Tournament: Shirley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Liberty Chiri-Edwards | Judge: Evans
*KATIE READS A PERSONAL TESTIMONY*

The role of this tournament is to engage in community building in every way that we can, especially IN debates

Therefore, Alex and I advocate a first response to the incidents at the Harvard debate tournament

The role of the ballot should be whoever best advances an inclusive and welcoming debate community

Scribner and Herzer explain that the role of first responders is to ensure that the community can stabilize and move in a more productive direction in order to empower individuals and ensure that support is given. This process is not an overnight solution, but requires adaptation and constant attention in order to accommodate changes in order to mobilize and have the effects spillover to all levels.

(Megan and Lauren, A Fetzer Institute and Woodrow Wilson Center, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,¶ established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a living¶ national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to commemorate¶ the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the¶ worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration¶ among a broad spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship¶ in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds,¶ the Center is a nonpartisan institution engaged in the study of national and world¶ affairs. It establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed¶ dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs¶ are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the¶ Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations¶ that provide financial support to the Center.¶ The Center is the publisher of The Wilson Quarterly and home of Woodrow¶ Wilson Center Press, dialogue radio and television. THE FETZER INSTITUTE is a nonprofit, private operating foundation whose mission is to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community. Established by broadcast pioneer John E. Fetzer (1901–1991) and located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, the Institute uses its philanthropic resources to create programs in support of its mission. With an endowment of $380 million, the Institute dedicates approximately $20 million annually toward its programming efforts.”After The Disaster: Rebuilding Communities” pg. 82-86)

The following are some of the insights and suggestions that were shared from¶ small group sessions:¶ • Provide opportunities for people to help themselves by recognizing opportunities¶
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response is really a form of development. Look at the piece not with¶ a short-term lens but within the context of the longer-term framework and¶ the ultimate goal.¶ •

Tournament: tournament | Round: 1 | Opponent: Missouri - Kansas City Fisher-Wood | Judge: Van Luvanee
*Katie reads a personal testimony*

Fiona Campbell explains that persons in a privileged speaking position have an ethical obligation to interrogate how that privilege functions within their method and what their relation to disadvantaged people are; a failure to do so is a flagrant denial of that privilege and is an act of complicity to systematically mislead
Open Lecture Certificate IV in Community Services, Melton Campus, Victoria University of Technology Thursday November 4th 1997

So who am I - to speak, to be listened to? And why is it important to identify AND
academic Bell hooks asks us to decide where we ‘stand in the struggle’:

The role of the ballot in this debate should be whoever best performatively and methodologically opens this space for intersectional coalition building

Laura Toussaint explains that intersectional analysis advances our understanding of how individuals are affected by social locations but also is a powerful tool for coalition building;  intersectionality allows for the reflective process key for addressing inequalities and power relations that affect individuals in spaces like debate and politics 11 (Laura, Academic core faculty member at the Lake Washington Technical college and research affiliate for the “Globalization, Gender, and Development” project at the Department of Sociology, the American University.  Serves on the editorial board of Societies without Borders. Published in the academic journal of the Indian Academy of Social Sciences. Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts. Pg. 267)

Moreover, as Edwina Barvosa-Carter (1999) demonstrated in her study of activism AND
for people who cannot as readily speak out. 

Toussaint goes on to explain that…
(Laura, Academic core faculty member at the Lake Washington Technical college and research affiliate for the “Globalization, Gender, and Development” project at the Department of Sociology, the American University.  Serves on the editorial board of Societies without Borders. Published in the academic journal of the Indian Academy of Social Sciences. Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts. Pg. 274-275)
While coalition building creates ties through an
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the direct benefits of peace and to solidify coalitions.

Tournament: Uco | Round: 2 | Opponent: UT Dallas Becker-Powell | Judge: Wonnacott
*KATIE READS A PERSONAL TESTIMONY*

Imperialist structures have waged war on the under-privileged. The structural weapons they have used are designed to target individuals who they want to remain at the bottom of the social rungs of society. This targeted killing is no accident, this targeted killing is not easy, it is silenced by the power structures. Those structures use everything they have at their disposal to create circumstances that not only hurt oppressed individuals but also ensure their power remains intact.

The oppressive structures wage a war on the disadvantaged that Mumia Abu Jamal describes as worse than the most severe nuclear war or genocide.  
 (1998 “A Quiet and Deadly Violence”,  9/19/98, httpwww.mumia.nl/TCCDMAJ/quietdv.htm)

It has often been observed that America is a truly violent nation
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 weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world." Gilligan, p. 196

Most debaters will speak towards the way in which presidential war powers are exercised without even considering the oppressed, and many debaters will speak about their oppression abstractly, or advance debate practices that only disarm the just causes of the oppressed. Currently debaters are assumed to take on the role of a neutral subject where issues of life and death do not matter, and the words we speak and the ideas we advance don't matter so long as “they are strategic.” This discourages participation in this activity and renders all ethical considerations void and allows for disinterested debate that either replicates flawed policy-making or allows us to condone violent rhetoric and conversations.
Spanos explains (2004. William V., available online cross-x.com url: http://www.cross-x.com/vb/showthread.php?t=945110andhighlight=Spanos+Email Nov. 18)

Dear Joe MIller, Yes, the statement about the American debate
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which the blind arrogance of Bush Administration and his neocon policy makers is leading.

The Role of the Ballot in this debate is whoever best performatively and methodologically reorients power within the intersections.

As debaters speaking towards presidential war powers, we must first investigate the ways in which the institution deciding those powers is founded and surrounded by oppression, and investigate the oppression it creates on the other side of the world. However, this oppression cannot be explained by politicians or by military reports; Henze explains that we must heed the perspective of the oppressed as to gain the best and closest understanding of the oppression we may only witness secondhand.

Brent R. Henze, 2000“Who Says Who Says?: The Epistemological Grounds for Agency in Liberatory Political Projects.” Found in Reclaiming Identity: Realist theory and the predicament of postmodernism. Edited by Paula Moya and Michael Hames-Garcia
CONCLUSION: WHAT ROLE CAN OTHERS PLAY IN THE POLITICS OF THE OPPRESSED?
The question has necessarily shaped my approach to the work I have presented above:
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In other words, the standpoint of the oppressed is necessary to manage our own involvement with systems of oppression so as most effectively to combat oppression