds, in this community, and beyond.  

Dr. Shanara Reid Brinkley writes

SHANARA ROSE REID-BRINKLEY 2008  BA, Emory University, 2001 MA, University of Alabama, 2003,THE HARSH REALITIES OF “ACTING BLACK”: HOW AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLICY DEBATERS NEGOTIATE REPRESENTATION THROUGH RACIAL PERFORMANCE AND STYLE, DOCTOR OF PHILIOSOPHY
ATHENS, GEORGIA
http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/bitstream/handle/10724/12500/reid-brinkley_shanara_r_200805_phd.pdf?sequence=1
 

In such an environment one then must wonder why the community’s efforts have resulted in a limited increase in minority partciipation and few, although notable, examples of nationally successful racial minorities.19 If one accepts that the college debate community's efforts to become a more diverse and inclusive social and competitive space are in earnest, then one may be compelled to wonder if there is something about the college policy debate activity itself that results in low levels of minority participation. Bruschke notes that “Perhaps it is time to start talking and thinking about how the style of debate might influence participation levels.”20 Debate scholar and director, William Shanahan notes that there must be a simultaneous challenge to both the “content and style of traditional debate.”21 For both Brushke and Shanahan it becomes quite clear that style is a critical space from which to engage in lasting change in the debate community. More specifically, it is the questioning and re-visioning of such norms that may result in significant changes in the ethnic and racial make up of the debate community; and I imagine, an important transformation to the practice of the activity itself.  67 Stepp argues that cultural and behavioral barriers exist within the national college policy debate community that contribute to an environment hostile to racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual differences.22 I think it is important to theorize the performative implications of this hostility. If the image of the successful, national level debater is signified by a white, male, and economically privileged body, then the stylistic practices of those bodies become the standard by which all other bodies are evaluated. Their practices, their behaviors, their identities become the models or thrones upon which others must sacrifice their identities in the pursuit of “the ballot” or the win. It is the combination of cultural values, behavioral practices, and the significance of the flesh that remain barriers to the inclusion of othered bodies and identities. In other words, the habitus I mention in Chapter One

The role of your ballot should be to vote for the debater  that best performatively and methodologically challenges oppressive and normative structures in debate.
This is the best way to make our scholarship relevant. Your ballot is not going to do anything to effect environmental degradation or resource extraction; the real world doesn't listen to what we say. But It can change debate, because the debate community cares about who wins and loses. Your ballot marks my advocacy as important for people who can actually do something about what I’m saying.
This role of the ballot also grounds discussions in the community students are a part of and that we can change. It creates individual agency rather than removing it from students.
It is also the best way to create a fair and educational contest for the most people.  Right now,  Debate is only fair and educational in terms of one model. Debate only teaches us about the world through a specific eurocentric lense. It is only fair for those that play the game. Combatting oppressive normative structures opens up the space to entirely new models of debate subsequently expanding the education and evening the playing field.
Also, even if the current model of debate is fair and educational, the fact that students are leaving or  never joining in the first place has to be a prior question, it doesn’t matter how good a game is if no one plays it.
Most significantly, there is an ethical obligation to confront  exclusion because anything less is consent.
Christopher Vincent Writes

http://victorybriefs.com/vbd/2013/10/re-conceptualizing-our-performances-accountability-in-lincoln-douglas-debate 

 As educators and adjudicators in the debate space we also have an ethical obligation to foster an atmosphere of education. It is not enough for judges to offer predispositions suggesting that they do not endorse racist, sexist, homophobic discourse, or justify why they do not hold that belief, and still offer a rational reason why they voted for it. Judges have become complacent in voting on the discourse, if the other debater does not provide a clear enough role of the ballot framing, or does not articulate well enough why the racist discourse should be rejected. Judges must be willing to foster a learning atmosphere by holding debaters accountable for what they say in the round. They must be willing to vote against a debater if they endorse racist discourse. They must be willing to disrupt the process of the flow for the purpose of embracing that teachable moment. The speech must be connected to the speech act. We must view the entire debate as a performance of the body, instead of the argument solely on the flow.

Winning this role of the ballot should be sufficient for me to win, because my opponent never provides a method or performance that opposes normative and oppressive structures. They are silent about their privilege and complacent about normative conceptions of the role of the ballot and what it means to be a better debater. My reconceptualization what this round means and interrogation of how my privilege functions in this space through this role of the ballot is a performative and methodological opposition to normative practice.

Elijah Smith writes

http://victorybriefs.com/vbd/2014/1/developing-our-environment-planting-the-seeds-for-the-activist-model 

Despite popular opinion, I think you should be rooted in the topic no matter what your politics, performance, or method of engagement is. Having a conversation about military force, animal rights, or economic sanctions provides unique moments for conversation that leads us to unearth scholarship buried in libraries and catalogues that inspire us each and every year. A lot of arguments on the January/February topic seem to be about avoiding or being able to initiate topicality debates to preserve the value in these conversations. What is seldom done in this search for the perfectly balanced conversation at the Tournament of Champions, unfortunately, is to question what do T debates mean outside of wins and losses? Even if a given topic is great, what does it mean for the individual competitors that might not share your subject position?  What does a conversation mean and who is it for if it’s not accessible for the most disadvantaged students who find the time to compete? The conversations I’ve heard include people making bold statements about not footnoting structural violence who then destroy the names of non-Western countries and authors and amalgamate “Africa” as a country instead of a continent full of unique and diverse nations and identities. A development topic should be one of the best opportunities to learn about difference, but if debaters are going to continue to reduce both the topic and the debate space to a comfortable Western discussion of people who don’t have our geographic or national privilege, without including their voices or concerns on both sides of the topic, that should be up for discussion as well. No matter how wonderful your team’s interpretation of the topic is it doesn’t preclude linking that to the currents state of debate to shed light on the issues of power, privilege, and identity. They are already part of the conversation so we should both allow and encourage students to confront the apparatuses of power as they reveal themselves by engaging in radical speech acts that can expand our conception of what an argument even is. It is easy to get caught in the (normal) mold of debate, to be seduced by the wins, and to aim to reproduce arguments that are in “vogue”, however that isn’t a model of engagement that has changed anyone’s heart or mind. Debate has become so insular that when we say advocacy skills and education we forget that those are just buzz words absent a willingness to turn politics into action. Proponents of accessible debate invested in critical education should start to think of their politics as a question of praxis. Debate’s static notions of what it means to be topical (or even political for that matter) will fail students unless they can be allowed to grapple with those issues that are literally right in front of them.  When I say “Activist model” I really mean that we should make room for students to practice the skills needed to activate their politics in the real world. Assumptions, performances, and discourses should be voting issue whether they indict the topic, an opponent, or even the debate community itself. Advocates who practice by allowing their contemporaries to garble the names of African nations, trade their stories and bodies like poker chips, and marginalize their voices in the process aren’t individuals I ever want advocating on my behalf.   Portable skills start with how the activist chooses to engage in topical discussion or discussions of the topic, but their vision of a more accessible debate space itself. When competitors get settled into a room and ask me what I want to see for the next 45 minutes I tell them that it’s not my job to tell them. I don’t really care if they sit, stand, backflip, recite poems, or spread cards in and between every speech because LD isn’t my activity anymore, it’s theirs. My only job is to render a decision and remain invested and responsible for what norms I endorse for debate.