University of Louisville Debate

To much is given, much is required. Luke 12:48

Christian faith teaches that our rights flow from our dignity as human persons made in the image and likeness of God, and that along with these rights come responsibilities. Catholic Bishops of Illinois

Pay it forward.  Benjamin Franklin

We hear these famous quotations and sayings all the time in a variety of contexts.  The call for social responsibility might occur in a church, or a fund-raiser for our favorite charity, and certainly as a non-profit call to volunteerism like the recent events in Haiti.

But what about the concept of social responsibility in more mundane places like our jobs and schools? Especially in cases where one is given or not considered for a job or school as a result of society taking responsibility for past societal wrongs, what if any individual responsibility should accompany that?

I entered the University of Louisville in 1993 as an Affirmative Action hire, like the one that Stephen L. Carter criticizes in his book Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. Carter opposed the stigma attached to his status which he felt prevented others from seeing his true worth.

I too, was in fact a “baby” when my employment career began, but I believe that my upbringing allowed me to understand the importance of “Paying it Forward” and accepting the social responsibility which came with the privilege of the societal benefit of affirmative action.  I didn’t just think about how my status was affected.  Because of that, I am slowly growing from a baby to a child, hopefully one day into an Affirmative Action Professor.

I train students in the importance of logic, reasoning, and evidence. My personal growth from a child to adult required acknowledgment that at times I have ignored those same elements of critical thinking I teach when considering what I thought society owed me.  It is easy for recipients of societal benefits to get into the habit of feeling they are owed more and more without any consideration of our responsibilities when we get societal privileges at the expense of others.

We don’t always  see the connections between government redress programs like affirmative action and the social responsibility inherent in the that particular benefit.  We generally tend to separate our decision making in the daily grind of our jobs from our social causes. Americans see New Orleans or Haiti and are quick to donate, but we don’t see how the day to day choices we make (or not make) on our job, in our schools, in our politics, help to create and sustain the same devastation we will later see on CNN or MSNBC.  Just because the connections aren’t readily apparent doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  And our belief that our jobs are based solely on merit, affirmative action recipient or not, is merely an illusion.

We all benefit from the privileges established by those before us, whether gaining an affirmative action job, or whether inheriting wealth from a relative, or even getting the “hook up” from familial or friend relations.  They are all privileges that impact our individual life’s chances.  The question on the table is whether those privileges create social responsibility, and what type of unique responsibility should accompany the privilege of affirmative action.

I was raised pretty well, taught that any personal benefits I obtained required me to give back producing those benefits for others.  Which meant that no matter what I expected and demanded from society, I always understood the importance of giving it back. That logic built the success of the Civil Rights protest and how blacks survived slavery and segregation.

My life sits at the intersection of both Affirmative Action in hiring as well as education.  I was under-qualified and likely would have failed.  However, my job came with an important and wonderful condition specific to working in higher education called academic freedom.

My decision to leave my parent’s funeral business in Gary, Indiana during a time the Steel City was the murder capital of the United States was based on my frustration watching a disproportional number of young black boys and girls on that morgue slab.  I made my educational mission was to use my job as debate coach to make a material difference in the lives of the next generation of black children.

I became an administrative “hustler,” sharing my vision for increasing African American participation in debate as my affirmative action education project. I fought for resources, and obtained contractual obligations from faculty and administrators to make that vision a reality.  That was how I used my academic freedom.  I was very, very good at my job.  My efforts translated into historically national debate success in a privileged academic community that lacked significant diversity.

I used my benefits to create opportunities for many, many others.  I have given over 100 annual scholarships for debate in the last ten years, 90% going to Affirmative Action debaters lacking the same type of training usually associated with college policy debate programs.  Add the larger societal impact my use of academic freedom generated through my professional activity as an Affirmative Action Professor in challenging many of the current assumptions grounded in the contemporary college game.

My individual affirmative action rewards became larger societal benefits as my research through debate studied the possible reasons why African Americans were not debating and excelling.  But this evolved even further into the broader current squad mission of using debate to create more  “effective decision making in a multicultural democracy.”  My affirmative action benefits have grow exponentially as my work digs deeper into the fundamental purpose and method of college debate.

There is yet another lesson of  the Civil Rights Movement that we must be careful not to forget in today’s integrated world.  Sacrifices that generate benefits for others, also produce the social obligation to utilize those benefits in ways that spread them further.  The University of Louisville gave me a fish, but after feeding myself, I taught myself how to fish so I could feed others.

This past summer when I was arrested and spent a day in jail, much like my time at the funeral home, my societal privilege was this time confronted in a different way–the threat of losing all of the benefits that I spent a lifetime trying to gain.  In the “blink of an eye” I went from a middle class professor studying the black experience, to becoming one of  the “statistics” talked about in Black Studies classes.  No matter how one feels about those statistics, we must never forget that each person sitting in a jail cell, or without a job, or having a harder time making it through life justly waits for those of us with more societal privilege to help.

I was reminded last summer that each of us has an obligation to teach every single one of them, how to fish, even if we have to learn a few new techniques ourselves before we can truly help them all. But even while patting myself on the back for making the right decision to try and help, my execution of that decision was wrought with mistakes.  The assumption that those you help must be “taught” how to fish ignores that as outsiders they have lessons that might make you a better teacher.

For example, my experiences with those I have tried to “save” have often dismissed or ignored their agency to add something of value to my ideas about helping “them”.  Sometimes my crimes are intentional, feeling that others don’t or can’t understand the context in which one is working, and other times it is unintentional.  It is an easy mistake to make when we attempt to act benevolently, but the recurring mistake of too much paternalism can be devastating to effective philanthropy.  Finding the right balance between top down decision making and bottom up participation is the most difficult administrative mandate one ever learns to manage.

I suspect these mistakes are recurring problems in how those with power choose to help others: whether in New Orleans, Haiti, Thailand, or Africa.  Learning an effective process to ensure positive outcomes when we accept our moral responsibility to pay it forward is just as important as realizing we have an obligation to help.  Reading and even understanding Paulo Freire’s words in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, no matter how eloquent didn’t prepare me for how challenging participatory democracy really is when putting those words into practice.

So file this reflection in the “easier said than done” category and find some folks who have mastered a process of helping that is effective.  It’s easy to find, just ask those being helped and if they are happy, then the assistance is likely appreciated.  Upon reflection, it is easier done than said if one is willing to think about their mistakes.  Sorry it took so long to those I’ve tried to help.

Ede Warner, Jr.

Director of the Malcolm X Debate Society/Associate Professor of Pan African Studies

University of Louisville