Collins-Nave Aff

Do we live in a post-racial society now that Obama’s been elected?

Not if you look at who faces lockdowns and executions in America

As colored women we are more likely than any white women to receive the death penalty.

Harry Greenlee Shelia P. Greenlee 2008
Harry Greenlee and Shelia P. Greenlee, Women and the Death Penalty: Racial Disparities and
Differences, 14 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 319 (2008), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmjowl/ vol14/iss2/7

The ... death sentences.42

A
This should be an obvious starting point for this topic! Our sisters were used up as means to the ends of white society. They had hopes and dreams, but they were used as means.

these women worked just as hard as men if not harder: when they were pregnant they still had to work for the master

Then after  a colored woman was used up and disposed of, her children continued to produce energy in the field
The way our society has learned to use and consume today did not drop out of heaven – our exploitative relationship with our habitat has a social history.  Society learned how to dominate nature from its ancestor’s domination of slaves. 

CBC, 2012 (From the Canadian Broadcasting Company, aired on the broadcast 'The Current,' quotes are from Andrew Nikiforuk, a Canadian journalist who has won multiple National Magazine Awards, http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/10/andrew-nikiforuk-explains-why-oil-dependency-is-a-lot-like-slavery.html)

So how is using oil like having slaves? ... incredibly abusive and barbaric.

Societies exploitation of nature reflects its exploitation of women of color, an oppression that continues today.
Alternative energy seems as unlikely to many today as an end to the system of slavery once did - the analogy between the two is strong.

Nikiforuk, 2012 (Andrew. The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude. Vancouver: Greystone Books, p. 12. Winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award) 

The concept of free labor ...demand.

Devi and I believe society should pursue a non-exploitative relation to its habitat by seeking out the production of alternative energy.  

But we refuse to believe societies unwillingness to go this direction is unrelated to its continued treatment of women of color.  Further, we refuse to believe that this unwillingness is unrelated to practices of exclusion in this community.  Changing our patterns of energy production requires us to break the cycle of oppression and hear the voices of women of color today.

In order for the America to use  energy in a way that respects nature we must first address this social question.  We wish to defend the following analogy, which explicitly affirms the resolution as its starting point: 

Just as the United States should respect nature by pursuing alternative energy, the United States should respect the oppressed by hearing the voices of colored women.  

These two propositions arising from our experience turn out to be one: two ways of speaking the same question, two reflections of the same logic.  As women of color, we cannot discuss the energy question without at the same time addressing the social question.  To speak as if the two are unrelated is to check our own voice at the door.   

The late Malcolm x says: Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world."  But we are in the middle of witnessing a tragedy. The debate community is a microcosm of the larger society: in the status quo I am anxious that my children will not receive a college education. Why is this, you ask? The Supreme Court will soon overturn affirmative action in college admissions,

NPR December 9, 2012 (“Affirmative Action: Factious Past, Uncertain Future”
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166838575/the-end-of-affirmative-action-what-could-be-next)
The Supreme Court ...a narrow majority of the justices will side with Fisher.

Where does this leave our minority youth? Debate may be a game, but here we are in the same university system where this challenge to my people has arisen and at stake in this challenge is the ability of my people to go to college, let alone participate in debate. 

The education of urban youth is far less effective as those who where bought up in suburbia. White America in this day and age has made gaining this education damn near impossible – it has been difficult for us to survive in institutions that presume white social norms, but this supreme court decision would make even access to these institutions more difficult to achieve. 

We need a movement to stop this from happening.
. Affirm the topic by affirming the analogy we have presented:
1) declare with us that women of color and descendants of slaves have a right to a higher education, and the systems of privilege and power in our country must create a space for these voices.  When you leave this round, sound the alarm: talk to your university administrators about this possible outcome and how they will react, organize on your campus in support of students of color, raise awareness among the faculty on your campus.  
2) Affirm with us that the first step to addressing how we should produce energy in a just way is questioning the societal norms that have excluded women of color from the debate community.  If you recognize the validity of linking our experience to the topic through analogy and believe that this approach to debate can open up the game, stand with us. 

If the first woman God ever made 
was strong enough to turn the world
 upside down, all alone

together women ought to be able to turn it
 right side up again.
I stand strong in affirmation