Does Racism Still Affect the United States Today?

I want to first start this debate by thanking my opponent for being willing to engage with me on this topic. To make my case on how racism is still shown in the United States I am going to make a few different points based on research done from individuals in several different fields, which increases the reliability of my argument. Jarvis Givens who is a professor at Harvard and has a background in African American history mentions that minorities often have a "veil" to see the injustices that happen around them (Givens 2023). We can see this further in the literature because often times white people (Which I am white) don't see many issues that unfold like minorities from several different backgrounds, which is shown throughout history. In our current time we see it in many different forms such as an increase in police brutality, which was shown publicly with the murder of George Floyd (Bill Ayers 2022). This is not just a singular instance because police brutality among minorities have gone up within recent years (Carter 2022). We also see this correlated with higher discipline/expulsion rates among African Americans within the school system, "which became worse after the election of president Trump" (Carter 2022). Based on this small background information I will break the rest of the section into parts.

Resources based on schools: For those who don't know how schools are funded, they are done typically from local property tax (Mathis 2022). This is an issue because minority families are more likely to be under the poverty line, which means their schools are not funded as well as schools in higher income neighborhoods (Mathis 2022). With this happening frequently we see that classrooms in minority communities are more likely to be overcrowded, with less teachers to facilitate lectures with students (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). It is also shown that school choice takes away money from public schools in the form of vouchers, which takes taxpayer money to give students a discount to private or charter schools (Charter schools don't require money but they are a part of the system mentioned) (Fiske & Ladd 2022). Private schools using this system to move resources away from public schools has actually lead to some schools in black communities being closed which was shown with Dyett school in Chicago (Rose 2022). Many students actually enjoyed this school, but due to resources being moved in different directions it was closed down as of the time this source was written (Rose 2022). Resources in schools are important due to individuals being more likely to be successful in life if a quality education is given (Labree 2022).

Whitewashed version of history: As denoted by researcher Sonita Nieto often times a whitewashed version of history is taught in public schools (Nieto 2022). We learn things about our founding father's in history (which is important), but we often ignore the dark side of history when it comes to minorities (Nieto 2022). An example of this is seen in Jarvis Givens book that I mentioned earlier where Thomas Jefferson thought that the first book of poems created by a woman of color was below criticism and that Phillis Wheatly's work was inferior because he viewed "black people as inferior to white people" (Givens 2023). This is one of many things, but we often don't learn about unique individuals of color such as Carter g Woodsen, WEB Dubos, and Booker T Washington. Slavery within the south was actually worse than what is described in history books with individuals in captivity having to wear clothing that felt like needles were being stuck into their skin (Givens 2023). Many of our founding father's or prominent historical figures had slaves, even though the brutality of this is worse than what is taught in K-12 education (Givens 2023). As much as I respect the constitution and much of what the founding father's did, it makes you wonder whether this country was built on the shoulder of giants or was it built on the backs of others (I think both). In either case it is wrong to not teach about the dark side of history and the multitude of great black American's who helped improve this country in numerous ways. 

School to prison pipeline: We obviously know that minorities were discriminated in the past with brutality from different groups, but in our current times many white individuals ignore how this continues in the present day. Due to lack of opportunities in numerous different ways, which is shown through lack of resources we see a cycle in which it is hard for minorities to earn their way away from the prison system. This is often called the school to prison pipeline where individuals who are minorities are put in juvenile dentition centers for various reasons (Annamma 2018). Many of the occurrences within the literature start with minor issues which would not have gotten most white children put in these centers (Annamma 2018). Additional issues with many of these punishments are that many  individuals of power ignore the situation these students are in (Annamma 2018). Examples of this in the literature are fleeing from abusive parents, joining gangs to be safe in rough neighborhood due to poverty, hitting their own siblings in foster care, or having to take care of younger siblings which causes missed school days/instances of worse things from schools (Annamma 2018). This then makes the children become more likely to be criminals in the future due to the literature showing that if you are lock up and stay in these centers you will be more likely to become a criminal in the future (Annamma 2018). The literature also shows that this is seen way more in minority children (Annamma 2018). Based on this many individuals are unable to earn their way out of poverty due to this endless cycle of criminalization at a young age, which means that their children are left with fewer role models, which then leads back to incarceration for countless generations. The sad thing about this cycle is shown in a book called "The Pedagogy of Pathologization: Dis/abled Girls ofColor in the School-prison Nexus" which was a phenomenological study that showed each of the participants loved school initially before this process happened (Annamma 2018). 

Their is a lot of other findings in the literature, but I think this is enough to get started and I don't want to throw too much at my opponent without giving him the chance to respond. The sum of this argument is that racism is apparent in society based on police brutality, low wages, lack of resources in schools to earn a way out of poverty, and the school to prison pipeline which raises minority children to become criminals. Based on this starting information I am looking forward to having a good debate with my opponent. (The sources labeled 2022 is actually my second citation under references. It is cited that way because different researchers wrote different chapters/essays in the book. Due to this I want to give each person credit for their work. Many of these author's had differences in opinions with each other, but the thing that remained consistent was racism still exist and our society currently makes it harder for minorities to succeed.)

References 

Annamma, S. A. (2018). Thepedagogy of pathologization: Dis/abled girls of color in the schoolprisonnexus. New York: Routledge.

Berliner, D. C., &Hermanns, C. (2022). Public Education Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy. Teachers College Press,Teachers College, Columbia University.

Givens, J. R. (2023). School clothes: A collective memoir of Black Student Witness. BEACON.

Thanks for setting this up.  I am hopeful we can both learn something from this.  

Given the position I am taking I feel compelled to state a couple things up front.

First - Racism does exist in America.  I’ve seen it first hand and am not denying it.

Second - Racism is terrible and should be aggressively confronted wherever it exists.

If it seems I am conceding the argument then you might be right; however, I would like to argue that much of what is being touted as racism in America today is not actually racism.  This term has been co-opted to support collectivism, victimhood psychology, and post modernism in order to push policy’s that are illiberal and  “race-conscious” aka racist themselves.  If we miss identify the problems we will end up with terrible solutions.  The impacts of this are moving us further away from a post racial culture.  

First it’s important that we define racism. 

Merriam-Webster: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

Now apply that definition to each of the points.  

School Resources:

You said it yourself “For those who don't know how schools are funded, they are done typically from local property tax (Mathis 2022)”  This impacts all members of low income communities.  Therefore this does not meet the definition of racism as it is not “on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group”.

None of this is to say that our schools aren’t broken and we shouldn’t fix them.  How to do this is probably another debate, but if you are interested in a different view than the sources you quoted check out the work by Ronald Fryer Jr.

When you make this about race and ignore all other factors that impact academic achievement you will likely end up with terrible ideas.  Examples include not teaching kids algebra for equality sake (San Francisco) or segregating classrooms (Evanston Illinois). 


Whitewashing History:

History is important because we can learn from the past.  We can learn equally well from people who look like us and from those who look different.  For this reason I fail to see how your points demonstrate any racism as defined above towards anyone today.  If information is being withheld from kids in school today then it is withheld from all kids.  This would in fact be wrong, but not racist since it is not withheld “on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group”.  We can probably have a reasonable debate on how many details about rape, torture, and murder we need to include to get the point across in a K-12 setting without it being racism.

Somewhat aside on the founding fathers:
Here is the thing… It really doesn’t matter that Thomas Jefferson was a bigot who raped his slaves.  The idea that people have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is still a good idea.  It doesn’t matter if MLK was a serial adulterer.  A dream about a world where people are judged based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin is still a good dream.  We idolize the people because they represent the idea, not the idea because they represent the people.  Understanding that the people are imperfect does not impact the validity of the ideas.  This is an ad hominem argument that has no bearing on  the impacts of racism today.


School to Prison Pipeline

“Due to lack of opportunities in numerous different ways, which is shown through lack of resources” is not “on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group”

Here is a claim that almost meets the definition of racism.  “Many of the occurrences within the literature start with minor issues which would not have gotten most white children put in these centers (Annamma 2018)”.  For this to be racism it would need to be because of race and not due to limited access to resources as you claimed earlier.

Here is a counter argument based on data and not narrative.  Between 2001 and 2021 the imprisonment rate for black males between ages 20 and 24 dropped by 75%.  Yes it also dropped between 2016 and 2021 despite Trump being president. (not that we should give him any credit for this)  Now you could say that if even 1 of the individuals represented by these statistics are wrongfully imprisoned due to racism that is a terrible tragedy.  I would agree with you.  However this data would not support an “endless cycle” narrative.  

Note:  You did not provide any support tying police brutality to racism; however, you allude to it.  We can go there next if you would like.

In summary.  We are far too loose in our use of the term racism.  It is not synonymous with “inequality of outcomes”. It has a definition and we need to use it appropriately.  

Fryer: Harvard Universityhttps://scholar.harvard.edu › ...PDFInjecting Charter School Best Practices Into Traditional Public ...

SF Algebra: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/san-francisco-insisted-on-algebra-in-9th-grade-did-it-improve-equity/2023/03

Evanston Segregation: https://www.wfla.com/news/education/illinois-high-school-offers-classes-separated-by-race/amp/

Jefferson: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemings#:~:text=Since%201998%20and%20the%20DNA,of%20whom%20survived%20to%20adulthood.

MLK: https://www.nydailynews.com/2019/06/12/we-need-to-face-the-whole-truth-about-martin-luther-king-jr/

2001 Prison Data: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/p01.pdf

2016 Prison Data: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/p16.pdf

2021 Prison Data:  Bureau of Justice Statistics (.gov)https://bjs.ojp.gov › documentPDFPrisoners in 2021 – Statistical Tables

Before providing my rebuttal I wanted to first thank my opponent for giving a well though out response, even though I disagree with him. Often times in our society individuals are at each other's throat, which makes it hard to have a conversation. In addition I am glad that my opponent also agrees that racism and inequalities exist, even though we may disagree with how items are mentioned. My opponent starts off by saying "That what is touted today is not actual racism". He further mentions that "The term has been co-opted to support collectivism, victimhood, psychology, and post modernism in order to push policy's that are illiberal and race-conscious aka racist themselves." The problem with these statements is that it contradicts a lot of items presented when viewing racism as a whole. An example of this was the "veil" mentioned by Jarvis Givens in my opening, because groups that have been marginalized will understand when they are being discriminated against (Givens 2023). In addition the mention of "victimhood" is wrong because of the numerous arguments I made in my opening that show that minorities are way more likely to be below the poverty line, the school-to-prison pipeline that affects minorities, and lack of resources within schools. I plan to break this into sections to address some of my opponents arguments, and to give a few more (Because their is a lot more than I mentioned in my opening).

After the first statement that was created by my opponent, he proceeded give a dictionary definition of racism, but it is important to use sources that are more complex with individuals who study racial issues in multiple fields. Racism based on the Legal information institute (Law site) would be defined as "Racism is an incitation of discrimination, hatred or violence towards a person or a group of persons because of their origin or their belonging, or not belonging, to a specific ethnic group or race. Such discrimination, hatred and violence are directed against minority groups. More broadly, racism can be defined as a set of theories and beliefs that establishes a hierarchy of races and ethnicities, based on misconceptions and stereotypes. Racism is a form of discrimination founded on the origin, or on the ethnic/racial background of the victim. Racism can be held in several forms; including, structural (systemic/institutional), interpersonal, or individual." (Legal Information Institute). The definition that I provided gives more scope into how the things mentioned earlier relates to racism, but along the way I can explain how the items mentioned earlier are affected by racism. Along with this the debate title is "Does Racism Still Affect the United States Today?" This means that past issues that affect our current climate count, because racial issues from the past currently affect each item mention earlier in the debate (Which means that my opponent and I may agree, which means that we could narrow the discussion later in the debate if we find common ground).

School Resources: My opponent mentioned my comment in relation to how schools are funded in that it "impacts all low income community members." This comment is true in some sense but minorities are way more likely to be under the poverty line, so it is an issue that impacts minorities as a whole (Mathis 2022). This means that it will disproportionally affect minorities over white people (It is difficult to have zero white people who are effected by it, so I am not sure what my opponent meant by this not dealing with racism). It relates to racism, because it relates back to slavery in which quality education was not given to minorities in the past, which affects today because the problem hasn't been dealt with (Givens 2023). School resources also is a race issue because politicians who help run the country are actually trying to hurt the minority groups in various ways within the schools. Examples of this encompasses school choice within schools across the nation. A separate debate on this can be held, but long story short, the former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos seems to want to use school choice as a way to take education away from public schools (Burris 2022). We can see that this is racist, due to her support of the Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy (Burris 2022). This organization is concerning because the site has published work in which they mentioned schooling was successful before the invention of the common school (public school) (Burris 2022). Based on this we can see that the politics of this is racist because it would bring us back in time, in which minorities are less likely to be educated due to not being schooled at all, or being homeschooled (Burris 2022) There are plenty of honest people who advocate for school choice, but their are some who use it as a means to destroy public education (Burris 2022). 

Another point in which my opponent made was that "If we make this about race and ignore all other factors that impact academic achievement you will likely end up with terrible ideas." I am not sure about this for numerous reasons, but as an educator I do think it is important to take all issues into account, but this debate focuses on racism alone. The sources that are provided by my opponent actually do not provide the claim that he is making because his source about San Francisco actually show mixed results (Schwartz 2023). Based on the article the researchers mentioned that the study was "descriptive, not evaluative" and that "It did not offer a value judgement in whether the reform was beneficial or not" (Schwartz 2023). In addition their was some success with giving student's a firm foundation in Algebra in 9th grade because their were some "more students who took pre cal in 11th grade where the largest gain came from black students" (Schwartz 2023). Even though their was beneficial outcomes, "Racial gaps in the percentage of students taking AP math courses remained" (Schwartz 2023). Unless I am not putting the right article with the citation provided, Algebra was still taught in schools and the program was not a full failure because their were positive outcomes as well. My solution is more fund the schools adequately if we are talking about resources, but that is a possibility for a different debate (Welner 2022).  

The source he provided for the Illinois segregated classes does not support his results either, because classes are choosing to segregate which has not yielded harmful effects based on the article (Finn 2023). A sad thing about this is that schools are still segregated to this day by choice, even though Brown vs. Board took place in the 50s to allow desegregation to happen (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). What is even sadder is that classrooms within many schools are still segregated due to how administrators make the classes, so this is actually common without a choice (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). This article also mentions Kevin Welner, who is an amazing researcher who mentioned it is like applying a band aide to the problem, but part of this is because he supports more funding in schools to give these students additional resources (Welner 2022). Kevin Welner is a researcher who often likes to look at fixing problems for the long term and not the short term based on much of the work I have read from him. Basically this article shows no harmful affects at this current point in time, and the main criticism seems to be that this is a short term solution and not a long term solution. (There may be in the future or in an additional citation I have not seen) (Finn 2023).

Whitewashed History: In this section my opponent mentioned that "he failed to see how this demonstrated racism" and that the information is not "withheld on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group." This is wrong on a few different factors such as this is done to make certain individuals look better instead of telling the full truth, it oppresses minorities because it makes their injustices within history not look as bad, and that it imboldens certain individuals such as extreme conservatives into thinking that possible revisions to the curriculum are illegitimate (Pene 2020). Based on the article cited this is not just racism from the past that was originally put in the curriculum and never changed, but is racist in that political groups are fighting against teaching each aspect vehemently which the University of Texas notes is racist (Pene 2020). We can note that this is racist based on "Trump's Patriotic Education" by using terms such as slaves being changed to "workers", which again shows racism due to it subjecting them to a false narrative in what happened in the past and with it being pushed by white elite's in DC (Pene 2020). I do agree with my opponent that the ideals presented in history are important, which I hinted at when I mentioned that I thought this nation might possibly be built on the shoulder of giants while also having a past of using other's to build this nation. I would like to end this section by noting that this is not an "ad hominem argument that has no bearing on racism today", because it is shown to impact minorities and researchers actually note that this is a form of racism. 

School to Prison Pipeline: My final section of my opening focused on this contingent in which I disagree with my opponent on several items mentioned, and the data/research will show this is a racial issue. I first cited literature that showed how occurrences of putting minorities into these centers would be far less likely to happen to white people. In my opponent's rebuttal he mentioned "for this to be racism it would need to be because of race and not due to limited access to resources as you claimed earlier." The problem with this was that I actually did show this was a racial issue along with a resource issue. I did this by mentioning how it encompassed ignoring situations students were in (joining gangs for safety due to neighborhood violence), fleeing abusive parents, hitting siblings in foster care, or having to take care of younger siblings which can cause missed school days/instances of worse punishments from schools (Annamma 2018). These situations involve race because it does not just involve higher incarceration rates with minorities, but it is also shown that the punishment for the items mentioned are worse for minority children (Annamma 2018). To add to the previous point that I don't think my opponent adequately addressed was that studies also show that minorities are also more likely to be treated severely within prison institutions (Annamma 2018). 

After this my opponent felt like I was using a "narrative instead of providing data", but I want to point to the individuals reading this debate that I actually did provide a source for my claim. I feel this is important because I am using both qualitative information along with data to show that their is observations shown through data, while also providing a deeper dive into the data by viewing qualitative information. My opponent in this sentence also provided data where it was shown that between "2001 and 2021 the imprisonment rate for black males dropped by 75%", and that it also "dropped between 2016-2021 while Trump was in office." Their is some truth to this statement, but this is only giving one view of the data instead of each aspect. When interpreting data it is important to view the data from several different lens as noted by Andy Fields in his stats textbook (Fields 2018). One thing that needs to be mentioned is that this decline has been happening since way before Trump, which means that he wasn't the cause (It seems like my opponent may agree). In addition my opponent's sources from the US census does not support his narrative because he is not showing the whole picture.  First the prison population dropped in all races, which shows that this wasn't a fix for minorities, but just a change within the prison system (Gramlich 2020) (Pew research not yet his source). Regardless of whether rates have dropped for all, the actual percentage between different groups is scary to say the least. To be fair to my opponent on this one, his sources is 51 pages long so I will not be able to read the whole thing, but based on the 2018 pew data black men were more likely to be imprisoned with 2,272 inmates per 100,00 for black men, 1,018 inmates per 100,000 for Hispanics, and 392 per 100,00 for white men." (Gramlich 2020). In then looking at my opponents sources "incarnation rates for black people in general was 1,186 per 100,000, rates for Hispanics were 619 per 100,000, and rates for white people was 222 per 100,000" (BJS tables) (This second part is looking at race as a whole without being broke into groups like the 2018 source). My purpose of putting this was that their is different ways to look at data, and their was only one thing listed which makes it look like vast improvements were made in relation to the gap between incarceration rates based on race. Based on this we see that my viewpoint is still correct in that we are sending many of our minority children to be criminals based on this, because we see that their is still a major chance of minorities being incarcerated when compared to white people and when viewing the data as a whole. (I still have a lot of data on this which can be broken down in the rebuttal if my opponent challenges this).

Police Brutality: This subject for some reason has me confused because my opponent mentioned that I "did not provide any support of police brutality", but I did by citing Prudence Carter and Bill Ayers which shows that their was an increase in police brutality which was also correlated with high punishment rates for minorities in schools (Carter 2022). I would say that this is support due to it coming from an academic researcher, but if I break this down quantitatively, it still shows that racism is shown because minorities are being targeted by the police due to disparity of shootings. My original claims was that it went up when Trump was in office because as we have seen through my citations, he incites discrimination against vulnerable populations. Based on an article from Pub Med we see that when we view police shootings in "2019 were 1004 in total" (Schwartz 2020). Based on this we see that Black American's were more likely to be shot by police officer "standing at 30 fatal shootings per million midway through 2020". Since 2015 we see that black American's are far more likely to be shot while unarmed based the figure shown in this source. It shows 36% for African Americans 18% for Hispanics and 4% for whites (Schwartz 2020). By looking at these numbers, we can see that minorities are more likely to be targeted by the police, which this article goes into detail to explain. 

In conclusion for this rebuttal my original points still stand within the construct of racism. Each item is considered racist because each thing shows either how individuals/institutions are used to be weaponized against minorities, how politicians get in the ways of racial issues, and how officers in numerous settings use racism/brutality against minorities (Burris 2022). To add to this I would also like to point out that my opponent did not give the full story of his San Francisco article, which is upsetting because I am not sure if he did not read it fully or if he maybe put the wrong citation in (Giving my opponent the benefit of the doubt). From this my opponent also cited the illonis citation as a harmful policy, which the source did not claim. My opponent also only presented data from one view point, which is not how data analysis takes place (Fields 2018). From this we saw the data was more complex than what was mentioned. In addition many of the articles listed by my opponent are .com or .org sources which are prone to lying, so some of his sources are not "scholarly" (One being Wikipedia?) (My only .com or .org sources are my opponents besides the one pew research article which is sometimes cited in textbooks which makes it a very rare exception). This means that they would typically not be accepted in a college setting because their is no checks and balances to keep them from lying compared to .edu sources, peer reviewed research, and books from individuals in the field. Even though it seems like I am being hard on my opponent, I still enjoy this discussion, but when presenting information it is best to give each perspective and provide information that would be less likely to be lied about. (Again if for some reason you see a 2022 source that is not under refrences it is apart of the book by Berliner and Hermanns, because the book was written by many authors and I want to give credit to each of them). 

I would like to thank my opponent again for this exciting debate. My opponent has been very charitable and has put a lot of work into this debate which I respect. Before answering the questions my opponent had I want to clarify a couple things for my interlocutor and the audience about some of my criticism. Most of this will be in this section of the debate and my answers to my opponents questions are in the lower sections. To start I want to mention that  I was critical of some of my opponents citations, not because I feel that the person I am debating is lying, but because many articles that don't go through a form of checks and balances tend to misrepresent information (Simply put lying). You see this many times with news outlets of each platform, regardless of if they are more liberal or conservative. In addition to this I plan to go into some of the citations my opponent brought up because I think we misunderstood each other and I would like to clarify some things. 

Before starting this round I will add some new information in to further my position while also answering my opponent's questions (So we can switch the debate over if you like. I am having fun either way). I also want to be able to ask questions myself so I can one better understand my interlocutor and also hone in many of the points already made.

Unclear statements my opponent asked: "The phrase on the basis of race/ethnicity is a critical component of racism." I will say that I agree with this, but I will clarify as I move along, because I know their will be some contentions that you challenge on this.

"Inequalities in outcomes when measured by race is different than racism." This is a good question that is complex in nature. I would say mostly yes, and I will explain why I am hesitant on this one. When I first labeled the debate "Does Racism Still Affect the United States Today?" I did so in a way that it could encompass broad topics. This is our first interaction so I had no clue if you believed that racism was never a problem in the US (I have actually had discussions with these people), or if you were a person who said racism exists but actually were painting a false narrative. From this interaction I don't believe you are either of these and you seem to try and steelman my position, so I think that you are an honest person. This statement is most the way true, but was labeled for specific reasoning. My reasoning was that past racial issues impacted the opportunity many minorities face today which is mentioned by (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). So this is what I was trying to say when I mentioned past racism affects how items operate today (Still racism, but it was from the past which affects outcome today). One reason I can be a little hesitant on this is that sometimes individuals can try and stop opportunities for minorities (reasoning for some school choice advocates, but I will answer that later), and some individuals actually use this to insult minorities (Burris 2022). An example of this can be seen when Ronal Regan mentioned welfare queens, which is labeled as a microaggression towards minorities (Harvey 2022) (If a definition for this is needed I will provide, but I am going to try and answer each question first).   

"Segregating classrooms is not something we should aspire to" I agree with this and I will clarify more when I answer your questions in order. 

Questions my opponent has for me: My opponent asked a question when I mentioned how school funding works when I mentioned it affects all low income communities, but impacts minorities as a whole because they are more likely to be under the poverty line. Q: "By minorities as a whole is the claim that this also impacts wealthy minorities who go to great public schools or even private schools?" In a sense yes, but in a sense no. First I think we have both acknowledged that minorities are less likely to be in this scenario based on data dealing with income which can be shown with the federal reserves median and mean income for minorities (Black people Median 24,100 Mean 142,000)when compared to white people (Median 188,200 Mean 983,400) (Bhutta et al.) (Looks at family wealth). None the less if we are talking about education in a richer public schools, then no but if we are talking about racism in the school then yes, because of high suspension rates and discrimination from teachers themselves in various forms(Berliner & Hermanns 2022). (I plan to get into that later, but I am laying ground work). If we are talking about private school then it is vary possible because private schools are less likely to accept minorities and more likely to expel minorities which may put them back at their school with less resources (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022). My point in this is that past racism for this issue affected the chance for many minorities to succeed and have a quality education which is the route that will most likely bring success (Labree 2022). The point in where I believe funding can become racist is when specific school choice advocates actually are stating that they are doing this to bring things like they were before public schools existed, which was before minorities had the opportunity to be educated (This part ties in with the previous, but is how racism is continuing today) (Burris 2022). 

The second question dealing with whitewashed history was based on my comment where I mentioned that it oppresses minorities by making it not look as bad. Q. "Who is oppressed in this scenario, minorities today or in the past? How are injustices within history looking bad of value to minorities?" In this category each would be considered oppressed in some way. The past would be obvious, but the present is more calculated. First I stand by my point in that it discriminates minorities based on my statement above for numerous different reasons, one being that history tends to repeat itself (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022), and this form of subjugation is forcing a semi false narrative on how things happened which is forceful on a specific group of people (Minorities as a whole) (Pene 2020). Second the second part of where you quoted me (which was left out in this and it could be because he doesn't think it answered the question) answered the question because, it emboldens certain conservatives to think that history reforms are illegitimate which is a prime example of one group forcing themselves against one race (Pene 2020). A Harvard professor actually mentions that textbooks that did this from the beginning is a form of white supremacy in that it is a toxin that is injected into the minds of Americans for generations (Parsons 2023). Their are plenty more we can see in education, which I will mention later in the debate, but it is harmful in that we have seen rises in hate crimes with race at the the top with White on Black being the top (3,421 in the year this was published) (FBI Statistics). 

My comment which mentioned "It relates to racism, because it relates back to slavery in which quality education was not given to minorities in the past, which affects today because the problem hasn't been dealt with" (Givens 2023), received a question from my opponent which was "Is this racism today because slavery existed in the past?  If slavery had not existed would a school resource distribution system like we have today still be racism?" So first this was one of the items I mentioned was more a past racist item that has not been fixed so it shows that past racism affects today. I linked it to how politicians are trying to take away recourses and funding from these schools which was mentioned with Betsy Devos, which we will get into in the next question (Burris 2022). The second part of your question based on my first reply may not need answered, but will do anyway because I have enjoyed this conversation. The answer to this would have be possibly but I am unsure, because when slavery went on their were actually schools in northern states for African Americans which had little funding (Givens 2023). After slavery we saw Plessy vs. Ferguson which had segregation as long as it was separate but equal, but it was never close to being that way so Brown vs. Board took place to desegregate schools (Oakes & Lipton 2022). My answer is the school funding issue was simply past racism that affects today and is now threatened by racist ideals of politicians (Burris 2022). School funding in the past if slavery never took place is complex, but it is possible that it would affect minorities due to free states not receiving proper funding and even sometimes burnt down (Givens 2023). This question is one I may not be able to fully answer if I am being 100% honest, but I think that recourses would probably still not be distributed fairly based on the points just mentioned.  

My opponent then asks a question in relation to the Michigan's Mackinac Center's statement of schools being successful before the common school because he feels it does not meet the definition of racism due to the fact it will affect all groups (At least that is what I think based on the question). This statement is racist and meets the definition he mentioned, because it is designed to specifically affect minorities. If we look back in school history we can see that white people were actually offered education before public schools existed, even poor white children had the opportunity to learn under Christian schools, but during this time minorities were not offered education (Burris 2022). This shows that this is designed specifically to hurt minorities which meets both of our definitions of racism (Legal Information Institute). In addition my opponent seems to question that if multiple groups are hurt in the process this is not due to racism. Examples we seen in history is that many white people were hurt when they stood up for minorities which was seen during the civil rights era and also when white people tried to teach black children during slavery time (Givens 2023). My first question for my opponent is would the actions against minorities during these times be racist, even though some white people were effected? Along with this we can see an additional example because people such as Hitler were racist because he hated black people but also hated Jews (The Final Solution). Because multiple groups were effected does this mean that he had influence on racism itself? I would like my opponent to answer this but it is about impossible to make something to effect only minorities, which would mean racism we see from history would not appear to be racist based on what my opponent seems to mention (Could be wrong about your perspective so I am asking for clarification). 

My opponent also asked the question about how the legal definition offers more scope to this situation. I feel it gives more scope because it mentions things such as structural and hierarchy of race which would fit into the items of policy (Yours does mention institutional as well, but I think mine opens better into policy issues that affect groups) (Legal Information Institute). Along with this it mentions minority groups only, and the term for racism is starting to be used for only discrimination on minorities and not if minorities did something to white people because of race (Jim Crow Museum). The proper term for that is starting to become the term prejudice only because white people are currently the ones who have power (Jim Crow Museum). (This may be splitting hairs because this may not come up again, but I used this definition in case we went in this direction. 

My opponent then linked a follow up question by saying "Policy _ has a dipropionate impact on minorities therefore racism?" This question is simplistic and seems to miss the mark from my contingence so far.  Some of my arguments were that racism from the past affects things today because the debate title was "Does Racism Still Affect the United States." That part is a resounding yes because I demonstrated that with school resources, how history is taught, poverty rates, and prison rates (If I knew I was debating someone that admits racism exist I would have narrowed the topic, but I have talked with people who believe racism was never an issue which is scary.)" I then linked it to how people are purposely using policy to hurt African Americans currently through, white washed history, how we are creating many criminals in schools through the school-prison pipeline which doesn't happen often to white children, how minorities are treated worse in prison on average, police brutality rates, and now hate crime acts on minorities (Schwartz 2020). This is more complex than the scenario given because it shows racism affects the US today from items in the past and through current items, which meets both of our definitions. 

My opponent then asks several questions based on terminology president Trump wanted for his patriotic education policy: "How is it distinguished whether this is racism or authoritarian nationalism?  Does the race of the person “pushing” the policy matter or is this just supplemental information?  Is this racism against white students because it also subjects them to “a false narrative in what happened in the past?  I have other questions on the structure of the argument but they are similar to those already listed so I won’t ask at this time because I assume when you answer them I will understand this one better as well"(Pene 2020). I like these questions because they are complex. From viewing the first question it would have to be both because policy makers know this would hurt minorities and chose to do it while also meeting the definition of authoritarian nationalism. The second part of this question is real complex in that I am not sure if he means by race or party. For the first part I would say no due the US being run by a white system with mainly white people. Pushing this power structure would be known to hurt minorities so it would be a racist ideal.(One could argue this would be prejudice, but simply put the country has mostly been run by white males so even if this argument is made it is still racist.) For the second possibility I would answer it does not matter because both parties have made policies that hurt minorities in the past and continue to hurt minorities today (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022). On the the next part of the question on whether this is racist to white people, the answer would be no for a few different reasons. One the term for minorities doing something to white people is starting to become labeled as prejudice, because they are the ones in power (Jim Crow Museum). Also the way history is taught today would not hurt white people because hiding the truth does not cause the harmful affects mentioned by hate crimes, prison treatments, policy brutality, school to prison pipelines, and educational policies as it would on minority groups (Schwartz 2020). 

My opponent then asked why my statement on victimhood was contradictory to what is happening now. I answered this in my last rebuttal, but I am unsure if my opponent caught on to my explanation but the "veil" mentioned by Jarvis Givens is used to show that minorities seem to know when they are being persecuted when white people would normally not catch on (Givens 2023). WEB Dubos mentions that throughout history black people have not been just victims of history, but the subjects of history itself (Givens 2023). Simply put black people are not playing victim because injustices are happening to them which is cited all throughout the literature. 

SF Schools Algebra and Evanston Segregation: I am glad I gave my opponent the benefit of the doubt, because it seems that I didn't get what he was trying to say. In this he makes his own judgements, which we all do at times but in complex situations like these can be dangerous. First he is correct in that they waited to teach Algebra until 9th grade and I thought he meant it was taken out of the curriculum. Even with this cleared we still saw positive effects in the source, which sort of goes against his claim "more students who took pre cal in 11th grade where the largest gain came from black students"(Schwartz 2023). If more students signed up to take a higher skill math, isn't this some form of success? 

My opponent then gives his opinion on segregated classrooms, which he claimed was racist (Finn 2023). The interesting thing that he did not mention is that we are still segregate at the school level and at the classroom level without a choice in this situation (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022). In the situation that was presented it was shown that it was by choice, which I may not agree with myself, but in the scheme of things it has been happening without choice for a long time (Berliner &  Hermanns 202). 

I also want to point out that when we ignore the construct of race we get harmful educational policies, which was seen in a study in the 1980s called a nation at risk. This study showed that students were "falling behind in science and math" but they failed to account that more individuals were taking the test because we still felt the affect of just desegregating (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022). Doing this brought about an era of testing regimes that was harmful to minorities and individuals who are poor (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022) (Not calling this racist, just saying this wasn't accounted for). Long story short bad educational policy has been around forever and often presents negative effects when not taking minorities into account.

My opponent wanting to know about my problem with him listing whitewashed history as an ad hominin attack is simple because I showed the negative affects of it in my first rebuttal and currently in this rebuttal. Simply put it is false, and we can point more to just the founding fathers, they just happened to be in the last work I read before this debate. 

In the final part my opponent mentioned that the prison data shows the endless cycle I showed is invalid based on the reduced size. He also mentioned that it is a fix for minorities and that the gap between white and minorities are invalid. He is wrong in some terms and he is right in some ways. The part where he is right is that any fix at all would benefit minorities, but he is wrong on the fact that just because something benefits someone doesn't mean the process isn't still discriminatory itself towards minorities. I pointed to the gap in my rebuttal because the disparity shows the possibility of racism, which I then pointed to other data to show how minorities are treated worse in the system and actually face police brutality (Schwartz 2020). This shows that part of it is due to racism based on the two points mentioned in the previous sentence. The endless cycle narrative is still accurate because large numbers of minorities are getting locked up regardless, for minor crimes that would not get white people put in here normally (Annamma 2018). In addition this has been seen for generations so this cycle is still going so it is true to some degree. To go along with this endless cycle it is also shown in the Pew research article that black people make up 30% of the prison population, nearly triple their 12% share of the population (Gramlich 2020). We can see that this cycle seems endless in many regards. I also do want to point that I understand why he choose the age group he did, but again it is important to view the data from multiple perspectives which I did by showing more than just the basic numbers, because data tells a lot about what is going on if you view each avenue (Fields 2018). 

Questions for my opponent: I asked two earlier but the rest will be here. Q. You didn't say anything about police brutality rates, mentioned in my opening and in my rebuttal. What are your thoughts about it?

Q. What are your thoughts about the increase in hate crimes?

Q. Do you think politics/policy has been used to hurt minorities?

Q. What do you think about my citation on how minorities are treated in prison?

Q. Do you think whitewashed history can be used to hurt minorities? 

Q. Do you think racism from the past can influence how things work today?

Q. If you think the evidence I provided is invalid, what is your standard of evidence or definition of evidence (We only have one more rebuttal and closings so I am getting your thoughts before we move on)?

(Again if the article is a 2022 article and you do not see it referenced under references it is a specific author in Berliner and Hermanns work).

References

Thanks again.  I appreciate you taking time to have the debate and for answering my questions.  I agree this has been fun.  I’ll do my best to answer your questions, but before I do let me address as an aside one of your comments…

“In this he makes his own judgements, which we all do at times but in complex situations like these can be dangerous.”

I think it would in fact be far more dangerous to delegate the assigning of my value judgements to someone else or to abandon the task all together.

I am glad you asked your first two questions because it gives me a chance to clarify my current position and maybe help get us aligned on what racism means.

Q: In addition my opponent seems to question that if multiple groups are hurt in the process this is not due to racism. Examples we seen in history is that many white people were hurt when they stood up for minorities which was seen during the civil rights era and also when white people tried to teach black children during slavery time (Givens 2023). My first question for my opponent is would the actions against minorities during these times be racist, even though some white people were effected.

A.  Yes these would be racism because the discrimination that occurred here was based on race.  Minorities being the only victim is not required.

Q. Was hitler racist even tho he discriminated against multiple races/ethnicities.

A  Absolutely!  He discriminated based  on race.  The fact that multiple races were involved does not change that.

Maybe your question is how do I feel this is different than some of the items we are discussing.  So I’ll give you some examples that clarifies my position.

If Hitler hates all black people and jews he is racist.  This is because race is a factor in the discrimination.

If Hitler hates all black people and jews taller than 6 feet  but does not discriminate against black people and jews that are shorter than 6 ft.  This is racism.  This is racism because race is one of the factors in the basis for the discrimination.

If Hitler hates all people taller than 6 feet regardless of their race this is not racism.  Because race is not a factor. 

If Hitler hates all people taller than 6 feet regardless of their race, and black people and Jews are over represented in the  number of people above 6 feet.  This is still not racism because the discrimination is not on the basis of race.  This would still be terrible because it is essentially the same error in reasoning.  But it wouldn’t be racism.

If Hitler just hates everyone.  Still not racism.


Q. What are your thoughts about the increase in hate crimes?

A.  I think this is a terrible trend.  I also think this likely constitutes rising racism and is extremely alarming (I am conceding).  What gives me pause is that I am not sure that the definition of “hate crime” has not shifted over time but again I am willing to concede.

A.  If you asked me why I think this is happening I would say the increasing prevalence of race as a point of emphasis in public discourse (which is generally low quality) and public policy (shared my thoughts already).  Race is in fact a social construct that was developed to divide us, and it is very effective as history shows.  Thus an increased emphasis on it will have the logical impact of dividing us further.


Q. Do you think politics/policy has been used to hurt minorities?

A.  Maybe depending on how you mean it…

Ever in history? Yes obviously

Do I think public policy currently has negative impacts on some individuals who are also minorities? - Yes the current school system that you mentioned is a great example of this.

Do I think public policy is currently intentionally used to hurt minorities on the basis of race? - No


Q. What do you think about my citation on how minorities are treated in prison?

A.  It is a terrible tragedy; however, I think it represents unequal outcomes without sufficient information about why to determine if it’s racism.


Q. Do you think whitewashed history can be used to hurt minorities? 

A.  Yes I think it hurts everyone.  Because false information leads to bad choices.

Maybe to be clearer here.  I don’t think individuals should assign anything to their self identity about race other than race.  It has no more bearing on their identity than height.  

Maybe an additional thought - it is the fact that race is such an uncontrollable and inconsequential part of what makes an individual who they are that discriminating based on it is so evil.


Q. Do you think racism from the past can influence how things work today?

A.  No I think how individuals choose to react to the past is what influences today.


Q. If you think the evidence I provided is invalid, what is your standard of evidence or definition of evidence

A.  Evidence that shows motivation for the actions taken was on the basis of race.  In absence of this I would definitely be impressed by an honest attempt to rule out all other reasonable theories.


Police Brutality:

I totally agree that police brutality is a problem in America.  I also agree that this disproportionately impacts minorities.  This could be because of racism.  No doubt there are cops that are racist and this has had an impact on part of the inequality in outcome that we see.  It is also important to acknowledge that police officers are often required to make split second life and death decisions on very limited information which is a situation prone to stereotyping.  This makes it even more likely in my view and is unacceptable and when and if it happens it is racism.  I acknowledge that this is a highly emotionally charged topic and understandably so.  The thought that the people who are supposed to protect people from violence are a cause of violence against them is indeed alarming.

George Floyd’s death was a tragic crime.  But it was not prosecuted as a hate crime because there was no evidence of racism.  I can understand that is challenging because it is difficult to prove motivation but rightfully our criminal justice system works on the presumption of innocence.

Note: the AGs comment”“I wouldn’t call it that because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive, and of bias,” Ellison said. “We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.”” supports what I am trying to convince you racism means.

Sadly, similar circumstances also happens to individuals who are not minorities.  I have included a link to a video of Tony Timpa who also died in police custody.  (Disclaimer this is graphic)  I bring this up simply to point out that is possible that race is not a factor.  It doesn’t prove that race is not a factor.

I also mentioned that we must consider other factors.  And there are probably many, but one may be that engaging in criminal activity increases the risk of having your life ended in a confrontation with the police.

The FBI crime database from 2019 indicates that 3299 murders were perpetrated by individuals who are white while 2906 were perpetrated by individuals who are black.  When scaled for population size it would mean that individuals who are black are 4 to 5 times more likely to commit murder.  

This information does not rule out racism as a contributing factor.  As I stated before I do believe it is part of it; however, we should try to understand more if we want better solutions to our problems. 

I also mentioned that this is an understandably emotional topic.  This means we need to take steps to be more rational and not react to every statistic we see.

Death rates per 100,000 / year:
Opioid Overdose: 30.7 (all individuals)
Car accident: 13 (all individuals)
Black male murdered by someone who is black: 10 (FBI data combined with census)
Choking on food: 1.3 (all individuals)
Fire : 1 (all individuals)
Black American police fatality: 0.57 (Statista - this is men and women I think it’s safe to essentially just double it for just men)
Unarmed black male police fatality: < 0.2 (Statista combined with census)
*I could not actually find the data split by race so I just assumed they were all black males and rounded up.

Note: I am not sure how the data your source quoted was calculated so I just went to his source.

This data does not necessarily speak to the amount that racism impacts police brutality.  But it does indicate significance.  When we over emphasize this as is often done in the media it can sew irrational fear and distrust.  The fact is that an unarmed black man is far less likely to be gunned down by a racist police officer than many things that would be considered a freak accident. 

A couple other notes:
My objection to the SF policy is more logical than results based.  Not teaching student A algebra in 8th grade can not help student B learn calculus.  Also it harms student A.

I am liking the Q&A format.  I’ll try to keep it short because I know you have more you want to say.

Q. You brought this up a few times now and I passed but you seem stuck on it. “An example of this was the "veil" mentioned by Jarvis Givens in my opening, because minorities that have been marginalized will understand when they are being discriminated against (Givens 2023).”  How can minorities know the intent or decision basis behind actions of others?  At face value it seems like you are saying they can read minds.

Q.  Can you list the things you are able to conclude about an individual based on their race?

Q.  If historical racism were able to explain all discrepancies in outcome how do you explain the Asian data in the SF story which shows they are having better outcomes than whites despite being the victims of historical injustice?

Q: “This statement is racist and meets the definition he mentioned, because it is designed to specifically affect minorities.” How do you know the intent of the design?

Q: “I then linked it to how people are purposely using policy to hurt African Americans currently through, white washed history” How do you know this is their intent?

Q. What is meant by “minorities as a whole” is the collective “minorities” correct?

Q. Do you feel it is beneficial for young people to view themselves as victims of historical injustice and if so why?  I feel you insufficiently answered my previous question on this topic.

Q: “The interesting thing that he did not mention is that we are still segregate at the school level and at the classroom level without a choice in this situation (Berliner &  Hermanns 2022)”  Do you feel this contradicts your view on school choice?

Q.  What would it take me to convince you that while racism still exists in America its impacts are minor or approaching that?  

Q.  Do you think scholars who study race could potentially be biased given they have devoted their profession to this topic?  Note I am not claiming they are I am just curious if you think it is possible.


Tony Timpa Video: RAW VIDEO: Officer Dustin Dillard's bodycam shows in-custody death of ...YouTube · WFAAAug 2, 2019

FBI Crime Data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

George Floyd DA Not a Hate Crime: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/550211-minnesota-ag-explains-why-floyd-death-not-charged-as-hate-crime/amp/

Census Data: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/tables/2010-2019/national/asrh/nc-est2019-asr5h.xlsx

Police Fatalities by Race: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

Police Fatalities by Weapon: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585140/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-weapon-carried-2016/

Accident Statistics: https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/us-death-statistics.html#google_vignette

Before starting this rebuttal, I want to mention that I appreciate that my opponent took the time to answer my questions. This back and forth has been good in several ways and this form of questioning from both of us resembles what would be a cross examination that you may see in live debates. I do plan to ask a few more questions to see if I can further my position along with answering some of my opponents points. To start, if you notice I am making arguments based on reliability, which is defined by Andy Fields in that the test instrument (Race for this subject) can be interpreted consistently across different situations (Fields 2018). Regardless of what side different people take, we can see that the criteria that I have presented from research studies/scholar seem to match how racism affects society in multiple fields. To start I am going to answer a comment he made on my comment where I mentioned“ In this he makes his own judgements, which we all do at times but in complex situations like these can be dangerous.” where he then proceeded to then mentioned that "I think it would in fact be far more dangerous to delegate the assigning of my value judgements to someone else or to abandon the task all together." To start the reason I called this dangerous is because it could possibly cause us to make judgment's on our own instead of looking at research, which has been interpreted by statistical analysis (Friedman 2006). For the best methodology on this you would be looking at programs in education which can be evaluated through the science of program evaluation (Fitzpatrick et al. 2010). From this you use statistics to see if items improved, got worse, or stayed the same (Friedman 2006). Using value judgements without evidence can be wrong because it can enable us to make bias decisions (Fields 2018). 

Questions my opponent answered: In my first question I questioned if multiple races were hurt at the same time, would it still be racism. I used the civil rights era and Hitler as an example, which my opponent seemed to agree would encompass racism (Paraphrasing to be able to answer more). He seemed to agree on this in that if multiple people were affected it is possible based on the questions I mentioned, but it seems he used an example with height and race where I will try to relate it to him in various ways (Let me know if I did not understand your position since I am paraphrasing). First I think most of what I labeled would meet his criteria and I will go into more detail during each question. Race can be attributed to the Michigan Manic center's support and donation to Betsy Devos because they want school choice to hurt certain groups, and not just everyone (Burris 2022). (Remember my statement about education with poor whites vs. minorities in my previous rebuttal). We can attribute race to how minorities are treated in prison (Annamma 2018), hate crimes (FBI Hate Crime), police brutality (Schwartz 2020), whitewashed history (Pene 2020), the school to prison pipeline (Annamma 2018), and prison rates (Garmlich 2020). To further back up my point on this I will provide additional quantitative data, along with qualitative data to back up my point on my opponents answers. The quantitative data points to statistical significance (Fields 2018), but the qualitative data is going to point to the why behind it, so I am incorporating a mixed method design (Friedman 2006). 

Another question I asked my opponent was about his thoughts on the increase in hate crimes, and it seemed that he conceded that this is happening which he is alarmed at (I saw you mentioned that you were unsure if that has changed or not, but I will leave that unless you want to touch on it in your rebuttal). In addition he mentions that this is possibly due " increasing prevalence of race as a point of emphasis in public discourse  and public policy. Race is in fact a social construct that was developed to divide us, and it is very effective as history shows. Thus an increased emphasis on it will have the logical impact of dividing us further." For the start of my answer I think this is an important point that he possibly conceded, but I will leave him to answer and the audience to judge because he may have more to say on this or his argument about how we handle the construct of race. It would probably come as no shock that I disagree with this statement for a few different reasons. First as noted by the University of Texas I think that teaching about race will only move us forward because we have seen that it hurts minorities (Pene 2020). You could make the argument that our society creates this, but we have seen racism from the past still carries over to today (You have admitted racism exists we just disagree by how much), so it makes this task of moving away from race impossible (Givens 2023). In addition it has been shown that children as early as 3 start to notice race/differences in skin (Conversations about Race). We further see that scholars who are minorities wished that they involved some level of education from history that related to them or they wished that teachers read books to them as children that related to them on race, because many stories read to them as children related to white middle class people (Nieto 2022). From this we can see that it sounds nice when thinking about forgetting race, but it is impossible due to how the human mind works, and how past society influences today. Also do you think this is politically motivated? We both sort of agreed Trump was harmful, but do you think he divided races further? (Not picking on Trump for the fun of it, plenty of democrats have been harmful in race issues too, he is just frequently cited in recent literature. You also mentioned nationalism so I am looking for further information).

In another question he answered he mentioned that policy has been used to hurt minorities in the past, but is not used to intentionally hurt minorities today. I guess in this I will have to ask a follow up question. So you don't think the statement from the Michigan's Manic support and funding of Betsy Devos counts as racism after their statement about bringing schooling back in time (Focusing on this because you said policy was not used to hurt minorities currently, but I am asking about this specifically when viewing each political item together)? Based on your comments about multiple groups being hurt at one time, this would seem to go along with what you mentioned as possible racism. This is actually cited in literature as the Overton Window which is used to analyze/rebrand extreme policies to make them more acceptable (Berliner and Hermans 2022) (I also want everyone to remember my citation about before public school white people had access to education and black people did not). Do you think it would meet the term of institutional racism which? Institutional racism- occurs in organizations. These are race-based policies and practices that give unfair advantages to whites over people of color. These institutional policies often never mention any racial group, but the intent is to create advantages. From this term it seems to show that school choice can be racist, because it can be used to take resources away from minorities, it overcrowds classrooms, and also closes schools down in minority communities (Race and Racial Identity). 

My question regarding how minorities are treated in prison was answered by saying that it "it is a tragedy, however I think it represents unequal outcomes". The problem with this is that I am asking about treatment within prisons, not what happened to get arrested. My citation shows that inside prisons minorities are treated worse, which can be shown through numerous studies. To bring in qualitative data one study on girls who were middle school-high school age were in a  juvenile system, where many of the guards used racial items on some of the girls to keep them in line (Annamma 2018). This included threatening to call ICE on an under aged girl, punishing minorities for losing a pencil (Realize it could be used for a weapon, but panic was in the eyes of each person), lack of being able to go to cultural events after displaying good conduct, being physically intimidated by teachers/guards, and using their children against them (Annamma 2018) (We can go by this being a limitation of one study, but this qualitative information backs up the quantitative data I mentioned in an early rebuttal). You could try to argue that some of these are not due to race, but if we see it in the quantitative data along with the qualitative data, while also seeing many of these items encompassing race it is hard to see how this is just an outcomes issue. 

In my question of dealing with my question on whether white-washed history affected minorities, my opponent says it affects everyone. My interlocutor also mentioned "it is the fact that race is such an uncontrollable and inconsequential part of what makes an individual who they are that discriminating based on it is so evil." His comment that it keeps everyone from the truth is correct, but I want to ask does this meets the criteria for the term institutional racism that is placed above? The Harvard Gazette mentions that these textbooks and how history is taught is white supremacy (Which I can define if you want), "and that the older textbooks were like syringes, that injected the toxin of white supremacy into the mind of many generations of Americans.” (Parsons 2023) We saw this pop back up with Trump's history plan of patriotic education I mentioned earlier (Pene 2020). This seems to show that how things were taught in the past impact the way people think today. It is part of also why historians say that  those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). To comment on the second part of his statement my citation above shows that people already see race at an early age, and people choose to discriminate against it (Race and Racial Identity). My point from this is that people will see race regardless of if someone did not want to make it a part of their identity.

I asked a question on can racism from the past affect today and my opponent said no that it dealt with how someone reacts to it. The problem with this is that for this contingent I used school funding as a past racism that affects today. We had minority schools with low funding now, and it never changed. Do you think past racism can affect policy today, thus impacting how things work today (Reworded because I don't think this part was answered in this context)? I am asking this because we can point to policies throughout history that have maintained a long term affect long after they have been implemented. If you don't agree with past systems in place such as past policies affecting how things worked today, why would minority schools stay the same over generations? I will answer his evidence response at the bottom. 

Police Brutality Response: The issue with his statements here is that this doesn't take everything that is cited within data to account. If you notice in my previous response that I not only looked at the rates alone, I also incorporated without a weapon (Schwartz 2020). Police officer's do have to make split second decisions, which I respect because I would not want to do that, but when viewing the information it wouldn't make sense for this many unknown deaths to happen for this reason. Another part of this statistics is police shootings on minorities have grown within the past few years, which was around the time Trump was got elected (Berliner & Hermanns 2022). This again matches with the Betsy Devos/Michigan statement, increase in hate crimes, and a push for a Whitewashed history agenda (Burris 2022). Rutgers university explains that part of this has to deal with shootings, because "racial hierarchy and ideology that sustained it has remained long after abolition and has indelibly shaped the contemporary social and institutional order"(Rutgers) Viewing how reliability works, it seems that each of these items would show that individuals of color have been purposely impacted due to data overtime correlating with historical events. As unsettling as this is, he is right in that it is a startling fact that people who are suppose to protect us can cause harm (I still do believe their are good police officers as well, some are just using the badge for violence though.)

George Floyd: I don't have much to say on this because my broader point would still stand. With that being so, many institutions would argue that this is due to racism (Curry 2022). The problem with just viewing this from the judge's side is that this is prone to bias due to it being one person, when compared to multiple institutions the chances of this are slimer (Fields 2018). 

Police Data: Before going into the actual numbers he states that this happens to people who are not black, and shows a video which is disturbing as well. This is awful in it's own right, but is not happening to white people near as much even though recent numbers show white people get arrested more than black people (FBI).(Even though minorities are killed at a higher rate (Schwartz 2020)) Seeing one example of a different wrong doesn't show that racism is not there, and when we look at everything that I mentioned put in context and see that they are connected to each other, we see this is a race issue. (Especially the hate crimes, how whitewashed history emboldens these groups, the school to prison pipeline, and the school choice higher ups actions). 

My opponent makes a comment saying that criminal activity increases the chance of you losing your life as a consequence. Well this is really true for minorities because we saw my source above show that more white people actually get arrested, but this is less likely to happen to them. Regardless of how you word it, the number of unarmed deaths are unjustifiable. We can again link this to racism with other crimes mentioned, and minorities being treated worse inside the prison system (Annamma  2018). 

I plan to address the data as a whole by starting with murder rates he mentioned. This is a form of shifting the goal post in my opinion, because it is showing yes this is a problem, but here is another problem (I don't think he is doing this on purpose but it is common on this specific debate). We can first show that this data can be explained because a confounding factor (factor that can possibly explain the data) shows that this on scale is likely due to poverty and they are more likely to live in heavily populated areas (Who commits crimes). White people are more likely to commit blue collar and cooperate crimes (Who commits crimes). Even if we disregard the stats that I brought which show white people getting arrested more often and not getting killed at the same rate, their is still other ways to look at more data (Schwartz 2020). If we look at the data one could use this if the person is armed (because I believe in self-defense), but the stats I mentioned in my rebuttal showed significant amount of minorities killed by the police unarmed (Schwartz 2020). Also a study was done as well which analyzed "100,000 traffic stops, which showed that black people were less likely to be stopped at night when a veil of darkness masked ones races, which suggest bias in the traffic stops."(Schwartz 2020). Do you think the traffic stops can possibly relate to racism?

My opponent after making the murder claim names statistics where most of them would not be seen as cofounding factors to be tested in a statistical study (Fields 2018). Chocking on food, fire, and car accidents are irrelevant to this conversation for the most part. Blacks murdered by other blacks is a shifting of the goalpost which is explained, by my cofounding factor above, which is poverty and living in urban areas (Who commits crimes). I also want to note that even though this is an issue, it does not answer for the murder rate of unarmed minorities mentioned in the previous rebuttal and when we view that most arrest on minorities are not dealing with murder, it is especially wrong (FBI). Both of his stats on police deaths are upsetting, but in scale don't address the problem with police brutality since I brought up unarmed deaths (Schwartz 2020). Even with this being deflected this can be explain if you look at stats in depth. First, most police deaths involve felonies, not the unarmed deaths I mentioned (FBI 2021). Out of the 129 officers killed 56 were by accident and 73 from felonies, in which 9 were black (FBI 2021). Simply put this is not as big of an issue as the one I cited, and still does not address the unarmed deaths mentioned. 

SF Policy: Their isn't much more to say on this because the source he cited showed positive and negative outcomes. When evaluating programs we use statistics, so we can know how to improve or implement programs (Fitzpatrick 2010). 

Q. He asked about the veil (Reworded so I can type and ask questions). The Veil is term is used by Jarvis Givens but is also used by WEB Dubois by saying that minorities had a form of double conciseness. Not literally in the sense they can read minds, but if injustice is happening to you, your going to notice this. Givens notes that this would involve racial thinking (Givens 2023). Black people have had to notice injustice around them since slavery time, and even though their have been some improvements, they continue to have to do so.   

Q.  Can you list the things you are able to conclude about an individual based on their race? I am not sure that I understand this question so you may have to elaborate. Are we talking about the person themselves? How issues happen to different groups today? Are you possibly asking about different attributes from race?(I would contest the last one for sure). Simply put this question could be put in several directions. 

Ok so I have conceded that racism exists, and that hate crimes happen.  I have conceded the possibility of racist police and would also reasonably concede the possibility of racist prison guards.  This is horrendous and far more racism than society should tolerate. None of these impacts “affects minority communities as a whole within the United States” as the description of the debate indicates.

There is one point I want to make sure I stand behind firmly on and that is my statement that we should not attribute significance to race.  My rebuttal to your rebuttal below:

“You could make the argument that our society creates this, but we have seen racism from the past still carries over to today (You have admitted racism exists we just disagree by how much), so it makes this task of moving away from race impossible (Givens 2023).”

People once believed that Zeus threw lightning bolts at the earth, Thor caused thunder, witchcraft was real, the stars were holes in the sky, etc.  We have moved away from those ideas.  That progress is impossible is a laughable fallacy.   

“In addition it has been shown that children as early as 3 start to notice race/differences in skin (Conversations about Race)”

My argument is not that we shouldn’t notice race.  My argument is that we shouldn’t attribute any significance to it.

“We further see that scholars who are minorities wished that they involved some level of education from history that related to them or they wished that teachers read books to them as children that related to them on race, because many stories read to them as children related to white middle class people (Nieto 2022).”

I’m not sure this is an argument.  It’s just statement about what a few people wished had happened that has no bearing on what is possible.

“From this we can see that it sounds nice when thinking about forgetting race, but it is impossible due to how the human mind works, and how past society influences today.”

Clearly refuted above.  We don’t have to retain bad ideas.  

My main argument:  The claim of racism requires an understanding of the basis for the decision.  It requires that the decision be on the basis of race.  Data can not tell us what is going on inside someone else’s head.  All you can do is attempt to explain the data.  The correct epistemological approach is to consider ALL possible theories and see which best fit.  I have provided many other possible theories that you have not refuted.  The only logical conclusion is that we simply can not know for sure, and that there may be many factors involved in the explanation.

On Scholars:

You have implied the arguments you presented have merit because they are from scholars and that it is not narrative.  I have simply taken some scholars at their word that they promote narrative and reject merit.

“some aspects of critical race theory will be accepted by society’s mainstream and halls of power, while other parts of it will continue to meet resistance. The narrative turn and storytelling scholarship seem well on their way toward acceptance, as does the critique of merit. The rise of social media has only accelerated these.”  (Delgado/Stefancic Critical Race Theory: An Introduction to Critical Race Theory 4th Edition (pg 161))  Itallics my own.  

In other words narratives without merit are now to be expected.

You may feel that this does not represent your sources.  It would be unfair to conclude they do.  But it does mean you can not claim a “scholarly” source in this discussion is not narrative or that it has merit since narrative is promoted by some and merit is scorned.


My response to your questions as well as a few random thoughts before we close.

Q. Also do you think this is politically motivated? We both sort of agreed Trump was harmful, but do you think he divided races further?  

A.  Yes and yes.  I am simply pointing out that you have no evidence that this was racially motivated.  Authoritarian  Nationalism would be a better description of Trumps policies in my view and that would explain why he would want to “white wash” history.


Q. In another question he answered he mentioned that policy has been used to hurt minorities in the past, but is not used to intentionally hurt minorities today. I guess in this I will have to ask a follow up question. So you don't think the statement from the Michigan's Manic support and funding of Betsy Devos counts as racism after their statement about bringing schooling back in time (Focusing on this because you said policy was not used to hurt minorities currently, but I am asking about this specifically when viewing each political item together)?

Let me give your original quote because I think it’s clearer.

“This organization is concerning because the site has published work in which they mentioned schooling was successful before the invention of the common school (public school) (Burris 2022). Based on this we can see that the politics of this is racist because it would bring us back in time, in which minorities are less likely to be educated due to not being schooled at all, or being homeschooled (Burris 2022)”

A.  The first part of this statement mentions nothing about race.  The second part of this reads as conjecture.  The explanation that this be do to race appears to be coming from a third party.  If you or your source can provide evidence that indicates this is more than conjecture than do it.  Otherwise the first statement makes them supporters of free markets.  Or maybe they just hate taxes.  If you do not have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the brain of the person who created the initial statement or they did not indicate race in some way then I consider the second statement slander.

A.  Do I feel 2 policies where there is no evidence of racism combined together make racism? No


Q.  I want to ask does this meets the criteria for the term institutional racism that is placed above?

A. No because that still requires “on the basis of race”.  You have not demonstrated that the decision was founded on race.  I have proposed it may be founded authoritarian nationalism and you have not refuted, so we can not conclude that it is founded on race.


Police Brutality:

“The problem with just viewing this from the judge's side is that this is prone to bias due to it being one person,” - In this case the AG was black.  He would also have more information than anyone else on the case.

“but is not happening to white people near as much even though recent numbers show white people get arrested more than black people (FBI).(Even though minorities are killed at a higher rate (Schwartz 2020)”

You are mixing data types. The FBI data is on the basis of percentage of total arrests which shows that white people are arrested more.  The data I provided shows that white people are actually killed more by the police as well.  White people represent ~58% of violent crime arrests and  ~54% killed by police where the race is known.  Unless I am missing your point this doesn’t seem statistical significant.  I assume this is an honest mistake.  But in looking at it this way it actually supports my case further.

To be clear all unarmed deaths at the hands of police officers are horrendous.  We do need to reform policing practices.  


Q. Do you think the traffic stops can possibly relate to racism?  Possibly.  It could just be that minorities speed more frequently as the traffic cameras that disproportionately ticket minorities indicate.  Maybe people drive more cautiously at night because it’s harder to see.  There are many reasons that could explain the data.  


Random Thought:

“we are going to be doomed to repeat the same mistakes” like race conscious policies and segregation.

Questions for my opponent
Q. How does your data from things such as chocking on food tie in with police brutality?

A.  It puts it in perspective.  It speaks to the significance of the threat this poses to minorities relative to other things.  This is ultimately what I am debating you on.  Perhaps it will help one individuals “veil” get lifted.  How do you feel about it?


Q. How do the items mentioned not resemble the Hitler analogy where you said that if it affects multiple groups it could still be racist (Your example if Hitler hates everyone taller than 6 ft, he is not racist. Question is asked because this hurts specific groups which you mentioned with the Jew and minority comment)?

A.

School funding the factor that determines school resources is local community income level and local policies.

Prison - the factor that determines whether you are in prison is whether or not you are found guilty of a crime.

Private School Admissions:  the factor that determines your admission is merit as defined by the schools acceptance criteria (accept in cases where affirmative action is applied)

School discipline: the factor that determines the discipline is the individuals behavior as it relates to the school code of conduct

White washing history - the factor that determines whether something is included is the significance relative to all other events and people.  That if there is a bias it is to paint “America as a whole” in a positive light. Addressed your claims about trump elsewhere.

As you can see I have not mentioned race as a factor in any of these.


Q.
Because white people were in prison during the civil rights era unrelated to Black people standing up, does this mean that minorities weren't locked up because of racism? (It is relevant because you point to other people being locked up as well)

A.  No.  My argument is more the basis for deciding the outcome on items you have mentioned is not race.  

Q. What do you think about minorities being treated worse in prisons (This point wasn't really addressed, don't know if my opponent knew where I was coming from)?

A.  I think that you haven’t even presented a case that explains why you think it meets the definition of racism.  You would need to demonstrate that they were treated differently because of their race.  The pencil anecdote is an example where there was at least a reason for the different treatment that was not race based.  I am mostly trying to make my point that you are either using the term incorrectly or failing to meet your own definition of it.  Treated worse is an outcome.  It does not explain why.  Since I already conceded the possible existence of racist prison guards in my opening I will let it go but maybe it helps you understand.

Q. If you don't think actions and policies from the past affect today, how come the constitution has stood the test of time?

A.  Because the people living today have chosen to keep it in place with some amendments.  We have changed it 17 times not including the initial bill of rights.

Q.Are you claiming that researchers are trying to create bias narratives (Asking because I was unsure based on your question)?

A.  Yes but that’s because they said so…


I saved this one for last because it’s a good one.

Q.  “If historical racism were able to explain all discrepancies in outcome how do you explain the Asian data in the SF story which shows they are having better outcomes than whites despite being the victims of historical injustice? The answer to this is simple. Asians do face some discrimination, but for the most part can be seen as "honorary whites" which is a term used in the literature (Dhingra 2021). Teachers have actually been shown to give more opportunities to Asians similar to whites which explains Asian success (Dhingra 2021). Also how do you explain how most other minorities such as Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans face worse outcomes?”

To say I know for sure would be hard but to pretend less racism against Asians is why they have better outcomes than whites feels insufficient.  You could possibly use this explanation if the outcomes were the same as whites.  The fact that outcomes are better than whites indicates something other than racism must impact academic achievement.  My guess is cultural differences across the groups in terms of what gets emphasized.  There are many studies that show a strong link between reading and academic success and that Asians are more likely than whites to be readers at a young age.  They also show that other minority groups are less likely to be readers at a young age.

If your question is more broadly… How can you see all the unequal outcomes and conclude racism is not a major factor?  It is simple - the variation in outcomes of individuals within the groups is far greater than the variations you have highlighted by comparing the groups: therefore, there must be other factors that have a significantly greater impact.  My lead theory is that individual behaviors matter significantly in all of the outcome scenarios discussed.  

I feel you did not answer my question.  My concern is not that people who have experienced racism are “crying victim” as you suggest.

My concern is more what if young minorities believe you?

What if instead of seeing a world where they can be President, or lead missions to space, or preside over the nations top University and while they may encounter some racism it is in an anomaly and unlikely to have any significant impact they adopt a world view that they are a victim of historical injustice.  That the deck is stacked against them and that even though they can’t see strong evidence of it in their daily lives that racism permeates every nook and cranny of our society and dictates every outcome.  What if this belief makes them less likely to accept a well intentioned discipline step as justified and more likely to think it is discrimination.  And because they don’t think it’s justified  they decide to continue the behavior which results in escalating discipline and leads toward the school to prison pipeline.  What if when you multiply small decisions like that across millions of individuals, some of whom may adopt this view and some may not, it does result in a measurable difference in outcome?

I personally would not suggest anyone adopt a view of themselves a victim because I feel this is self defeating and an affront to their own personal agency.

I also do not believe that most minorities feel this way even though you have implied they all are.  I refuse to treat individuals as such on the basis that there may be at least one who would not have it or want it.

It’s been fun and I look forward to your closing.  I assume given your handle you’ll be ok with me saying Merry Christmas!


Traffic Cameras:  https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most

Voluntary Reading: https://thencbla.org/literacy-resources/statistics/

I want to end my last rebuttal period by thanking my opponent. Even though we disagree on numerous topics this has been a worth while discussion, and I think it has been a good debate as a whole.  

My opponent mentioned that he conceded my contingent on hate crimes, and mentions that their are possibly racist police officers and prison guards. From this he does not understand how this affects communities as a whole which is the description of the debate. My opponent should understand that hate crimes is a major contingent of the debate and affects minorities in their communities as a whole. Regardless of how my interlocutor thinks about this, seeing individuals of your own race having crimes happen to them shows it affects them. His other two comments we will get into later, but the contingent of hate crimes affects minorities in society today per the title/description of the debate. Also this was probably the most significant contingent in the debate because it also means that my contingent on whitewashed history are more likely to be true because, if you remember I mentioned how certain groups were purposely trying to keep all of history from being taught after a possible racist education plan was given through the trump administration (Pene 2020). This links with the hate crime because it emboldened these groups to act a certain way towards minorities (Pene 2020). One could argue that if it opened the door for the whitewashed history contingent, that much of what I mentioned was true and you only need to connect the dots through a good research method that involves quantitative data and qualitative data (Friedman 2006). I will answer each question below so that nothing gets confused with each other.

Gramlich, J. (2020, May 6). Black imprisonment rate in the U.S. has fallen by a third since 2006. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/05/06/share-of-black-white-hispanic-americans-in-prison-2018-vs-2006/

https://books.google.com/books?id=tqCUEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=%E2%80%9Csome+aspects+of+critical+race+theory+will+be+accepted+by+society%E2%80%99s+mainstream+and+halls+of+power,+while+other+parts+of+it+will+continue+to+meet+resistance.+The+narrative+turn+and+storytelling+scholarship+seem+well+on+their+way+toward+acceptance,+as+does+the+critique+of+merit.+The+rise+of+social+media+has+only+accelerated+these.%E2%80%9D+(Delgado/Stefancic+Critical+Race+Theory:+An+Introduction+to+Critical+Race+Theory+4th+Edition+(pg+161&source=bl&ots=MD34AnAfME&sig=ACfU3U3bBuxp4bcCkb8f39GTKpx-tDP2fQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwitrL-j1bCDAxWffTABHSCgAEgQ6AF6BAghEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false) (Hyperlink to look for yourself). 

I want to thank my opponent for initiating this debate.  I also want to give my opponent credit on his conduct throughout which has been admirable.  It’s important to acknowledge that I took this debate in a different direction than intended and my opponent was generous in being willing to go along with that.  

I also want to say I think it was extremely well argued on my opponents part.  I said I was hoping to learn and I did.  For me this has been valuable.

I appreciate that my opponent was transparent about the fact that the original police brutality statistics were misquoted and that a higher number of unarmed white individuals are killed by police brutality than unarmed black individuals.  This is clearly an honest mistake.  I misread the chart on my as well and people who are trying to deceive you do not provide links to the data.

My opponent is correct in that we think about these issues differently. My opponent has indicated that we don’t agree on much but I think we did find some common ground.  I think both conceded arguments the other made at least to some extent.  I can understand my opponent not wanting to highlight this because a number of the positions I took did not display much empathy.

Most importantly we both agree there is far too much racism in America and that “We could fix this where this would be minimal through education,”  As my opponent has pointed out there are some who would disagree.

We both agree that there are elements of racism present in a number of my opponents arguments including police brutality, the criminal justice system, the prison system, and the attempt by Trump and the far right to white wash history.

I know I took a fairly evasive stance on whitewashing history but I was trying to give my opponent a good debate on his prop (which is basically indefensible) and conceding this would have conceded the whole debate as concluded appropriately in my opponents close.  I would add a comment that the fact that Trump still has popular support among republicans speaks to the magnitude of the problem.

I think I would still debate further on the merits of school choice but I appreciate that my opponent has at least attempted to rise to the challenge I provided.

I was trying to explore what I view as some flaws in the current civil rights movement which I think are summarized well between my opening and this quote

“Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory examines the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”  Same text I previously quoted.  This one is on page 3 though so you don’t have to read too far.  I’d encourage all to read it as my opponent pointed out I have potentially misinterpreted or misread this.

Simply put my stance is this… Empathy is important especially when trying to understand the perspective of others, but reason, objectivity, and rationality should be driving the bus.  I believe this is especially true when it comes to public policy.  I have attempted to apply these principles in this debate and likely made errors but this can be corrected through education as my opponent highlighted.

I highlighted my concerns as collectivism, post modernism, and victimhood psychology.  I feel my opponent when pressed on the elements of this argument deferred to reason.  (The veil taken literally is subjective reality, “minorities as a whole” as collectivism, and it took till the conclusion but I believe has argued away from victimhood as well.)  Which is to say we may agree on these as well although I can’t be sure and certainly do not want to speak for my opponent.

I really like how my opponent tied to WEB Dubois in pressure to my challenges on victimhood in order to paint a more positive light in his close.  In my personal read I found him both heartbreaking and inspiring simultaneously which is perhaps what makes his writing so powerful.

I am walking away feeling like there is probably more racism then I wanted to admit to coming in.  Which is to say my opponent has convinced me on his arguments and supports the proposition of this debate extremely well in my view.

I think our biggest difference is the confidence we put in the narrative of scholars.  Simply put I don’t think I challenged any of my opponents data or the discrepancies they indicated.  Instead I challenged how to explain them.  

FIRE (an organization that fosters free speech) recently scored Harvard (which is where some of the scholars my opponent quoted) as 0 out of 100.  Unfortunately many other schools also are scored poorly by this organization.  This is to say that dissent to the popular narrative is unwelcome.  Many of the positions I took would likely be among those not accepted.  My opponent may agree with this stance; however, the fact that my opponent engaged in this debate and was more than generous with my positions would indicate this view is not shared.  This is perhaps another item we agree on which is the value of discourse.

I obviously can’t wrap this up with an argument that there is no racism in America since that position is untenable; however, hopefully, my opponent is content that I challenged as many of the claims provided as possible and achieved what is the goal of debate.  To explore ideas.

Instead maybe I’ll end it this way.  I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this: 

 “My response to this is that this is not really a point because I did not say anything in regard to racial bias I just said bias. I could think of a million other reasons that would be bias where he would say this, such as the justice system could be easier on cops (Not saying this is why, just saying it is a possibility).”

That sounds like a lot of the arguments I have been trying to make throughout the debate.  Maybe I’ll end with a question.  Since a large portion of the debate took that format.  Would the statement here be any less true if the AG had been white?  Can you think of a word that would define making a different determination on that basis?

I really enjoyed this and greatly appreciate the time and effort my opponent put into it.  Thanks and happy new years!


https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-fires-college-free-speech-rankings