You're Not Being a Queer Black Man, Right?

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Doctor reed brinkley was actually at that tournament, and she said that watching rhyan and elijah debate was a hot mess. They just didn't have any chemistry. So the three of them were all talking, and richad, like an really looks up to rashad, because rashad is also a queer black eye,. But he's also like a really, really great debater. And so rashad would say things like, you need to butch it out, you knowi mean, you neede, you know,You need to fim it up. Sometimes. Sometimes you need to duck walk on em. You will always be black and queer in these spaces.

In competitive debate future presidents, supreme court justices, and titans of industry pummel each other with logic and rhetoric.

Unclasp your briefcase. It’s time for a showdown. Looking back on an episode originally aired in 2016, we take a good long look at the world of competitive college debate. This is Ryan Wash's story. He's a queer, Black, first-generation college student from Kansas City, Missouri who joined the debate team at Emporia State University on a whim. When he started going up against fast-talking, well-funded, “name-brand” teams, from places like Northwestern and Harvard, it was clear he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. So Ryan became the vanguard of a movement that made everything about debate debatable. In the end, he made himself a home in a strange and hostile land. Whether he was able to change what counts as rigorous academic argument … well, that’s still up for debate.

Special thanks to Will Baker, Myra Milam, John Dellamore, Sam Mauer, Tiffany Dillard Knox, Mary Mudd, Darren "Chief" Elliot, Jodee Hobbs, Rashad Evans and Luke Hill.

Special thanks also to Torgeir Kinne Solsvik for use of the song h-lydisk / B Lydian from the album Geirr Tveitt Piano Works and Songs

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