Western Civ Commits Suicide
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After all these years of bloviating, I still can't tell in advance what will get people riled up. I'll spend hours in research doing a good deep thumb-sucking piece on Pacific theater geostrategy, and it falls dead-born from the press. Another time I'll procrastinate until an hour before deadline and then, half drunk and yearning for sleep, knock out 1,000 words about the fluff in my navel; and next morning my inbox is bursting with impassioned readers saying "Yessss!!!" or "Are you serious?" or "You are insane and should be locked up."
Thus it was with a passing mention of CEDA 2014 in the May 3rd podcast of Radio Derb. Those few offhand remarks got my biggest email bag of the year so far. CEDA is the Cross Examination Debate Association. It describes itself in its constitution as "a tournament sanctioning agent, providing through its Constitution and By-Laws a framework for normalizing tournament practices and procedures."
Well, CEDA has an annual tournament where teams of debaters, two persons per team, debate some issue of moment before a panel of judges.
For CEDA 2014, held at Indiana University in Bloomington this past March 14, the final motion before the house was that the U.S. president's war powers should be restricted.
Here is an extract from the argument against the motion, presented by two young black women from Baltimore's Towson University. I haven't been selective: it's all like this. You can watch the entire tournament final debate here. This extract begins at 1h55m05s on that video.
[Added when archiving in 2025: Video coverage of the debate is now hard to find, I can't imagine why. There are some fragments further down in this essay. Putting "CEDA Debate" into the YouTube search box also delivers some short gems.]
They only re-create what it means to be an authentic nigger because we, ah, we are not allowed to read, ah, we are not allowed to read, ah, certain things and speak in a certain way because we, ah, are seen as natur … as naturally speaking, ah, as truly speaking to niggers, but there's a question, ah, of who even wrote, ah, of who even wrote this shit …
To these weighty arguments, the motion's defenders, two black men from the University of Oklahoma, responded thus (extract beginning at 2h14m37s).
Before death is eternity. After death is eternity. There is no death, there is only eternity, and I ride the wings of eternity like Yah! Yah! Yah! Shee-clack, clack. See, my time is … my [incomprehensible] doesn't go undisturbed because time makes dreams deferred, and I'm a times turning my days a daymares and my nightmares [incomprehensible] my passion. Click, click! The nigger tom beating my ass, and yo, I be having dreams of chocolate-covered watermelons …
The judges ruled that the Towson ladies had won the debate. The emcee, a middle-aged white guy in a suit — I think it's CEDA President Paul Mabrey — announces the decision at 3h47m43s. The people in the debate hall, mostly white, academics and students from the look of them, burst into applause and cheers.
The enthusiasm of the white spectators and supervisors was shared by the press. Carrie Wells of the Baltimore Sun wrote a respectful story about the winners.
Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, both from Baltimore, bested a team from the University of Oklahoma in the final round … The team spent untold hours poring over books, articles and other publications to craft their arguments, then took more time to practice their delivery strategies, she said.
The local Fox channel was even more respectful, hostess Megan Gilliland — white, of course, like Ms. Wells — swooning over Mss. Ruffin and Johnson as if they were not the barking savages they had presented themselves as in the tournament, but victors in a genuine battle of wits with opponents deftly deploying the figures of classical rhetoric in the service of reason. The debaters simpered back winsomely at Ms. Gilliland.
It was, the largest faction of my emailers agreed, all utterly sickening. The second largest faction was one that doubted the tournament could possibly be real. "Surely this is a hoax," begged several readers. No, sorry, it's real.
News of the debate came out in mid-April, mainly via an article on the Atlantic blog. A great many commenters shared the sentiments of my emailers, a common theme being that if these are the products of our universities, Western Civilization is toast.
You might think that the white people who run CEDA would be embarrassed by all this. Not a bit of it! President Mabrey made a video statement supporting the "CEDA Four" — which is to say, Mss. Ruffin and Johnson and their two opponents.
After four grueling days of competition, the team of Korey Johnson and Ameena Ruffin from Towson University emerged victorious as the 2014 CEDA national champions. They defeated the team of Rashid Campbell and George Lee Jr. from the University of Oklahoma …
Stories have emerged attacking the champions from Towson and finalists from Oklahoma for their argumentative choices and style These stories … lack research, integrity and represent the worst of our human bigotry. These attacks on Towson, Oklahoma and others in our debate community are motivated by racism and fear.
Now, I've come in for plenty of abuse in the past because of negative things I've said about blacks. The things in question are, to the best of my understanding, all true; but apparently truth is no defense in this zone.
I'm not aware of harboring any negative feelings about blacks, though. They just are what nature made them, like the rest of us; it's nobody's fault, and I harbor no ill will — certainly not "hate." I try to be polite, and to give every man his due.
What I want to know, contemplating Paul Mabrey, Carrie Wells, Megan Gilliland, and the mighty host of whites who agree with them — including those whooping and applauding in the debate hall March 14th — what I really, desperately want to know is: What in God's name is wrong with white people?