Verbatim Mac

Explanation

This is a critique of colorblind discussions of domestic surveillance. The evidence in this file is mostly taken from an online back-and-forth within leftist circles after the Snowden revelations in 2013. Tim Wise, a prominent anti-racist activist and writer, wrote a scathing article critiquing the publics response to NSA spying. According to Wise, the outrage that many white people expressed was a product of their privilege. Why was NSA spying so outrageous? Why was it the top story in national newspapers and on cable news channels? Wise suggests that this response was so aggressive because white people were finally experiencing the same kind of coercive surveillance that people of color have always experienced in the United States. Instead of reacting with outrage, the alternative suggests that one should react to revelations about domestic surveillance with indifference because the existence of this kind of surveillance regime should be obvious.

This critique links to affirmatives that do not discuss the racially disparate effects of surveillance. If the affirmative highlights the racial injustice of surveillance, the critique becomes much less persuasive. The negative could potentially still deploy a narrower focus tradeoff critique (time spent working against NSA surveillance is time not spent working against police brutality, etc.), but this isnt a particularly persuasive argument. Strategically, the negative should develop another critique to read against affirmatives that do highlight the racially disparate effects of surveillance. Doing so will provide the negative with a generic option against (nearly) all affirmatives.

In response to this critique, the affirmative has a wide variety of options. Most importantly, the affirmative can suggest that because the alternative ultimately agrees with the plan, the permutation is the best option. As part of this argument, the affirmative can also suggest that plan-inclusive alternatives are illegitimate and that the desirability of the affirmatives policy proposalnot just the reasons provided to support itshould be the nexus issue of the debate. Many authors also disagree with Wises argument; they suggest that anti-surveillance work is valuable for people of color and that there is no necessary tradeoff between this and working against other manifestations of racial injustice.

One other option for the affirmative is to critique the word colorblind on the grounds that it is ableist. There is a balanced back-and-forth on this issue that will provide an opportunity for students to debate language-related arguments in the context of a counter-critique.

Negative1NC Colorblindness CritiqueFirst, the affirmatives reaction to NSA surveillance is a product of white privilege. The abuses theyre outraged with arent exceptions to the rule; they are the rule. Wise 13 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2013 (Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege, Tim Wises blog, June 19th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/, Accessed 02-17-2015)The idea that with this NSA program there has been some unique blow struck against democracy, and that now our liberties are in jeopardy is the kind of thing one can only believe if one has had the luxury of thinking they were living in such a place, and were in possession of such shiny baubles to begin with. And this is, to be sure, a luxury enjoyed by painfully few folks of color, Muslims in a post-9/11 America, or poor people of any color. For the first, they have long known that their freedom was directly constrained by racial discrimination, in housing, the justice system and the job market; for the second, profiling and suspicion have circumscribed the boundaries of their liberties unceasingly for the past twelve years; and for the latter, freedom and democracy have been mostly an illusion, limited by economic privation in a class system that affords less opportunity for mobility than fifty years ago, and less than most other nations with which we like to compare ourselves.In short, when people proclaim a desire to take back our democracy from the national security apparatus, or for that matter the plutocrats who have ostensibly hijacked it, they begin from a premise that is entirely untenable; namely, that there was ever a democracy to take back, and that the hijacking of said utopia has been a recent phenomenon. But there wasnt and it hasnt been.

Second, their colorblind policy analysis perpetuates racism and inequality. Wise 10 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2010 (With Friends Like These, Who Needs Glenn Beck? Racism and White Privilege on the Liberal-Left, Tim Wises blog, August 17th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2010/08/with-friends-like-these-who-needs-glenn-beck-racism-and-white-privilege-on-the-liberal-left/, Accessed 02-17-2015)Liberal Colorblindness and the Perpetuation of RacismBy liberal colorblindness I am referring to a belief that although racial disparities are certainly real and troubling and although they are indeed the result of discrimination and unequal opportunity paying less attention to color or race is a progressive and open-minded way to combat those disparities. So, for instance, this is the type of colorblind stance often evinced by teachers, or social workers, or folks who work in non-profit service agencies, or other helping professions. Its embodiment is the elementary school teacher who I seem to meet in every town to which I travel who insists they never even notice color and make sure to treat everyone exactly the same, as if this were the height of moral behavior and the ultimate in progressive educational pedagogy.But in fact, colorblindness is exactly the opposite of what is needed to ensure justice and equity for persons of color. To be blind to color, as Julian Bond has noted, is to be blind to the consequences of color, and especially the consequences of being the wrong color in America. Whats more, when teachers and others resolve to ignore color, they not only make it harder to meet the needs of the persons of color with whom they personally interact, they actually help further racism and racial inequity by deepening denial that the problem exists, which in turn makes the problem harder to solve. To treat everyone the same even assuming this were possible is not progressive, especially when some are contending with barriers and obstacles not faced by others. If some are dealing with structural racism, to treat them the same as white folks who arent is to fail to meet their needs. The same is true with women and sexism, LGBT folks and heterosexism, working-class folks and the class system, persons with disabilities and ableism, right on down the line. Identity matters. It shapes our experiences. And to not recognize that is to increase the likelihood that even the well-intended will perpetuate the initial injury.

Third, their decision to highlight NSA surveillance instead of ongoing, ubiquitous violence against people of color perpetuates white supremacy. This outweighs the case. Wise 13 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2013 (Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege, Tim Wises blog, June 19th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/, Accessed 02-17-2015)So yeah, the government is spying on you precious. And now youre pissed?This is the irony of privilege: the fact that some have for so long enjoyed it, in its largely unfettered state, is precisely why some of those those same persons are now so exorcised at the thought of potentially being treated like everyone else has been, forever; and it is also why the state was able to get away with it for such an extended period. So long as the only possible targets were racial and religious and class others, shock and outrage could be kept at a minimum. And so the apparatus of profiling and monitoring and snooping and data collection and even targeted assassination grew like mushrooms in the dark. And deep down, most of the same white folks who are now so unhinged by the mere possibility and a remote one at that that they will be treated like those others, knew what was going on.And they said little or nothing. White liberals with some notable exceptions mostly clucked their tongues and expressed how unfortunate it was that certain people were being profiled, but they rarely spoke out publicly, or challenged those not-so-random searches at the airport, or dared to challenge cops when they saw them harassing, or even brutalizing the black and brown. Plenty of other issues were more pressing. The white conservatives, of course, largely applauded either or both of those.And now, because they mostly ignored (or even in some cases cheered) the violations of Constitutional rights, so long as the violations fell upon someone other than themselves, they are being freshly confronted with the surly adolescent version of the infant to which they gave birth, at least indirectly. And they arent too happy with his insolence.Yeah, well, tell it to pretty much every Arab American, every Persian American, every Afghan American, everyone with a so-called Middle Eastern name walking through an airport in this country for the past decade or more. Tell them how now youre outraged by the idea that the government might consider you a potential terrorist.Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of black men in New York, stopped and frisked by the NYPD over the past fifteen years, whose names and information were entered into police databases, even though they had committed no crime, but just as a precautionary measure, in case they ever decided to commit one. Tell them how tight it makes you to be thought of as a potential criminal, evidence be damned.Tell it to brown folks in Arizona, who worry that the mere color of their skin might provoke a local official, operating on the basis of state law (or a bigoted little toad of a sheriff), to stop them and force them to prove they belong in the country. Explain to them how patently offensive and even hurtful it is to you to be presumed unlawful in such a way as to provoke official government suspicion.Tell it to the veterans of the civil rights struggle whose activities in the Black Panthers, SNCC, the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, and the American Indian Movement, among others were routinely monitored (and more to the point actively disrupted and ripped apart) by government intelligence agencies and their operatives. Tell them how incredibly steamed you are that your government might find out what websites you surf, or that you placed a phone call last Wednesday to someone, somewhere. Make sure to explain how such activities are just a step away from outright tyranny and surely rank up there alongside the murder and imprisonment to which their members were subjected. Indeed.And then maybe, just maybe, consider how privilege being on the upside, most of the time, of systems of inequality can (and has) let you down, even set you up for a fall. How maybe, just maybe, all the apoplexy mustered up over the NSAs latest outrage, might have been conjured a long time ago, and over far greater outrages, the burdens of which were borne by only certain persons, and not others.

Finally, the alternative is to react with indifference to NSA surveillance. Yes, these abuses are bad. But theyre just more of the same in a country that is not and has never been free for people of color. Wise 13 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2013 (Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege, Tim Wises blog, June 19th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/, Accessed 02-17-2015)Its not that Im not angry.Its not that Im not disturbed, even horrified by the fact that my government thinks it appropriate to spy on people, monitoring their phone calls to whom we speak and when among other tactics, all in the supposed service of the national interest.That any government thinks it legitimate to so closely monitor its people is indicative of the inherent sickness of nation-states, made worse in the modern era, where the power to intrude into the most private aspects of our lives is more possible than ever, thanks to the data-gathering techniques made feasible by technological advance.That said, I also must admit to a certain nonchalance in the face of the recent revelations about the National Security Agencys snooping into phone records, and the dust-up over the leaking of the NSAs program by Ed Snowden. And as I tried to figure out why I wasnt more animated upon hearing the revelations and, likewise, why so many others were it struck me. Those who are especially chapped about the program, about the very concept of their government keeping tabs on them in effect profiling them as potential criminals, as terrorists are almost entirely those for whom shit like this is new: people who have never before been presumed criminal, up to no good, or worthy of suspicion.In short, they are mostly white. And male. And middle-class or above. And most assuredly not Muslim.And although I too am those things, perhaps because I work mostly on issues of racism, white privilege and racial inequity and because my mentors and teachers have principally been people of color, for whom things like this are distressingly familiar the latest confirmation that the U.S. is far from the nation we were sold as children is hardly Earth-shattering. After all, it is only those who have had the relative luxury of remaining in a child-like, innocent state with regard to the empire in which they reside who can be driven to such distraction by something that, compared to what lots of folks deal with every day, seems pretty weak tea.As Yasuragi, a blogger over at Daily Kos reminded us last week:(This is) the nation that killed protesters at Jackson and Kent State UniversitiesThe nation that executed Fred Hampton in his bed, without so much as a warrant. The nation that still, still, still holds Leonard Peltier in prison. The nation that supported Noriega, the Shah, Trujillo, and dozens of other fascist monsters who did nothing but fuck over their own people and their neighbors. The nation of Joseph McCarthy and his current-day descendants. The nation that allows stop-and-frisk.Before all that: The nation that enforced Jim Crow laws. Before that, the nation that built itself on slavery and the slave trade. And before all of that, the nation that nearly succeeded in the genocide of this continents indigenous peoples.So why are you so surprised that our government is gathering yottabytes of data on our phone calls?Lets be clear, its not that the NSA misdeeds, carried out by the last two administrations, are no big deal. Theyre completely indefensible, no matter the efforts of the apologists for empire from the corporate media to President Obama to Dick Cheney to legitimize them. A free people should not stand for it.Problem is, we are not a free people and never have been, and therein lies the rub.

They Say: Obama Apologism1. No link we dont think NSA surveillance is good; we think its business-as-usual under Obama. Outrage at NSA distracts from more important challenges to violence against people of color.

2. No profit motive indict this radically oversimplifies. Wise 13 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2013 (Profiting From Racism? Reflections on White Allyship and the Issue of Compensation, Tim Wises blog, August 17th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/, Accessed 02-17-2015)As for the corollary argument that getting paid while doing antiracism work somehow creates an incentive to maintain the system, and so those who receive income from such work are really frauds who dont want to see the system end, perhaps it would do us well to think about the implications of this argument. First, the argument would also apply to people of color who do the work. If compensation for fighting a system of oppression by definition means that one is vested in the maintenance of the problem, that logic would have to apply across the board. Is that what people believe? Thats certainly what right wingers and those who support racism have long said about the civil rights establishment: that they want to see racism continue so theyll be able to keep their jobs and incomes. But if that argument is unfair and absurd when made about people of color in the work, why is it suddenly legitimate when applied to whites?And by this logic, one could also say and would have to, by necessity that doctors profit from illness and as such want to see people remain unhealthy. And teachers, of any subject, profit from ignorance, and want to see people remain uneducated. And that grunt soldiers on the front lines profit from war, and really, deep down want to see war continue because getting shot at is so much fun, and anyway, what would they do if peace broke out? By this logic, the attorneys who fought Big Tobacco were profiting off cancer no less so than the attorneys who defended those companies and lied about the cancer-causing properties of cigarettes.And by this logic, organizations that do advocacy against poverty and on behalf of poor people and communities fighting for things like a living wage, or a more stable social safety net should only hire poor people to do that work (which might be cool, actually), but then continue to pay them a sub-poverty wage, in violation of the very things they are fighting for, because the minute their incomes put the workers above the poverty line they would be, under this logic, profiting from the misery of others, and thus reveal themselves to be automatic hypocrites.

They Say: Case OutweighsWhite Supremacy is a comparatively more pressing impact. It is responsible for massive global violence and oppression that risks human extinction. Comissiong 13 Solomon Comissiong, Professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland-College Park, Education Consultant and Activist, holds a B.A. in Communications and M.S. in College Student Personnel from the University of Rhode Island, 2013 (The War on White Supremacy, Black Agenda Report, March 30th, Available Online at http://griid.org/2013/03/30/the-war-on-white-supremacy/, Accessed 10-16-2014)Despite the ill-intentioned war on terror, there is one ideological war that would be well served, if aggressively launched. An ideological war on White Supremacy would do humanity immense favors, especially the people of color who are terrorized by it, every day of their lives. White Supremacy is a most nefarious ideology, created by white people for white people. White Supremacy rears its hideous head throughout the globe and has been responsible for well over 100 million deaths (i.e., African Holocaust, Native American Holocaust). However, White Supremacy not only kills bodies, it destroys minds. It is the programming to believe that white people, their various cultures, and their mores are inherently better than all other people and their respective cultures period. People are taught, from a very young age, to worship some of them most devilish white people the world has ever known, simply because they are white. This is a vastly under-taught aspect of White Supremacy.White Supremacy is often limited to being described as some toothless hillbilly or muscle bound and hairless white male with a Swastika etched in to his hollow, yet hate filled, head. This is merely one minor aspect of White Supremacy. White Supremacy, in its essence, is much, much more pervasive than the physical form we are programmed to sometimes see in human flesh. White Supremacy is most effective in its ideological form. Everything else is a destructive manifestation of that ideology.White Supremacy bores destructive holes into the impressionable minds of children. White children are subconsciously programmed to falsely believe that they are the champions of humanity and that their contributions to the world vastly overshadow that of people of color. White Supremacy blinds them to myriad truths detailing the origins of sciences, medicine, democracy and philosophy came out of African, not Europe. This assembly-line type of programming sets in motion the next wave of future white adults mentally equipped carry out the crimes of their mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. It robs these white children of humanity without them ever realizing they are being developed to see the world in a most limiting and destructive way. Without progressive social intervention many white youth are bound to develop similar socially destructive ways as their elders.Children of color, on the other hand, are systematically programmed to, not only see white people as better than themselves, but to also extol white people who carried out crimes against humanity against people of color. Within the white settler colony, otherwise known as the United States, children of color are force-fed heaping platefuls of White Supremacy. It is a most psychologically unhealthy meal. They are taught to call slave masters their Founding Fathers, men who would have worked them to death had these children been anywhere within the vicinity of these devilish human beings. The likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson all held enslaved Africans against their will. George Washington and Andrew Jackson were also notorious for their assaults on Indigenous people from North America. It is very telling of how sadistic American society is, that it would impose these kinds of men upon the minds of children, especially children of color. This is exactly what white supremacist societies do they force children of color to assimilate. Those aforementioned men, when cited within classrooms and homes, should be held as examples of what not to do. A humane society would do this. The US is far from being a humane society.The US is a society that routinely abuses and destroys the lives of people of color. African/black and Indigenous/Latino/brown communities are systematically targeted by way of this white supremacist and institutionally racist war that is being waged upon them. Mass incarceration, the Prison Industry Complex, and Police Brutality are all very much lethal aspects of White Supremacy. In a society that rewards European genocidal monsters, like Christopher Columbus, it makes painful sense that the US would be a place that harvests oppression much like farmers do fruits and vegetables. The US is riddled with a legacy of strange fruit.Police brutality is a most deleterious aspect of White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why police brutality disproportionately impact people of color. Thanks to the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement we know that in 2012 a black person was murdered by law enforcement at least every 36 hours. The white supremacist corporate media did nothing to expose this story. And why would they they are who they are because of White Supremacy. A revolution to end White Supremacy truly will not be televised at least not on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or the like.The so-called entertainment industry is replete with white supremacist images, messages, and is controlled by White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why the only images shown of Hip Hop Culture, within the corporate medias usurped airwaves, are that of the most virulently racist and stereotypical images of people of color. These are the acceptable versions of blackness they feel comfortable showing. Again, it matters little that Hip Hop is a culture largely created by African/black youth. The white supremacist power structure that controls the media, that makes destructive images popular while suppressing revolutionary ones, is no different than the white people who stole North America from Indigenous people. Once in control of a resource they are hell-bent on suppressing any semblance of resistance or justice. White Supremacy is a social disease that infects entire societies, person-by-person, community-by-community and nation-by-nation. It is a plague that has only gotten stronger and more deceptive throughout its existence, which spans over several hundred years. If the US was a sincere and justice oriented nation it would wage an all out war on the ideology of White Supremacy aimed at destroying all vestiges of a most deadly and disproportionate white power structure. The USs ongoing existence as a white settler nation precludes it from waging a noble war on White Supremacy. White Supremacy and Institutional Racism largely fuel this countrys lifeblood. The USs wars are ultimately justified by White Supremacy and capitalism. Historically these wars have been waged for white men by white men. However, with the growing number of people of color within the United States, the white power structure has adapted to the times. In 2008 they selected their newest weapon Barack Obama a brown-faced man willing to wage white supremacist/capitalist/imperialist wars for the white power structure he ultimately serves. This, unfortunately, has worked like a lucky charm, thus converting legions of black people (who previously opposed Euro-Americas imperialist wars) into cheerleaders for the same reprehensible wars, simply because the face of Euro-American white supremacy is now a brown one.The struggle to end White Supremacy is one that must continue and grow even stronger countless youth of color simply depend on it. Resistance to white supremacist ideology is paramount. If you believe in humanity (regardless of the color of your skin) you must join in this resistance. White Supremacy is a most deadly social malady. It has given birth to Apartheid, Jim Crow, mass murder, chattel slavery the list literally goes on and on.People of color must resist White Supremacy in every way they can. We must organize ourselves to combat it teaching our youth to recognize it is an important first step. People of color must collectively resist White Supremacy, and good intentioned white people must play their own critical roles within this struggle. It is the obligation of any good intentioned white person to go in to white communities and organize an end to the social disease there. After all, White Supremacy emanates from white communities. It is frequently birthed from ignorance and hatred, among several social maladies and complexes.White people, it is your responsibility to put an end to White Supremacy in your communities just as it is the responsibility of men to bury Male Supremacy and sexual/physical abuse of women. White Supremacy is killing masses of people (physically and mentally). When will we all decide to wage a war on this pervasive social illness/ideology, and put and end to it? Humanity depends on our collective commitment to end it before it metastasizes and puts an end to us all.

Racism is unacceptable. It outweighs other impacts. Memmi 99 Albert Memmi, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Paris, 1999 (Racism, Published by the University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0816631654, p. 163-165)The struggle against racism will be long, difficult, without intermission, without remission, probably never achieved. Yet, for this very reason, it is a struggle to be undertaken without surcease and without concessions. One cannot be indulgent toward racism; one must not even let the monster in the house, especially not in a mask. To give it merely a foothold means to augment the bestial part in us and in other people, which is to diminish what is human. To accept the racist universe to the slightest degree is to endorse fear, injustice, and violence. It is to accept the persistence of the dark [end page 163] history in which we still largely live. It is to agree that the outsider will always be a possible victim (and which man is not himself an outsider relative to someone else?). Racism illustrates, in sum, the inevitable negativity of the condition of the dominated; that is, it illuminates in a certain sense the entire human condition. The anti-racist struggle, difficult though it is, and always in question, is nevertheless one of the prologues to the ultimate passage from animality to humanity. In that sense, we cannot fail to rise to the racist challenge.However, it remains true that one's moral conduct only emerges from a choice; one has to want it. It is a choice among other choices, and always debatable in its foundations and its consequences. Let us say, broadly speaking, that the choice to conduct oneself morally is the condition for the establishment of a human order, for which racism is the very negation. This is almost a redundancy. One cannot found a moral order, let alone a legislative order, on racism, because racism signifies the exclusion of the other, and his or her subjection to violence and domination. From an ethical point of view, if one can deploy a little religious language, racism is "the truly capital sin."22 It is not an accident that almost all of humanity's spiritual traditions counsel respect for the weak, for orphans, widows, or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical morality and disinterested commandments. Such unanimity in the safeguarding of the other suggests the real utility of such sentiments. All things considered, we have an interest in [end page 164] banishing injustice, because injustice engenders violence and death.Of course, this is debatable. There are those who think that if one is strong enough, the assault on and oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever sure of remaining the strongest. One day, perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust society contains within itself the seeds of its own death. It is probably smarter to treat others with respect so that they treat you with respect. "Recall," says the Bible, "that you were once a stranger in Egypt," which means both that you ought to respect the stranger because you were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming one again someday. It is an ethical and a practical appeal--indeed, it is a contract, however implicit it might be. In short, the refusal of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical morality. Because, in the end, the ethical choice commands the political choice, a just society must be a society accepted by all. If this contractual principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is accepted, we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.

They Say: Permute Do Both1. Perm severs advantage where the 1AC reacted to NSA surveillance with outrage, the 1NC responded with indifference. No take-backs: the case carries ethico-political consequences that are intrinsic to voting Aff. Discourse is meaningful and policy-relevant, especially in the context of race.

2. Perm severs starting point where the 1AC prioritized NSA surveillance, the 1NC prioritized abuses perpetrated against people of color. Priority must be singular: policy advocacy cant start in two places at one time.

3. Reject severance stable aff advocacy establishes the groundwork for neg rejoinder. 2AC take-backs make negs job too hard, discouraging arg innovation and case-specific critique research. Err neg because of affs substantial opening move advantage.

4. Colorblindness DA the 1AC was presented without reference to the particular effects of surveillance on people of color. Colorblind policy analysis perpetrates racism and racial inequality thats Wise.

5. Focus DA

A. Link: the aff distracts focus from police violence against people of color. Every minute spent worrying about NSA reform is a minute not spent mobilizing against everyday brutality. YeaYouRite 14 YeaYouRite (@YeaYouRite), the pseudonym of a blogger at Daily Kos who self-identifies as a New Orleans leftist, 2014 (The NSA Is An Existential Problem. Police Brutality Is A Real Problem, Daily Kos, August 22nd, Available Online at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/22/1323791/-The-NSA-is-an-existential-problem-Police-brutality-is-a-real-one, Accessed 06-18-2015)At this point, no one needs any refreshers on what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. But how about what happened to Eric Garner or John Crawford or Ezell Ford or Kajieme Powell?These are just police killings in the past month, and just people we know about (there's probably more), and only people who've been killed. Many hundreds, if not thousands of others, were beaten or wounded by police this past month. We have names and faces that go with this problem. Police brutality is quite real.When white people log into their email, I doubt most are seriously worried that the NSA is going to steal their private information and victimize them in some way. Yet if the Internet is to believed, Lord Obama is taking all our freedom away through his super-spy agency and big government. On the flip side, when black people walk down the street, they are constantly worried about being hassled or their sons or daughters being brutalized at the hands of unaccountable local government.We don't have any names or faces of people who've been murdered by the NSA or had their right to vote taken away by the NSA or had their house taken away because of predatory lending practices by the NSA. No one's home has been destroyed by a freak weather-event caused by the NSA. The NSA didn't bust unions or cut funding to the NIH. These are all real problems with real victims.But even when it comes to supposed victims of NSA spying, the anti-NSA crowd have to reach back all the way to 2005 just to find some people whose communications were intercepted, even though there's no proof any of those individuals were themselves targeted.And another recent bombshell went totally ignored by the anti-NSAers when we found out that Germany spied on John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Does anyone else remember when Merkel was shocked (SHOCKED I TELL YOU!) to learn that America has a spy agency that does spying-type things on other countries, even its allies? It's almost as if the anti-NSA ranting is one giant exercise in white privilege.So, why do I bring this up? Am I an NSA supporter? Am I a statist authoritarian who thinks you have no right to privacy? No, as I've stated before, I think we should wind down much of the bulk surveillance, mostly because it's so expensive, but also because of the not-unfounded "slippery-slope" argument.The reason I bring this up is because so many fire-breathing liberals miss the forest for the trees. Every minute you spend arguing against the NSA is a minute you spent arguing against an existential problem, while there are real problems all around us. Let's prioritize and agree to focus on the real affronts to civil liberties happening in this country first, then worry about the slippery slopes.

B. Impact: affs focus on NSA reform enables far worse policies to continue. The critique outweighs the case. YeaYouRite 14 YeaYouRite (@YeaYouRite), the pseudonym of a blogger at Daily Kos who self-identifies as a New Orleans leftist, 2014 (The NSA Is An Existential Problem. Police Brutality Is A Real Problem, Daily Kos, August 22nd, Available Online at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/22/1323791/-The-NSA-is-an-existential-problem-Police-brutality-is-a-real-one, Accessed 06-18-2015)Media coverage can dictate policy. Endless media coverage on the NSA got Obama to change certain NSA policies and got the Amash Amendment to almost pass (by next year, it probably will pass).There has been no legislative action on police militarization or killing of unarmed black men. Why not? Because, until now, liberals have mostly been screaming about bureaucrats destroying our way of life with their metadata and bulk collection.To those who claim this is a false equivalence or both issues are symptoms of a larger problem of authoritarian government, think of it like this: if we ended bulk collection on Americans tomorrow, there would be no discernible improvement to the conditions in minority communities, or even white communities for that matter.One problem is pneumonia. The other is a mole which may or may not become malignant down the road, so keep an eye on it. But treat that pneumonia right now because it could kill you.Another example would be to not to install energy-efficient windows while your house is on fire. I'm not saying "don't worry about the NSA." Intelligent people are perfectly capable of holding two thoughts in their heads at once. I'm simply saying we need to prioritize our problems. If you ask black or Latino or Middle Eastern people whether they're more concerned about the NSA or, I don't know, everything else from voting rights to student loans to immigration to police killing their families, I don't need to tell you what answer you're likely to get. People of color don't have the luxury of worrying about big government, because they're too busy being terrorized by local and state government.

6. Hoodwinking DA the permutation is bit criticism, not fundamental criticism. This takes race-neutrality for granted as a context-setting assumption, reinforcing its legitimacy and diffusing the power of our critique.Calmore 99 John O. Calmore, Reef C. Ivey II Research Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, 1999 (Random Notes of an Integration Warrior - Part 2: A Critical Response to the Hegemonic Truth of Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry, Minnesota Law Review (83 Minn. L. Rev. 1589), June, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)In my personal view, critical race theory engages in fundamental criticism as opposed to bit criticism. n45 Fundamental criticism is directed toward challenging the prevailing set of assumptions that the members of society share to establish the context for their view of the world and themselves. Much of the conflict over race and multi-culturalism is a conflict over the context-setting assumptions that dominant society, institutions, and culture have adopted. These assumptions are, in turn, rigorously contested by the oppositional accounts of outsiders, incorporated troublemakers, and marginalized insiders who argue that those very assumptions [*1601] must be revised. This is characterized as "fundamental criticism," because it challenges not just bits or parts that could be changed or reformed within the existing contextual frame, but, rather, the context itself. Through contesting the foundational assumptions, the context itself is potentially transformed by reformulating those very assumptions. The same context cannot remain; it cannot be seen as capable of adaptation. Bit criticism is a tinkering within. As people of color are "integrated" within the mainstream, we tend to personify this kind of systemic tinkering - reinforcing a feigned flexibility. Bit criticism too often accepts feigned flexibility, surface change, as something more radical or trans-formative than it really is. It delays the overall transformation that is needed to make things just. Hoodwinked liberal agents of change actually serve to reinforce the social, institutional, and cultural context-setting assumptions by accepting the legitimacy of their explanation and justification their "truth."Critical race theorists, necessarily, assert a freedom from the constraints of traditional scholarship. This is not simply a matter of academic freedom. This is not simply identity politics. Race-conscious experience and perspective are the springboard from which we engage in a fundamental criticism of an oppressive version of truth that tells lies about the colored past, present, and future. This race-conscious point of view and fundamentally critical orientation direct our appreciation that reality is socially constructed and, moreover, it implores us to engage in counter-hegemonic moves.

They Say: Surveillance Harms POCs1. Not uniquely yes, its targeted. But thats business-as-usual for people of color who are already subjected to much more intense violence and brutality by state and local police. In the context of this everyday reality, Internet data collection just isnt a big deal thats Wise.

2. Aff doesnt solve at best, the plan is a minor reform. What we need is to overthrow the whole system of white supremacy. Khalek 13 Rania Khalek, independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized for Truthout, Extra, The Nation, Al Jazeera America, and the Electronic Intifada, 2013 (Activists of Color Lead Charge Against Surveillance, NSA, Truthout, October 30th, Available Online at http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19695-activists-of-color-at-forefront-of-anti-nsa-movement#, Accessed 06-18-2015)Former political prisoner and Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin-Wahad declared that "the United States has moved into a full garrison police state," which "has been exported and institutionalized all over the globe." His antidote? "We have to put together an international movement to check the development evolution of the modern national security state," which requires linking globalized labor exploitation to the prison industry to the war on terror to institutionalized white supremacy rooted in the "European-settler state." Bin-Wahad was skeptical about the ability of "legal" remedies to reform the system. "You cannot make the police state better. You cannot reform white supremacy. We need to abolish the system as it now stands," Bin-Wahad said.

They Say: No White Privilege Link1. Starting point link focusing on NSA surveillance distracts attention from more important struggles against racialized violence. What the aff didnt discuss is more important than what they did discuss. Our critique impact is hiding in plain sight. Wise 13 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2013 (Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege, Tim Wises blog, June 19th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/, Accessed 02-17-2015)Maybe it is time to remind ourselves that the only things worse than what this government and its various law enforcement agencies do in secret, are the things theyve been doing blatantly, openly, but only to some for a long time now.This nations government has killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, openly, in front of the world.This nations sanctions on Iraq in the 90s contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more, by the admission of Secretary of State Albright. All of it, out in the open. No secrets.This nation stood by and even helped propagate massacre after massacre an attempted genocide even in Guatemala throughout the 1980s; and not only did we not hide that we were doing it, President Reagan openly praised the architects of the slaughter while proclaiming they were committed to social justice.We incarcerate 2.5 million people and have roughly 7 million people under the control of the justice system in all openly, and increasingly for non-violent offenses: more than any nation on Earth.We have the highest child poverty rate in the developed world, and there is nothing secret about it. Our leaders dont even care about covering it up. In fact, an awful lot of them just dont care. At all.These are the crimes of empire. These and a lot more. And it didnt take Edward Snowden to tell you about them. Theyve been hiding in plain sight for a long time.

2. Colorblindness link the 1AC was presented without reference to the disparate racial impact of NSA surveillance. Reject race-neutral policy analysis because it perpetuates marginalization and oppression. Wise 10 Timothy J. Wise, anti-racist activist and writer, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, 2010 (With Friends Like These, Who Needs Glenn Beck? Racism and White Privilege on the Liberal-Left, Tim Wises blog, August 17th, Available Online at http://www.timwise.org/2010/08/with-friends-like-these-who-needs-glenn-beck-racism-and-white-privilege-on-the-liberal-left/, Accessed 02-17-2015)Beyond Individual Bias: How Liberals and the Left Practice RacismBeyond the personal biases that exist to some extent within all of us (including those who are progressive), liberals and those on the left operate within institutional spaces and even in our political activism in ways that contribute to systemic racial inequity. This we do through four primary mechanisms. The first is a well-intended but destructive form of colorblindness. The second is an equally destructive colormuteness. These mean, quite literally, a tendency among many on the white liberal-left to neither see nor give voice to race and racism as central issues in our communities and the institutions where we operate, or their connection to and interrelationship with other issues. Both liberal/left colorblindness and colormuteness perpetuate the marginalization of people of color and their concerns, in the larger society and within progressive formations for social change.

3. Not a link of omission colorblind policy analysis is complicit with white supremacy. That race wasnt central to the 1AC was de facto agreement, not a harmless oversight. Jackson 6 Matthew Jackson, Assistant Professor of English at Brigham Young University, holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Education, Culture, and Society from Brigham Young University, 2006 (The Enthymematic Hegemony of Whiteness: The Enthymeme as Antiracist Rhetorical Strategy, Journal of Advanced Composition, Volume 26, Number 3/4, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via JSTOR, p. 629-631)Toward a Pedagogy of Witnessing Against WhitenessIf, as I argued in the beginning of this article, I am phenomenologically positioned as a white person who is privileged by the dynamics of my racialized society and I remain silent and inactive concerning matters of whiteness, then I can be found guilty of being complicit with the perpetuation of white supremacy. In order to resist this type of complicity, I would argue that I must learn how to identify whiteness as much as I can-acknowledging that I will have blind spots-and to speak out and take action against whiteness to work against it.For my purposes here, I would suggest that we think about resisting whiteness in terms of developing a rhetorical stance and a pedagogical positionality that is not relegated to the confines of a particular course during a given semester but one that aims at a more fundamental way of being-in-the-racial-world in an ethical and political way. While I am using the term pedagogy here in the traditional sense to focus primarily on our classrooms, I want to invite a broader understanding of our pedagogies to include our inter-actions that go beyond our academic environs and into our everyday lives-into the seemingly mundane behaviors and relations that make up much of our meaningful lives as white folks. What I mean by this is that we must broaden our critical attention [end page 629] to whiteness beyond our scholastic pedagogies to be mindful of the ways that we "teach" and enact whiteness in the ways that we live and interact with others when we are not in front of a captive audience of students. For instance, where and with whom do we choose to live, shop, recreate"; what media do we entertain and what questions do we ask (or fail to ask) about it?Mills suggests that a crucial aspect of the perpetuation of racism is simply the failure to ask certain questions" (73). For my purposes here, this means those difficult questions contesting the often missing or silent premises of the doxa of white supremacy. I would add my voice to the many that have argued that racism needs to become part of the textpart of our formal and informal discourseas we develop an exigency in identifying what may be racial grievances, particularly where whiteness is concerned.The difficult choice for whites is to speak or to remain silent. To oppose the enthymematic hegemony of whiteness with its conceptual frameworks designed in part to thwart and suppress such opposition, one has to think against the grain. In order to reject the norming inequities of whiteness, I must "speak out" and actively struggle against white supremacy. The enthymematic arguments of white supremacy will continue to prevail unless they are vigilantly, explicitly, and overtly contested. And this is precisely why, if I choose to remain silent, I can be understood to consent and be held accountable for the consequences of complicity. And to those who would argue for the viability of a detached, neutral, or objective stance on such issues, Freire asks: "What is my neutrality, if not a comfortable and perhaps hypocritical way of avoiding any choice or even hiding my fear of denouncing injustice. To wash my hands in the face of oppression" (101).What I am suggesting here is a way of being imbued with a Freirean sensibility of questioning, of problem-posing, of being critically self-reflexive and curious about the racialized world in which we live without the hubris of thinking that we have all of the answers or assuming that our antiracist work is inherently ethical. I am suggesting that we examine our whiteness and our investment in white supremacy more closelythat we ask the hard [end page 630] questions. If we do not know how to ask them, then we must put in the time and effort required by antiracist thought and action.In summary, I have argued that we can redefine the enthymeme for our postmodern condition and make it rhetorically and pedagogically useful in antiracist and counter-hegemonic work. I have argued that if I, as a part of "the people," remain silent, I am in de facto agreement with arguments for white supremacy as expressed in fragmented, mediated formal and informal discourse. I have argued that an enthymematic view of whiteness requires white people to actively and perpetually act and speak out against dominant hegemonic ideologiesto disagree explicitly with and make plain their underlying premises and conclusions, to resist being complicit with the racist consequences of those arguments. And I have also provided a framework for a tenuous rhetorical stance and pedagogical positionality for whites working against multifarious forms of white supremacy. This is not a stance that positions me as "one who gets it" and is free then to assume an unproblematic anti racist positionality, but rather one that heightens my vigilance in my work with all others to continually improve our ways of working against white supremacy.23

They Say: Policy Rejoinder BestThe plan is important, but so is the case. The plan-in-a-vacuum model prevents racial literacy because it presumes that policies can be evaluated independently from their racial contexts. The impact is hermeneutical injustice, or the injustice of lacking the necessary concepts for understanding social experiences. This is an important real world impact. Headley 14 Clevis Headley, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Miami, 2014 (On Why Race Matters: Teaching the Relevance of the Semantics and Ontology of Race, Exploring Race in Predominantly White Classrooms: Scholars of Color Reflect, Edited by George Yancy and Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Published by Routledge, ISBN 9780415836692, p. 116-117)Racial Literacy as an Antidote to Hermeneutical InjusticeRacial literacy also has the potential to enable students to avoid two incapacities: (a) the inability to correctly and effectively understand the everyday materiality, or reality, of race, and (b) a cultivated inability to meaningfully discuss the general semantics and ontology of race. I explain to students that these incapacities make them victims of hermeneutical injustice, the injustice of lacking the necessary concepts for understanding a significant area of their social experience.6 This hermeneutical deficit prevents one from gaining access to crucial aspects of self-understanding. For example, we can imagine the existential and epistemic vertigo that can paralyze an individual who lives in a world in which race is persistent, but the individual lacks a competent understanding of the role of race in shaping the affairs of daily life. The trauma associated with the realization and awareness that one is indeed raced can be particularly troubling, especially if one previously lived in an environment that sheltered one from the practicality of understanding themselves as raced.Michael Monahan, in his recent bold philosophical defense of the reality of race against the racial abolitionists and racial eliminativists, has enforced the inescapability of race and why attempts to transcend race are destined to fail. [end page 116] Race, according to Monahan, is not an annoying, irrelevant, and insidious contingent property of persons that ought to be rejected. As he writes:One's racial being is not a fixed and given essenceit is neither a property that we simply possess, nor is it a strictly contingent activity that we can choose to abandon. It is . . . more a sort of location or context, and it is in this way, as inevitably conditioning one's subjectivity, that racial reality must be understood. One's Whiteness, Blackness, Asianness . . . is not something that can be purely in the way the politics of purity would have us believe, but it is also impossible for one to purely not be raced, or simply decide by voluntary fiat how one is raced.7We are all raced in that we are born into a human reality infused by race. However, our race is not a dangerous fiction. And as Monahan states in a different context:Race is something that we do not something that we are, and it is, importantly, something that we always do in concert with others, whose ways of doing race inevitably shape the ways in which we are able to do (or not do) race.8The claim that race is inescapable, as to be expected, is bitterly resented by many White students, mainly because of the perception that Whites are raceless and also because of the unquestioned normativity of whiteness. Indeed, White students often articulate their protest against race in terms of their not being responsible for the sins of the past. At these times, I often resort to the philosophical uses of history for the purpose of getting students to understand that, although they were not present at the founding of the United States as a sovereign entity, they have been born into a society in which White skin color has been privileged. The point is not that each and every White individual in the past and in the present has been successful in accumulating disproportionate amounts of wealth and opportunities, but that White skin color has historically been used as a marker for access to wealth and opportunities. Du Bois's "Psychological wages of whiteness,"9 Cheryl Harris's notion of "whiteness as property,"10 and George Lipsitz's notion of the "possessive investment in whiteness" are but three examples of this phenomenon.11 It should be noted that I introduce these ideas not for the sake of alienating my White students, but to set them on the path of working through, as well as critically engaging with, their inherited historical traditions in the hope that they will gain a critical appreciation of how race has infused these diverse traditions.

They Say: Attention Policing BadWere not policing attention; were critiquing privilege. Shifting focus away from police violence against people of color is a luxury of whiteness. Raushenbush 14 Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, Executive Religion Editor for The Huffington Post, former Associate Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University, former President of the Association of College and University Religious Affairs, ordained Baptist minister, holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and a B.A. in Religious and International Studies from Macalester College, 2014 (What White People Can Do About the Killing of Black Men in America, The Huffington Post, August 13th, Available Online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/what-white-people-can-do-_b_5675759.html, Accessed 08-18-2014)'Can we switch for just one day?' my friend Sean jokingly asked me as we were working out at the gym. 'No, way' I said firmly. You see, Sean is black and I am white and Sean was suggesting that we swap races. In his plea, Sean was none-too-subtly commenting that living life as a white man might be easier than living as a black man. In my unwillingness to switch, I acknowledged the privilege -- and safety -- that comes with being a white person in 21st century America.There are a lot of events vying to occupy the American mind these days such as Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine, the immigration crisis, hate crimes against Sikhs, Ebola, and Robin Williams' death. But in one way, the ability to switch among these traumas is a white person's 'luxury.' For Sean, and for many black Americans, the recent spate of black male deaths at the hands of police in America is forced to occupy the primary place.There is an epidemic in this country and its victims are black men. Eric Garner died after being put in a stranglehold in Staten Island in New York City, Michael Brown, was an 18-year-old teenager killed in Ferguson, MO, and Ezell Ford was killed while reportedly lying down in the street in Los Angeles.Black Americans are rightfully outraged, but it will require all Americans to be mobilized before the racism that undergirds these killings will end and the deaths along with it. White Americans like me have to stop channel surfing all the outrageously bad news from around the world and focus on the death that is happening in our own cities to our fellow Americans.I spoke to Rev. Tony Lee who is an African-American pastor at Community of Hope AME Church in Prince George's County, Maryland. Rev. Tony and I went to seminary together and he has been a colleague I trust to speak the truth to me about race in America. He called the recent deaths 'disturbing but not surprising.'"The reason people are responding so strongly is that these are examples of daily antagonisms felt by black people on the street. This is part of a wider school-to-prison pipeline and the ghettoization and de-humanization of black bodies. Social media gets the word out much quicker and people are responding to dead black men on the streets in LA, Ferguson and NYC by saying 'wait, that is going on in our streets too.'"But social media is part of the problem according to Rev. Lee. "The challenge is for this to become a movement not just a moment. People are expressing outrage with hashtags but they are not organizing. Movements need organizing."Given that we are both pastors, I asked Rev. Lee what the church should do and he offered some very practical steps, including becoming advocates for police training, holding police departments legally accountable for deaths, and connecting with the efforts at a community level. Rev. Lee also pointed out positive organizations that are doing great 'movement' work like Black Youth Project that churches should be supporting and partnering with.Rev. Lee was quick to mention that his church has positive relations with the local policing because they have been proactive in creating encounters where police can meet the community and the community can meet police -- not only in crucial moments when tensions are high -- but also during normal times when the two can see the best of each other.According to Lee, the church also needs to reclaim and proclaim the narrative about the worth of black lives in the face of the criminalized depiction of black people on TV, movies and in music. The wider church should be involved in the celebration of the breadth and richness of the black experience.I asked Rev. John Vaughn, Vice-President of Auburn Seminary, what kind of response he would like to see from white Americans. Rev. Vaughn responded via email that he hoped his white friends would be vocal and articulate why these killings are not 'yet another isolated incident' and 'explore the premise that racism is not a thing of the past.' Perhaps most importantly: "Listen to your friends and colleagues of color about their experiences and analysis of racism in America."I also pressed Rev. Lee on what he would like to tell white Americans on how to show solidarity. I was humbled by his response:We need to lock arms amidst all of this. If the police feel they are above the law with any one group, they will feel they are above the law with others. We need to learn from the civil rights movement. It wasn't just black folks, it was everybody, because it wasn't a black problem it was a moral issue. We are remembering 40 years after the Freedom Summer. That wasn't just black people risking their lives, it was a community that went down to Mississippi because they knew that when any group within the nation is marginalized then we can't be the nation we want to be.The way I translate Rev. Lee's generous invitation is 'show up.' White people need to get off the computer and get involved with our voices, feet, votes and resources to help make sure that this epidemic of black deaths in America ends. This is not a 'black problem it is an American problem and it will take all of us working together to solve it.

They Say: Ableism Critique of ColorblindNo link to the ableism critique context is important. Michael 15 Ali Michael, Director of K-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania, Director and Co-founder of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, holds a Ph.D. in Teacher Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Anthropology and Education from Teachers College, 2015 (White Teachers, Whole Classrooms, Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education, Published by Teachers College Press, ISBN 0807755990, p. 18)Finally, I use the terms "colorblind" and "colormute" throughout the book. I struggle with this decision because from a critical disability perspective, these terms are ableist as they conflate an unwillingness to see or talk about race with disability, rather than political orientation, ignorance, and lack of skills or experience. Although I do not want to perpetuate this ableism, I use this language here because the terms are so prevalent in the literature on race that I think the use of alternative terms would be confusing. It is my hope that through the extensive exploration of these terms in the context of race by prominent theorists such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Colorblind Racism) and Mica Pollock (Colormute) that the words today have a unique meaning, wholly different from the words "blind" and "mute" on which they are built.

Reject public call-outs theyre a form of fake radicalism that shuts down conversations and distracts from material change. A private discussion about language choices is a better approach. Ahmad 15 Asam Ahmad, Coordinator of the Youth Program at the Metropolitan Action Committee for the Prevention of Violence Against Women & Children, Coordinator of the It Gets Fatter Projecta body positivity group started by fat queer people of color, 2015 (A Note on Call-Out Culture, Briarpatch Magazine, March 2nd, Available Online at http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-note-on-call-out-culture, Accessed 03-05-2015)Call-out culture refers to the tendency among progressives, radicals, activists, and community organizers to publicly name instances or patterns of oppressive behaviour and language use by others. People can be called out for statements and actions that are sexist, racist, ableist, and the list goes on. Because call-outs tend to be public, they can enable a particularly armchair and academic brand of activism: one in which the act of calling out is seen as an end in itself.What makes call-out culture so toxic is not necessarily its frequency so much as the nature and performance of the call-out itself. Especially in online venues like Twitter and Facebook, calling someone out isnt just a private interaction between two individuals: its a public performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure their politics are. Indeed, sometimes it can feel like the performance itself is more significant than the content of the call-out. This is why calling in has been proposed as an alternative to calling out: calling in means speaking privately with an individual who has done some wrong, in order to address the behaviour without making a spectacle of the address itself.In the context of call-out culture, it is easy to forget that the individual we are calling out is a human being, and that different human beings in different social locations will be receptive to different strategies for learning and growing. For instance, most call-outs I have witnessed immediately render anyone who has committed a perceived wrong as an outsider to the community. One action becomes a reason to pass judgment on someones entire being, as if there is no difference between a community member or friend and a random stranger walking down the street (who is of course also someones friend). Call-out culture can end up mirroring what the prison industrial complex teaches us about crime and punishment: to banish and dispose of individuals rather than to engage with them as people with complicated stories and histories.It isnt an exaggeration to say that there is a mild totalitarian undercurrent not just in call-out culture but also in how progressive communities police and define the bounds of whos in and whos out. More often than not, this boundary is constructed through the use of appropriate language and terminology a language and terminology that are forever shifting and almost impossible to keep up with. In such a context, it is impossible not to fail at least some of the time. And what happens when someone has mastered proficiency in languages of accountability and then learned to justify all of their actions by falling back on that language? How do we hold people to account who are experts at using anti-oppressive language to justify oppressive behaviour? We dont have a word to describe this kind of perverse exercise of power, despite the fact that it occurs on an almost daily basis in progressive circles. Perhaps we could call it anti-oppressivism.Humour often plays a role in call-out culture and by drawing attention to this I am not saying that wit has no place in undermining oppression; humour can be one of the most useful tools available to oppressed people. But when people are reduced to their identities of privilege (as white, cisgender, male, etc.) and mocked as such, it means were treating each other as if our individual social locations stand in for the total systems those parts of our identities represent. Individuals become synonymous with systems of oppression, and this can turn systemic analysis into moral judgment. Too often, when it comes to being called out, narrow definitions of a persons identity count for everything.No matter the wrong we are naming, there are ways to call people out that do not reduce individuals to agents of social advantage. There are ways of calling people out that are compassionate and creative, and that recognize the whole individual instead of viewing them simply as representations of the systems from which they benefit. Paying attention to these other contexts will mean refusing to unleash all of our very real trauma onto the psyches of those we imagine represent the systems that oppress us. Given the nature of online social networks, call-outs are not going away any time soon. But reminding ourselves of what a call-out is meant to accomplish will go a long way toward creating the kinds of substantial, material changes in peoples behaviour and in community dynamics that we envision and need.

This is especially true in the context of ableism. Rejecting their call out strategy is crucial to constructive activism.Kinzel 11 Lesley Kinzel, blogger and social justice writer, has written for Newsweek and Marie Claire, was named one of the Feminist Presss 40 Feminists Under 40, 2011 (On our difficult language, and the calling-out of, Two Whole Cakesa blog about body politics, social justice activism, and pop-cultural criticism from a feminist perspective, March 30th, Available Online at http://blog.twowholecakes.com/2011/03/on-our-difficult-language-and-the-calling-out-of-same/, Accessed 03-02-2012)We throw thats ableist or thats racist or thats fatphobic around, I suspect, in the hope that such heavy judgement-bearing words will shock and embarrass the speaker out of using the offending language. And sometimes, it can work, at least in the short term, when we are merely thinking of our own self-preservation. But beyond that instant, this is not constructive activism. Using surprise, guilt, or humiliation as negative reinforcement to change behavior does nothing to instruct the person in question on why their behavior is causing problems; they stop simply because they dont want to get in trouble. While the power shift this approach employs may feel awfully satisfying to those of us who have labored under some degree of oppression for much our liveswe get to dictate the terms of engagement, for oncemerely shifting the power from one hand to another does nothing to change the destructive use of said power against us.This practice of shaming people into behaving a certain way or using certain language does not truly address the underlying inclination; it does not unpack the thinking that allowed that speaker to feel entitled to say those things in the first place. Fear can be an effective motivator, but its not often a productive one, if our goal is broad and lasting cultural change. It is, after all, fear that motivates folks of all sizes to diet, that keeps queer folks in the closet, that makes women afraid to walk alone at night, that compels people of color to keep their heads down even in the face of overt discrimination and just get by. It is fear and shame that locks the systems that marginalize us in place, and as Audre Lorde has explained, in one of the most brilliant pieces of writing on social justice ever put to paper, there is little we can do while still holding on to the masters tools.Those of us who stand outside the circle of this societys definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the masters house as their only source of support.Ideally, people should stop using certain language because they have developed an understanding of why that language is oppressive, and how their use of it contributes to inequality and marginalization, and not because they are afraid or ashamed of confusing social repercussions they do not understand. What we need is a commitment to giving people clear explanationsbe they angry, or impassioned, or bluntof why their words or behavior are problematic, or upsetting, or damaging. We need to resist relying on comfortable jargon to call people out, and to ditch the erroneous presumption that making someone feel stupid will encourage them to read more about a subject. It doesnt work. Fear and shame dont help people to understand how the language we use and the actions we undertake, even in our own small individual spheres, all conspire to create a social environment that oppresses us. Fear breeds resentment and, sometimes, hatred. These are not things we need more of. These are the things that put us here in the first place.

Affirmative2AC Colorblindness Critique1. Wises critique is Obama apologism. The alt embraces complacency and inaction. Case outweighs. Halle 13 John Halle, Professor and Director of Studies in Music Theory and Practice at Bard College, political activist and writer, 2013 (Tim Wises game, Left Business Observer, July 12th, Available Online at http://lbo-news.com/2013/07/12/1938/, Accessed 06-18-2015)As the mask comes off, revealing the Obama administrations reactionary face, the spin deployed by its much vaunted media team is beginning to lose its power to confuse and misdirect. And with this, those whose business model involves selling Obama as a species of pragmatic liberal are gradually finding themselves parading their factual bankruptcy and rhetorical dishonesty for all to see.A recent piece by Bruce Dixon excellently takes down two of the worst of this variety: MSNBCs Joy-Ann Reid and Melissa Harris Perry. But it is important to recognize that they are not the only ones who have made careers for themselves in the marketing, sales and distribution of the Obama brand. One of the most successful, and arguably a more effective marketer than the MSNBC cheerleading squad is the self described anti-racist Tim Wise.Wise would, of course, vehemently object to being characterized as an Obama apologist, though, as we shall see, the ultimate effect of most of his work is to promote a multicultural form of neoliberalism fully consonant with the administrations views and which thereby strongly serves its political interests. His real beat is as an anti-racist educator with several books to his credit, a full schedule of speaking appearances at university campuses, public high schools and police departments leading racial sensitivity workshops as well as increasingly high profile media appearances including on mainstream national cable outlets.Being attuned to racial sensitivity is a job Wise takes seriously, as can be seen in Wises blog entries and numerous tweets. A large fraction of these involve policing the left for any claim, phrase, indeed, any word which could be construed as insufficiently informed by the historical injustices and atrocities visited on POCs (to use Wises preferred acronym). Wise does not merely make note of these. Acting as judge and jury, Wise reaches a verdict, imposes a sentence on those he has found guilty, and the sentence is often death.This is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration. When those who raised concerns-soon borne out-of the potential of objectively reactionary governance from the Obama administration enabled and aggravated by its deadening effect on mass movements, they were described by Wise as having become such an encumbrance as to render (them) all but useless to the liberation movement prospective recipients of a burning they will richly deserve.The hanging judgeThis is not the only death threat to be found in Wises oeuvre. Another was addressed to those who insist they arent racist because they have black friends. I am going to shoot them, Wise declared. While these were among the more unvarnished instances of eliminationist rhetoric, the violent tone of his discourse suggests that Wise fantasizes his targets being subjected to lynching, or at least necklacing, as poetic justice for what he takes as their complicity in crimes against peoples of color.That Wise grants himself the authority to judge others motives and actions naturally raises the question of what his qualifications are to do so. These are often virtually non-existent with Wise simply inventing facts which are subsequently used to attack, denigrate or belittle.A recent example found Wise charging Glenn Greenwald with never hav[ing] sa[id] shit about racial profiling, or surveillance of POC/Muslims. In reality, Greenwald has a long history of speaking out on this issue-easily obtained by a simple google search, as Greenwald noted in a 100 character rejoinder. This interaction subsequently revealed a third salient feature of Wise: neither a retraction or apology from Wise was extended. Having mounted his high horse, Wise not only exempts himself from the requirements of factual accuracy but from basic decency.Wises tone and sloppiness might be rationalized as understandable overreactions to right wing provocations until one recognizes that these attacks are not directed towards the right, actual racists or those who promote objectively racist policies. Rather Wise reserves much of his ire for those whom Obamas former Press Secretary famously referred to as the professional left. Included among these are left critics of Obama such as Greenwald, Paul Street, and other barbituate leftists who preen as moral superiors because (theyve) read Bakunin, and Zerzan, and Chomsky, or because (they) once called a cop a pig to his face in Seattle or some such thing.The purity of Wises animus towards the left was impressively displayed in a recent series of tweets provoked by the NSA disclosures and the Obama administrations efforts to retaliate. Rather than welcome the revelations, Wise was quick to minimize their importance, basing his dismissal on a transparently absurd claim by Wise that NO people of color (are) shocked by Snowdens revelations. None. POC assume this shit. #whiteprivilege lets u ignore till now. When those who objected to this gross distortion responded, they were red baited as white Marxists who fail to appreciate that white supremacy is the glue that holds the U.S. class system together, and if you dont KNOW that, yr an idiot.These same white leftists according to Wise should congratulate themselves on their irrelevance & wonder why most POC apparently think they r full of crap According to Wise, Id be effing amazed if any white leftists enamored of Snowden actually new shit about movement building and how its done. And Lets b [sic] clear: Glenn Greenwald was a moderately decent college debater who thinks this is his moment. It isnt. You nor Snowden r heroes.Smearing Snowden & OccupyThis final tweet removed the veil from the game being played by Wise.As those who have followed the matter are aware, the no heroes designation of Snowden and Greenwald has been a staple of Obamas apologists, Reid, Harris-Perry, and others, almost certainly circulating a focus group tested talking point devised by White House media specialists. By blandly parrotting this well worn establishment smear, Wise revealed his membership within this cohort, with the only difference between Wise and the others inhering in Wises primary demographic being not the liberal MSNBC left but the radical left associated with Zmag, Democracy Now and the Nation. For this constituency, full throated defenses of Obamas policies have long since failed to pass the laugh test. And so Wise is always careful to note his disagreement with Obamas policies, his service to the administration deriving from his reliable attacks on the white privilege of left critics providing an easy rationalization for complacency and inaction.Wises political services were provided not only in the wake of the Snowden disclosures but, more predictably, in response to the Occupy movement about which Wise has had very little to say. Wises silence was predictable given that OWS seeks to reconstruct a unified movement directed against the plutocratic 1%, unifying rather than dividing, as Wise would, the 99%. Rather than participate in OWS, Wise contributed to a collection of essays entitled Occupying Privilege in which readers will learn about white supremacy, medias spin control, (mis)education, the criminal IN-justice system, cultural appropriation, and racisms continued impact on people of color and white people. No mention of Wall Street banks, housing foreclosures overwhelmingly impacting POCs, trillion dollar bailouts, as this would distract from the question of So, um, what the hell is white privilege anyway, and do I have it? According to Wise, The short answer is if youre white, yeah, you do. By helping circulate the OWS/white privilege meme, Wise helped develop a much brandished rhetorical bludgeon for the defenders of plutocracy against what was the most successful attack on its foundations in many years.Not just a potato chipThe above is somewhat misleading in that it suggests that Wises central priority is the promotion of the Obama brand. Rather it should be understood that the main product Wise is selling is himself, specifically his racial sensitivity franchise which he has indeed successfully marketed and profited from handsomely, as noted above. There is a connection between these two objectives: in order to be regarded as legitimate by mainstream institutions from which his bread and butter income derives, Wises criticisms need to remain within legitimate boundaries, which in practice means narrowly directed towards race. Attacks against white privilege are, for reasons mentioned above, welcomed by the establishment. In contrast, those directed against the real power in the hands of what is now an increasingly multicultural elite are out of bounds. Wise understands these rules of the game very well, and he plays it expertly.That said, it should be noted that Wises rise to a position of public prominence was crucially aided by the alternative media, especially at the initial stages, most notably by Zmag where Wise first established a media perch some two decades ago. This brings up the issue of why was a figure who has so consistently expressed his contempt, or at best, a distinct lack of enthusiasm for leftists and core aspects of the left agenda continues to be welcomed by it with open arms.I wont attempt to address this here, as the subject is perhaps best left alone, though with the understanding that a similar trajectory was followed by Melissa Harris Perry who began her rise accessing authentic left outlets such as Democracy Now!, Laura Flanderss GritTV, and The Nation. By this point, neither Wise nor Harris Perry has any need of the ladder which was provided for them, and so both are free to consolidate their positions by joining in establishment attacks on the left agenda.While it is probably by now too late to matter in their cases, it is encouraging that a first flicker of recognition of the reactionary character of the Wise/Harris Perry brand of multicultural neoliberalism is beginning to be visible. As it has in many other quarters, the disclosures of Greenwald and Snowden provided the impetus for a broader examination of which side Wise is on. A good indication unearthed by Doug Henwood was Wises having been engaged by Teach for America a group which, as anyone with a minimal political awareness understands, is devoted to the undermining of inner city education and the whole sale layoffs of African American teachers to be replaced by TFAs overwhelmingly white, underqualified, non-union recruits.Wises having Stamp(ed) TFAs Anti-Racist Ghetto Pass provoked a sharp response from Bruce Dixon at Black Agenda Report who circulated a petition calling for Wise to cancel his scheduled engagement with TFA. Unsurprisingly, Wise has rejected Dixons request. More significantly, Dixon went further, raising doubts about Wises competence, awareness and, ultimately, underlying agenda: If this is how anti-racism education worksgiving cover to organizations and policies that hurt people of color more than anybody elseit might be time to re-think that whole contraption as well.From Bruce Dixons lips to all of our ears. It is indeed time to consider what use is served by the anti-racist education industry and for one of its main operators, Tim Wise, to find a new, preferably honest, and less destructive line of work.

2. Questioning our motives is a dangerous distraction. Our analysis should center on policiesincluding surveillance. This turns their focus DA.West 15 Cornel West, Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary, former Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University, 2015 (Facebook Post, April 23rd, Available Online at https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155468598900111&id=297452645110, Accessed 04-24-2015)The escalating deaths and sufferings in Black and poor America and the marvelous new militancy in our Ferguson moment should compel us to focus on what really matters: The life and death issues of police murders, poverty, mass incarceration, drones, TPP (unjust trade policies), vast surveillance, decrepit schools, unemployment, Wall Street power, Israeli occupation of Palestinians, Dalit resistance in India, and ecological catastrophe.Character assassination is the refuge of those who hide and conceal these issues in order to rationalize their own allegiance to the status quo. I am neither a saint nor prophet, but I am a Jesus-loving free Black man in a Great Tradition who intends to be faithful unto death in telling the truth and bearing witness to justice. I am not beholden to any administration, political party, TV channel or financial sponsor because loving suffering and struggling peoples is my point of reference. Deep integrity must trump cheap popularity. Nothing will stop or distract my work and witness, even as I learn from others and try not to hurt others. But to pursue truth and justice is to live dangerously. In the spirit of John Coltranes LOVE SUPREME, let us focus on what really matters: the issues, policies, and realities that affect precious everyday people catching hell and how we can resist the lies and crimes of the status quo!

3. Permute: do both. This means criticizing NSA surveillance with an understanding that it is part of the ongoing, ubiquitous abuse of people of color. The alt doesnt disagree with our policy conclusions.

4. Yes, our impact is real. Mass surveillance actually and disproportionately harms people of color. Voting aff is anti-racist. Hudson 13 Adam Hudson, Reporting Fellow at Truthout, holds a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University, 2013 (Facebook Post, July 7th, Available Online at https://www.facebook.com/emmarosenthal/posts/10200579042093460, Accessed 06-18-2015)My Twitter argument with Tim Wise about Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and mass surveillance (which caused a maelstrom on Twitter because of how awful and one-dimensional his arguments were) revealed a lot about how intellectually bankrupt anti-racist liberalism is in the United States. Wise and a lot of so-called anti-racist liberals (including Melissa Harris-Perry) use their anti-racist analysis to defend Obama from any criticism rather than seriously critique his policies. They'll belittle the importance of issues like targeted killing, indefinite detention, and mass surveillance, blame Republicans, or defend Obama's egregious policies, even if they went on the record criticizing the same thing when it happened under Bush. The fact of the matter is that many of Obama's policies, such as privatizing education, mass surveillance, indefinite detention, targeted killing and covert wars, actually (and disproportionately) harm people of color in the U.S. and around the world. A real "anti-racist" would call this out rather than attack the people who've exposed such egregious actions.

5. Reject aff-inclusive alternatives. They discourage meaningful clash and over-reward agreement. Holistic comparisons based on thesis-level disagreement better test strategic decision-making and argument quality.

6. No focus tradeoff link neg oversimplifies.Dyson 15 Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University, 2015 (All Black Lives Matter, The New Republic, April 24th, Available Online at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121640/michael-eric-dyson-responds-cornel-west-all-black-lives-matter, Accessed 04-24-2015)That epidemic has made some question the release of my essay as the plague of black death spreads. Its good to remember theres rarely a convenient or ideal time to engage messy, complicated issues, although its hardly impossible to address more than one issue at a time. On the Friday before my essay on West published, I published an op-ed for the New York Times on the killing of Walter Scott in South Carolina by North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, arguing that the lived experience of race for blacks often feels like terror, whether its the fast terror of police killings or the slow terror of unmerited school expulsions. Some have suggested that we should only deal with police brutality and the killing of black folk. But most of us are used to grappling at the same time with competing, or even parallel, interests, and theres little