Tournament: Harvard | Round: 1 | Opponent: | Judge:
I. The closures of white knowledge production:
The affirmative starts with a discussion of white forms of knowledge production through an audio clip of Esperanza Spalding's - "Black Gold," which can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nppb01xhfe0
George then lays down some verses about how white knowledge production has impacted his life, how it has been used to crowd out black forms of knowledge production, and allow for the systematic exclusion of black bodies. This oppression manifests in normalized forms of violence and affects our daily spaces. The space of debate is one such arena where the primacy of white knowledge production serves to exclude black bodies and marginalize alternative and black forms of knowledge.
II. Increasing black knowledge production in debate:
Transversing the biopolitical constraints of white knowledge, George 'slows down' for you. He then provides an interpretation of the resolution via a reclamation of the term "black gold." Through a genealogical analysis of how white knowledge production has mobilized various forms of black gold for the purposes of utility and exploitation, he argues for increasing production of black gold in the space of debate as a means of increasing black knowledge production and re-valuing the black body.
Continuing in a argumentative style more to his liking, George reveals that there are ontological and real-world advantages to such an endeavor. Increasing black knowledge production in debate is one way to resist the psychological trauma induced by the anti-blackness of white knowledge, reinvent a positive black identity outside the norms of whiteness, and, finally, transform all participating in the activity of debate by taking it to the next level. The next level of debate is a pedagogical process where all are exposed to diverse forms of knowledge production; where the future movers and shakers of the world learn to avoid the universalizing gesture of white knowledge, where debate can be a space of openness to a multiplicity of bodies, argumentative forms and speaking styles, and where we can approach political questions without the closures created by the current method of debate.
If you have any questions, we'll clarify.