Three important notes about this file

*AT FRAMEWORK

Discussion of Race Key

Public discourse and deliberation of the intersection of race and education are critical to producing social change

Reid-Brinkley, 8 (Dr. Shanara Reid-Brinkley, University of Pittsburgh Department of Communications, “THE HARSH REALITIES OF “ACTING BLACK”: HOW AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLICY DEBATERS NEGOTIATE REPRESENTATION THROUGH RACIAL PERFORMANCE AND STYLE” 2008)

So, within public discourse, how race is coded rhetorically in public deliberation is of critical importance in evaluating the efficacy of efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity. We need knowledge of how rhetorical style in American public deliberation functions within a race, 7 class, and gender hierarchy. How is race signified in public deliberations? How does this signification impact efforts to create a more diverse or inclusive public sphere? How do language, social structures, practices and styles signify race? And, how does white privilege affect the deliberation process? These series of questions must inform our critical efforts at understanding the rhetoric of race, ethnicity and diversity in American education discourse. Racism is ever so much more subtle now than it has been in the past. It is this subtle nature of racism and white privilege that provide a cover for the normal, “everyday practices” that reproduce racial separations and social dominance.32 We can only study these normal, everyday practices of subtle racism by studying localized examples of racial conflict. The dependence on standards and accountability discourse is especially significant when attached to discussions of racial inequity in student academic performance.33 In terms of the European context, Gillborn notes that such reform efforts have resulted in higher rates of minority academic underachievement.34 Educational psychology scholar Jerome Taylor argues that the conditions are similar in the American context.35 In America, this persistent problem within public education has been connected to the “black/ white achievement gap” mentioned above. The last two decades have indicated a measured decline in the academic achievement of black students in relation to white students in the U.S., particularly as measured by standardized testing measures. Reform efforts designed to offset the inequities in the educational experience of the poor and racial and ethnic minorities demonstrates a limited effectiveness in reversing the current underachievement trend. Thus, America faces a grave difficulty in resolving this situation. We find it difficult to understand why such a situation exists in the first place. In essence, it is difficult to believe that the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of legal legislation to end segregation and 8 discriminatory practices, targeted at racial and ethnic minorities, did not permanently resolve the problem. Theoretically, all Americans have equal access to the tools that are necessary to lead a successful life with the full benefits of citizenship. The Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement ensured that racial and ethnic minorities and women achieved equality with white men and thus barriers to their successful participation in society had been removed. If equality has been achieved, and yet we find that the heretofore excluded populations are still unable to achieve the educational and economic heights of the American dream, then one must look to that population for the explanation rather than to American society in general.

Roleplaying Bad

Roleplaying detaches debaters from real world participation – playing the “United States Federal Government” promotes an imperialist paradigm

Reid-Brinkley, 8 (Dr. Shanara Reid-Brinkley, University of Pittsburgh Department of Communications, “THE HARSH REALITIES OF “ACTING BLACK”: HOW AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLICY DEBATERS NEGOTIATE REPRESENTATION THROUGH RACIAL PERFORMANCE AND STYLE” 2008)

So, within public discourse, how race is coded rhetorically in public deliberation is of critical impor

Mitchell observes that the stance of the policymaker in debate comes with a “sense of detachment associated with the spectator posture.”115 In other words, its participants are able to engage in debates where they are able to distance themselves from the events that are the subjects of debates. Debaters can throw around terms like torture, terrorism, genocide and nuclear war without blinking. Debate simulations can only serve to distance the debaters from real world participation in the political contexts they debate about. As William Shanahan remarks: …the topic established a relationship through interpellation that inhered irrespective of what the particular political affinities of the debaters were. The relationship was both political and ethical, and needed to be debated as such. When we blithely call for United States Federal Government policymaking, we are not immune to the colonialist legacy that establishes our place on this continent. We cannot wish away the horrific atrocities perpetrated everyday in our name simply by refusing to acknowledge these implications” (emphasis in original).116 118 The “objective” stance of the policymaker is an impersonal or imperialist persona. The policymaker relies upon “acceptable” forms of evidence, engaging in logical discussion, producing rational thoughts. As Shanahan, and the Louisville debaters’ note, such a stance is integrally linked to the normative, historical and contemporary practices of power that produce and maintain varying networks of oppression. In other words, the discursive practices of policy-oriented debate are developed within, through and from systems of power and privilege. Thus, these practices are critically implicated in the maintenance of hegemony. So, rather than seeing themselves as government or state actors, Jones and Green choose to perform themselves in debate, violating the more “objective” stance of the “policymaker” and require their opponents to do the same.