Here's a Sun-dee morning article from the Seattle Times... Raw and unconventional, Renton debate team makes a statement
It's about how a minority-tastic, urban speech and debate squad managed to overcome the odds and succeed in the white world that is Puget Sound speech and debate. National Forensics League, for those of us in the know.
(And for those of you scoring the game at home, here is the evolution of the Tio Jaime. After SixH and Tio J parted ways for their rival Catholic high schools, Tio J became a Speech and Debate nerd on the way to becoming a band geek in college on the way to becoming an Engineer-in-Training. He's currently in the process of earning his Professional Registration.)
Here's a quick snippet, because nobody I know (besides myself) did NFL, and probably wouldn't appreciate the entire article. Shit, I barely did...
Well, la-di-fucking-da. See, now that the Seattle Times has riled up your holier-than-thou white liberal guilt on a lovely Ballard morning, they quickly recant and the conservatively inclined among us (one of whom is ironically reading this liberal paper whilst living mere feet from Bay Aryans) realize that it was just another attempt by the media to stir up race relations for a story.
Looking back, it was their first tournament, four months ago in Puyallup, that was hardest. The packed, bookish atmosphere was new to them, and they to it, and no one knew what to expect.
Some of it was small stuff, like chairs taken from their table. Other things struck deeper — a concessions worker refused to fill Baillie's water bottle minutes after filling a white teammate's. Then there were the names some said under their breath as Renton students walked past or huddled together.
"It wasn't something you could have misinterpreted," says Ebonie Moore, a gentle, baby-faced 17-year-old. "Especially with the words that were being said."
Emphasis mine for the benefit of you fuckstick democruds. Oh, and just because something earns the classification of "generation's lexicon" that doesn't make it acceptable. This is flat-out retarded.
As it turned out, the negative reactions were mostly an anomaly. But seized by the day's emotion, the team decided it was time to wear its pride on its sleeves. They designed bold team sweat shirts with a logo forged in their generation's lexicon. Renton DB8: Don't Hate.
The sweat shirts bear nicknames: Shepherd is Top Dawg. Jamilia is Songbird. Baillie is The Diva.
Manny is Mr. Anger Management. Slender, polite, he confesses to a short fuse. "When a lot of people treat you wrong, you get a lot of built-up hostility in you," he says.
Dumbass check: How many of you liberals out there are still distraught over the racist, white, high-school speech and debate mini-Bull-Connors? Oh, yes that's right. All of you.
"Who the fuck are you, Tio Jaime," I can see you LIbEralS frothing at the mouth now, "To criticize the efforts and achievements of these poor underrepresented minorities in an extra-curricular activity traditionally dominated by white people?"
I'll keep this short and sweet, as the passage of ten years since my own competition for my high school in the Coast Forensics League has somewhat healed the wounds of my shortcomings.
Who the fuck am I? I was a minority who tried and achieved in this whitey-licious extra-curricular. And I did it the right way, not once playing the race card. Hard to do when you're delivering right wing speeches. And the thing I hated the most was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Invitational each January at James Logan HS in Union City, CA.
James Logan was comprised of a "multiethnic, economically diverse population". And just try competing against MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech on MLK Day at a minority-tastic high school with minority-tastic mommy judges.
Twice.
And so two years running I would not win the event, placing Fourth my junior year and Second my senior year. I wasn't surprised.
You want some more race carding? My event was called Oratorical Interpretation; speakers are to choose a speech delivered previously and interpret it. Easy shit? Well, not when you are competing against Logan's Oratorical Imitation. So the question isn't "How can Jihad Jimmy beat a black kid delivering MLK's speech?" but now "How can Jihad Jimmy beat MLK's writing in conjunction with MLK's timbre and MLK's vibrato?" And you can't. Not a fucking chance.
So this is why I don't like urban speech and debaters. They play dirty, and you can't beat them.
This is the reality that is racism. Unfortunately, Filipinos are the Uncle Toms of the Pacific Rim, so I don't fully qualify as a victim minority. That and certain minorities are incapable of racism anyway. Do the fucking math.
Still don't believe this Uncle Tom? Here. Read some more.
Horseshit. The best duo I saw was a dramatic piece at the California Invitational at UC Berkeley which was a piece in which WWII KIAs were talking to their widows and mothers. I started to cry. If you can get your judge to cry, you've won kids. Let's keep going.
Shepherd took 10 students, most of them African American, to Mukilteo, where they battled others from 18 regional powers for a trip to Philadelphia.
Eight of Renton's 10 reached the final rounds of their events — most dramatically, perhaps, in duo interpretation, where serious pieces are rare. The category, in which partners cannot touch or look at each other, typically rewards fast-paced humor, so Renton's duos stood out for their gravity. From the start, Shepherd knew they were taking a chance.
Singing during a Duo round is horseshit as well. Kinda like those Leland freshman who pulled the Tard Card on me in my senior year in addition to the singing card. Only at Nat Quals, kids....
Up they went — slick nods to Monty Python, twists on Shakespeare, a hillbilly radio show. La'Terria and Jamilia did their piece on racism, tender but forceful.
In the sixth spot were Manny and Sharelle; Manny shed his glasses and suit jacket, providing the images to Sharelle's narrative. The swings of a toiling sharecropper became those of an abusive husband. The beatings grew worse as Sharelle's character increasingly challenged him, and were particularly vicious before the end, when Manny philosophized humbly to the audience as Sharelle, facing away, softly sang "Amazing Grace."
"Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be," he said, shaking and misty-eyed. "We all got our own souls, don't we?"
They finished with raised fists, then turned to touch hands in satisfied accomplishment.
If you weren't teary-eyed, you hadn't been listening.
OMG, THEY HAVE RAISED FISTS! I SHALL VOTE FOR THEM AS MY PEOPLE HAVE OPPRESSED THEIR PEOPLE AND THIS IS MY WAY OF ASSUAGING MY WHITE GUILT, said the LIbEral mommy judge.And shouldn't they have been marked down for touching each other IN A DUO ROUND.
Well, and this is fitting. There is a loud black man yelling to himself outside of my window. Despite my living in the nice part of Oakland, it's still Oakland. And why the fuck is he yelling the Everly Brothers?
OK last one and then I gotta work out, get showered up and head down to the south bay for Mass.
And this is a bad idea too, dammit. UC Berkeley would love to have these "accomplished" minorities in the name of diversity. Yay, diversity. This is kind of a no-brainer, but in any case here it is... minority students who "succeed" by successfully changing the definitions of success will be rudely awakened not only by the rigid confines of a large, faceless higher education institution like Cal, but also the real world.
Like other extracurriculars, debate boosts confidence and college opportunities, but it also teaches poise and public-speaking skills so advantageous later in life.
That's all for now. If your panties are in a bunch over what I wrote, then pray to God that I don't judge you or your kid or one of your students. I'm right. Learn to live with disappointment.
Jihad Jimmy, Chief Defender of the Faith, BCP NFL 1992-1996
ps- Now that I think about it, not once in my time at Cal did I come across somebody from James Logan HS. Then again, I was engineering and not some humanities cheesedick.
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