Is There Radical Potential In Policy Debate

 

Is There Radical Potential In Policy Debate?

By Trapdoor (IYKYK)

Intro

Debate is a privileged activity. Despite our best efforts to provide valuable educational skills or cultivate a safe space for activist thought, the backdrop of any debate tournament requires exploitation. Many critiques of debate highlight its relationship to academia and the variety of ways that universities control what types of thinkers and thoughts are deemed accessible. While this is one component of what makes debate exploitative, what I want to focus on here is how the logistics of a debate tournament uncritically perpetuate the violence of the university. 

Much of this dawned on me this past year, as I began being faced with the choice between working on debate and doing the things that I advocated for in debate rounds. As I began working with political groups, tenants unions, and talking with politically active people who do not have an academic background I found that the world of debate to be deeply unhelpful at contributing to/building the movements and organizations that are necessary to seriously challenge the rise of fascism and racial capitalism. The world is dying, and debate tournaments are still committed to being glorified academic conferences where food waste piles up and schools continue to fuel the violent economic processes that academia requires. We speak of struggle yet remain unquestioned about the way that the very institution of debate requires exploitation to sustain itself. It does not have to be this way. We can use the massive amounts of money in debate around to break down the walls of the ivory tower, or at least exist within it in a more sustainable way. We can use tournaments as a way to invite organic intellectuals to theorize beyond the university and think more about the relationships/obligations that students have to their broader community. The infrastructure of debate has the opportunity to be so much more, it just requires the perspective to think beyond the university and the energy to put the pieces together. 

One of the primary things stopping this from happening is that academics often misunderstand why academia is violent. Critiques of academia, especially in debate, often focus on the co-option of radical movements. This is a critique that is true, but is written by academics for academics. Conferences are held to discuss ways to more ethically engage in literature, but it is the very infrastructure of the conference that creates the conditions for racial capitalism to crush the capacity for radical movements to emerge. 

The critique of academia that I find to be more pressing is the role that universities, and by extension debate teams and debate tournaments, function as agents of gentrification. The urban planning of college towns (and cities that have major colleges in them) is tailor made to fit the financial needs of conferences. Conference halls exist within hotels to keep the activity centralized, and thus fueling the most proximate businesses in the area, ones that are historically linked to the destruction of local economies in place of chains that can scoop up the never ending influx of tourists into the area. This is intentional, companies coordinate with hotel chains in order to form a monopoly on the local environment that has historically been used to kick out smaller and Black/immigrant businesses because they do not match the “professionalism” of that environment. This is to say that much of the money that is going into a debate tournament (from food to labor costs) is not going towards the local economy of an area, its going to a select few companies that profit off of academic and sports conferences. A debate tournament, to everyone who does not speak the language of policy debate, is indistinguishable from a tetris conference (which at the very least is a fun game). The conference is just one example of a larger trend, which is the sharp division between the university population (students, faculty, administrators) and the local population (people who live in the area where a university is but have no connection to it). Debaters and debate rounds are great at interrogating our individual complicity within the logics of academic thought production, but incapable of tackling the bigger question regarding how university spaces are funded through racial capitalist exploitation, and what we can do about it. 

Yes, the debate tournament is not a uniquely violent event in the grand scheme of all the work that academia does to siphon resources away from marginalized groups, but it feels particularly interesting that critiques of the university and of capitalism are so widespread in debate, yet many of the fundamental procedures of running a tournament go unquestioned. We speak of the haptic love that comes from community in debate, of stealing away from the university through the exchange of ballots, and of ways we can avoid our complicity in violence. Yet there is an inherent contradiction within our capacity to talk about love and radicality in this activity when the very capacity to enter into the conference hall, or into our practice rooms, is tainted by the exploitation that allows us to enjoy and play the game. 

Because of this I would like to outline an idea that tournament organizers and debate teams can work through to help break down the ivory tower. 

Food Rescue in Debate

Most debaters are too stressed to think about who is cooking and cleaning after them, their mind too focused on the upcoming round or recovering from it to think about the larger infrastructure of violence that debate is but one part of. One can speak of the burden this places on already overworked and underpaid hotel workers, but I see this most tangibly in the relationship that debate has to food.  

Debate tournaments produce a massive amount of food waste. Food is prepared and then hardly eaten, and much of it goes to waste. This makes me quite sad. The fact that food is over-prepared and yet people go hungry daily, and that this happens in the same cities and same communities is a travesty that we must work to resolve in moments where we have positions of power regarding the logistics of food. 

One very tangible way that debate tournaments can resolve this is through redistributing food through the creation/participation in a food recovery network. 

What is a food rescue network?

A food rescue network is a decentralized group of people that take food from one place to another. There are three components

1. The origin of the food (examples include restaurants, bakeries, farmers markets, supermarkets, and any place that contains food)

2. The intermediator between food and people (a person who is willing to take food from one place to another) 

3. The location where food is redistributed (food banks, churches, homeless shelters, businesses that have connections with mutual aid, or just where people are) 

Food is prepared, handed off, then taken somewhere else where it can be consumed/used instead of thrown away. It looks like different things depending on the logistics of the three components. Sometimes an intermediator isn’t needed because the people you are giving food to can be brought to wherever you are. Sometimes the location could be leaving the food out nearby a houseless encampment. The three components above are helpful insofar as they allow us to compartmentalize what work needs to be done by who, but are ultimately flexible. 

For example, this is how one food redistribution network functions as follows

1. Origin of the food: Local farmers markets and bakeries that have leftover produce, bread, or other foodstuffs have contacted and a connection has been made between the food redistribution group and the owner/a member of the business. 

2. Intermediator: A driver goes to pick up the food every saturday, puts it in their car, and drives to the food redistribution site 

3. Location: At a local church meals are prepared for houseless/homeless people and anyone in the community. At a set time, food redistribution begins! Making sure to be as sanitary as possible, volunteers hand over the food on a first come first serve basis. Once everyone has left and gotten their fill, volunteers take what is left. 

What could a debate food recovery network look like?

There are two likely scenarios for food recovery at debate tournaments. 

First, food is redistributed on the campus: This example is unique because the Origin of the food, Intermediator, and Location are all in the same place. This could look like giving leftover food away to students on campus, letting them take what they want, and encouraging debaters to take food home. This is most likely for smaller regional tournaments that are not catering for as many people and are organized by people who work directly with the university.

Second, food is redistributed to a second location: This example is more akin to the model we set up above

1. Origin of food: The food prepared for the tournament

2. Intermediator: Either volunteers from a local activist group or anyone affiliated with the tournament willing to package and deliver food

3. Location: any local space willing to take the food off your hands

Something important is to work with/empower existing mutual aid organizing. Many universities have clubs devoted to food recovery/rescue/sustainability or have the knowledge of who to direct tournament organizers to. The role of people within the university is not to lead or take credit for these moments, but to secretly amplify the momentum of existing groups. Nothing about this process should be posted out of safety for the university group. 

Some important caveats 

Not all food can be rescued: Some food is harder to rescue than others. Packaging is important to make sure it does not go bad fast or get contaminated. If you have worries, check the temperature of any meat that is being rescued. Make sure that the people you are giving food to actually want this food, making sure of this requires coordination between the Intermediator and those at the Location

Practice: It takes time to learn how to feed people. Not all people will want all food, and much of the logistics will have to be figured out on the fly. You will fail. Whether or not you choose to learn from that failure and continue is up to you. 

Surveillance: Learn the laws of your jurisdiction. Likely, you aren’t breaking any laws, but police officers rarely care about that. Police may try to stop you from giving away food because it congregates houseless/homeless people into a certain area, but usually this just means doing redistribution away from public view. Despite you breaking no laws, they may try to surveil you nonetheless. Be safe, stay smart, dont give away any information that you do not need to. 

Why does any of this matter?

You may be wondering why we should think of debate as a radical space at all. It’s just a game after all. The cynic in me says “Sure, whatever, people are always talking about communism and challenging systems of power in their speeches, but that’s because communism is fun to talk about and is a great way to strategically beat other teams. Not everything needs to be a site of political resistance, some things can just be games or a way to financially sustain yourself that’s allows you to pursue other things. Debate is a game. Debate is a bag. Games are fun to play and bags are nice to get. Stop doing so much, your just going to tire yourself out”.

The cynic is right, debate is a game. But debate is a game in the same way that a Molotov cocktail is a Molotov cocktail. Anything is only as useful as what you do with it. Debate is a game that can facilitate incredible things and empower people. It can also be, and currently is, an activity that is de-radicalizing because it filters energy and agency into an increasingly narrow and draining set of rituals that are fueled by gentrification and economic displacement. To be blunt, people that attribute magical characteristics to debate terrify me. Debate can only do so much. Not every conflict needs to be adjudicated with a ballot. No debate round is capable of genuinely struggling against fascism and all the other forces that we theorize against. Being an incredibly skilled debater or coach is no more impressive than being a kind and principled person. That rush you get from a debate round can be found in other, healthier spaces. There is a thin line between dedication and self-destruction, and debate encourages and idolizes the latter. 

But I’m here, and so are you. It’s not about optimism or pessimism, cruel or otherwise. It’s about the recognition that debate is one of the many spaces where we, as people employed by universities, contribute to violence. It’s not about legitimizing the institution of debate and showing how transformative it can be, it’s about robbing it of its resources and giving it to people who will use it better. Stealing away from the university, being an undercommon fugitive, these are not metaphors, they are practices that we need to enact through manipulating university infrastructure. 

Some parting notes of self awareness

I write this fully knowing that it could expose some unwanted attention to the tactics that certain food redistribution. I went back and forth on the ethically of writing and distributing something like this, but ultimately decided to because tactics need to be discussed out in the open. Perhaps this article gets shared to the wrong people, but nothing I said here is something that the state/police/right-wing militants don’t already know. There is only a risk that this can inspire others.

Initially I was going to include a segment on including radical speakers/organizers at debate tournament, but decided not to include it because I feel that it would be too risky. With the increased rise of fascist activity there is a real fear that these talks will be attended by the wrong people. If you have ever gone for hege good, I don’t think your presence would be appreciated that room, and absent any real way to filter people out it would only be a false gesture of hope. The role of organizers seeking to do work in debate should not be to organize within debate, it should be to siphon resources away from the institution of debate and towards existing leftist struggles. We as debaters and academics often lack the clarity and perspective necessary to be efficient organizers given that we spend so much time in insular spaces that are quite literally designed to be as separate from local spaces as possible. 

I also realize nothing I am saying is original. Much of this was inspired by conversations I have had with tournament organizers, many of whom are already doing a lot of the work I have articulated above. To those of you who are real, thank you.