Stop the Senseless Persecution of Debaters

During Thursday night's (Dec. 5) Undergraduate Council presidential debates, candidate Joseph Cleeman '98 was reported to have stated that "The Undergraduate Council is a farce. It is an aristocratic debate society superimposed on a high school dance committee." Candidate Eric Nelson '99, in his platform for the council presidency, stated that "It's time that the U.C. stopped acting like a debate society and started getting down to business."

It is statements like this which perpetuate the age-old stereotypes Debater-Americans must struggle against every day.

Througout our nation's history, Debater-Americans have been needlessly and cruelly persecuted. In 1621, at the celebration of the First Thanksgiving, Native Americans and European-Americans came together for a day of feasting and merriment, but Debater-Americans were excluded from the festivities, as one account reveals, "because they talked too much."

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln gained notoriety throughout the Union for his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Seven years later, he was shot and killed. Just last week, my great-uncle Julius was debating whether or not to drive in the HOV lane on the Long Island Expressway; someone honked at him and made a rude hand gesture.

This ignorant hatred must stop! In what has been dubbed the era of multicultural awareness and increased diversity, it is shameful that an entire segment of our population continues to be needlessly mocked and marginalized. --Scott A. Chesin   President,   Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society