A Minor Rant About The NSDA's 2017-2018 Proposed Cultural Appropriation Resolution

Resolution number six is Resolved: Privileged individuals ought not appropriate the culture of a marginalized group.

Remember that "Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics" disclaimer from the posts that preceded this one and that appears in some form or another in posts that follow. It doesn't apply here. This resolution is atrocious.

I freely admit that as a 59 year old white male, I operate from a small position of privilege especially when compared to my position as a 15 year old white male who had spent his entire life in a house without indoor plumbing and a family income that was to the poverty line what the Mendoza line is to a good batting average in baseball. Further, I have no problem admitting that marginalizing individuals because of their poverty, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or a veritable host of other reasons is wrong.

In this resolution, "privileged individuals" is both a euphemism and a pejorative. The term "marginalized group" is designed to evoke sympathy. In short, the resolution at its most basic could read "Those who have much should not take from those who have little." Negatives will be stuck arguing that the privileged should appropriate from those who have little. Granted, there are always arguments that language of the resolution is flawed and the term "marginalized group" creates victims and therefore one should negate. Those arguments will grow stale by the end of the second tournament.

I suppose negatives have one other strategy, trivialization. They can try to hold the affirmatives to ridiculous standards. They can accuse affirmatives of holding on to a principle that says people north of the Mason Dixon line should not say "y'all' because it's a Southern cultural tradition and Southerners are a marginalized group because they were on the wrong side of the War of Northern Aggression which is frequently, albeit incorrectly, called the Civil War. A better example might be arguments over who should and should not eat soul food or listen to soul, blues, jazz, and rap.

Students ought to learn about issues of privilege and marginalization. This resolution will not produce that education.