Emory Barkley Forum Finals -- Live blog

[brubaie]

Hello everyone!

The stage is being set for the final round of the Barkley Forum. The debate is between Beacon's Damiyr Davis & Miguel Feliciano and Mountain Brook's Evan McCarty & Lee Quinn

The debate will be judged by members of the Barkley Forum Gold Key Society, a group of elite coaches voted in by their peers (think Coaches Hall of Fame).

Keep an eye on this thread for updates!

[brubaie]

The final stages of prep are wrapping up and the debate is about to begin. Beacon will be affirming (a copy is up @ http://wiki.debatecoaches.org/2010-2011 ... +Feliciano)

Mountain Brook is preparing with their coach Ross Garrett, who also coaches at Samford and recent Cross-X.com co-owner.

Beacon is being assisted by Daryl Burch, a coach at Capitol and former coach of Louisville. They are also being assisted by the University of West Georgia coaching staff of Mike Hester and Sarah and Geoff Lundeen.

It's a packed, two-story hall here at Emory! There's a lot of energy and excitement for this debate. Lest I later forget -- congrats to both teams on reaching the finals! It should be a great debate.

[brubaie]

Emory coach Melissa Wade just announced the final round panel of 21 judges. Apologies for misspellings and inability to identify the coaching affiliation of certain judges!

Father Raymond Hahn (PA)
Eric Demakelly (NY)
Glenda Ferguson (Coppell HS, TX)
Bruce Rogers (GA)
Sheryl Kaczmeryk (NFA HS, NY)

Aaron Timmons (Greenhill School, TX)
Betty Maddox (GA)
Dan Lingel (Jesuit College Pres, TX)
Jim Wade (GA)
Lisa Miller (Nova HS, FL)

Jonathan Austin (NJ)
Sherron Simmons (GA)
Eric Emerson (Kinkaid HS, TX)
Jenny Heidt (Westminster HS, GA)
Jay Rye (AL)

Tracy McFarland (Jesuit College Prep, TX)
James Wakefield (FL)
Jon Cruz (Bronx Science HS, NY)
Shunta Jordan (Pace HS, GA)
Andrew West (NC)

Tim Mahoney (St Mark's HS, TX)

[brubaie]

An interesting observation from the crowd before the round gets started -- I can't say with certainty, but to the best of my knowledge this is the first time either team has ever reached the Final round of a major national tournament (defined as a tournament with an Octos bid to the Tournament of Champions).

The debate will be chaired by Megan Cambre, an Emory debater who formerly debated for Chattahoochee HS in Georgia.

Edit: Beacon reached the finals of Blake previously. Sorry for the misinformation! -Brian

[brubaie]

Another interesting fact -- according to Emory debater Alex Zavell, the Affirmative has dominated the Barkley Forum finals in recent years. The last two teams in his memory to win on the Neg in the last 17 years were GBN's Michael Klinger (voted debater of the decade) and former TOC-champion Westminster Jegadesh/Sathian.

It should be interesting to see how that fact plays out between a very non-traditional team (Beacon) and some of the most celebrated coaches in high school debate.

Beacon is doing their thank yous -- they thanked their families, teammates and each other. They gave a special shout-out to coach Ben Crossan, a Towson debater and their usual coach. They also thanked Dr. Shanarra Reed-Brinkley of Pittsburgh, Shunta Jordan of Pace, Jon Sharp of Kentucky (their lab leader) and Judy Butler, who he called a maternal figure.

[brubaie]

The 1AC has begun. A collective gasp arose when Beacon began the debate by playing "Sound of Da Police" by old school hip hop MC KRS-One.

[brubaie]

I'm happy to answer any questions about the 1AC or about the debate! If you're unable to register on this website for some reason I will happily answer questions posted on Cross-X.com here.

[brubaie]

A very condensed version of the CX of the 1AC;

First question from Mountain Brook -- "Where in the 1AC is there a discussion of removing military presence from the 6 topic countries?"

Beacon's answer is that military presence plays a symbiotic role, with society and military control being relatively indistinguishable. They discuss the importance of knowledge production in formulating military strategy, which they say they hope enables a productive discussion.

Mountain Brook asks -- "Aren't these different issues?"

Beacon again answers that they're indistinguishable. They ask the judge to "affirm the possibility, before we produce change, to sit back and launch an in-depth interrogation."

Mountain Brook asks -- "What is whiteness?"

Beacon replies that it's not a form of biological determinism (i.e. not about skin color), but about social and cultural distribution of power.

The room is abuzz!

[brubaie]

The 1NC order is 3 off.

The first appears to be Topicality/Framework, arguing that the affirmative must affirm instrumental action by the United States Federal Government.

They defined "should," "affirmative," and "negative."

[brubaie]

The second off is a critique arguing that defining race relations through a black-white binary is bad/limiting. The primary author is Perea, which I believe comes from the article "The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race."

The third off is a counterplan to define "Whiteness" as anti-racism, an argument drawing from Shannon Sullivan's "Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege"

This is an interesting debate indeed!

[brubaie]

The Cross-X centered heavily on the second two off-case positions.

Technical difficulties prevented a more thorough description of this cross-x, but the central question from Beacon was "Where do we define things as black/white?"

Mountain Brook argues that the term "whiteness" creates a dualism, with a limited interpretation of race. They say that even if the Affirmative's view of race relations isn't dualistic, attributing certain factors to a racial trait (what they identify as the 1AC's impact claim) is reductionist, misguided and dangerous.

[brubaie]

I'm having difficulty posting the photo, but thank you to Priyanka Krishnamurthy of Coppell High School for taking the following photo!

http://flic.kr/p/9erhuG

From Left to Right --

Lee Quinn and Evan McCarty (Mountain Brook)

Damiyr Davis and Miguel Feliciano (Beacon)

[brubaie]

The round, despite its relatively non-traditional arguments, is taking place at a conversational speed.

Admittedly, I'm not flowing the debate with any rigor. I'd post a brief summary of the debate as it evolves but I'm guessing the cross-examination and description of the rebuttals would be more informative.

[brubaie]

Mountain Brook focused heavily on Topicality in the Cross-X, asking "Why couldn't you just claim the important parts of the affirmative as advantages?"

Beacon replies that until we reach the point where we can critique the underlying assumptions of such an approach, it will be largely ineffective. They argue that the Affirmative should ask "why are police and military and presence desirable?"

Great quote from Damiyr -- "That's assuming, and we all know what assuming does..." (laughter from crowd)

Mountain Brook asks -- "Why not just say it on the Negative"

Beacon replies that they're attempting to prove the truth of the resolution. They reply they posit the resolution as a question to be answered. Beacon also argues that the lack of a "switch side debate is good" claim in the 1NC justifies new 1AR responses.

[brubaie]

The 2NC is going for Topicality/Framework.

A few highlights to follow.