1AC
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of
justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
This was once said by Dr. Martin Luther King, one of the most iconic figures in the
topic of racial justice and segregation in the United States. The struggle that he and
his followers endured brought us to where we are today. Although we have made
leaps and bounds from the era of slavery and segregation, we are not finished yet.
Racism is still prominent and still very much around in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, it has also decided to resurface in the topic of Transportation
Infrastructure: specifically in the mass-transit system.
It was upheld in the Supreme Court in 1969 that the fourteenth amendment
protects the right of Americans to travel. The fourteenth amendment, an
amendment that was written in the Constitution, in the article that governs the base
of the laws for the United States of America. If this was the case, then our
transportation system should be perfect, right? False. People face the challenge of
getting where they need to go every day due to the vast amounts of inadequate mass
transportation within the United States—specifically inner-city mass-transit
systems, in which reside the low-income areas. These low-income areas are the
areas that contain a large amount of impoverished people and people of color. It is
the result of poverty that generates the divide. It is the result of America’s dark
dealings with slavery that generates the racism and it is the result of the “politically
popular” choices that generates the transportation inequity that rejects our right as
Americans to travel.
An article written by Sanchez and Brenman on March 31, 2007 illustrates the
problems that are facing minorities in the field of transportation
The case of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina represents the chronic neglect of warnings about inevitable disaster and, in this case,
the lack of attention devoted to clearly foreseen risks and the planning to deal with them. Particular examples include the lack of
foresight in evacuation planning for people in New Orleans who did not own cars or who could not afford gas. One could argue that
this was a completely unique set of circumstances; however, some South Florida cities that have extensive experience with disasters
ranging from fire to hurricanes actually monitor car ownership statistics and have emergency plans that feature sending public
transportation to neighborhoods with low car ownership rates. The information from public transportation route planning (which
often takes into account mobility levels) could be easily used to identify the locations of residents likely to need assistance during
evacuations. Related to these planning efforts should be the coordination and use of existing infrastructure, such as fleets of school
buses. This would result in the consequent need for legal liability safe harbors that are common barriers to interagency sharing of
resources. In this paper we discuss a variety of other issues that could also be used to inform future planning efforts, many with
political implications, thus requiring a larger dialogue and potentially significant changes to governance or bureaucratic structures.
INTRODUCTION Transportation plays a vital role in our society. In fact, the Supreme Court recognized that the right to travel is one
of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.1 Given the important role of
transportation, it is quite understandable that transportation policy can be contentious. Too often, however, fights over what
specific projects will be funded and in which states or congressional districts, and scant attention is paid to the larger social and
economic effects that transportation policies have. Americans have become increasingly mobile and more reliant on automobiles to
meet their travel needs, due largely to transportation policies adopted after World War II that emphasized highway development
over public transportation. According to Census 2000 data, less than 5 percent of trips to work in urban areas were made by public
Minorities howeverare less likely to own
cars than whites and are more often dependent on public transportation.
transit; however, this varies significantly by race and location.2
The “transit-dependent” must often rely on public transportation not only to travel to work but also to get to school, obtain medical
The transit-dependent are
often people with low incomes, and thus, in addition to facing more
difficulties getting around, they face economic inequities as a result of
transportation policies oriented toward travel by car. Surface transportation policies at
care, attend religious services, and shop for basic necessities such as groceries.
the local, regional, state, and national levels have a direct impact on urban land use and development patterns. The types of
transportation facilities and services in which public funds are invested provide varying levels of access to meet basic social and
economic needs. The way communities develop land dictates the need for certain types of transportation, and, on the other hand,
. In an examination
of the evacuation failures during Hurricane Katrina and Rita, Litman
suggests that many of these failures can be attributed to a lack of
resilience, or ability to absorb unexpected circumstances through
redundancy within the transportation system. Litman notes that the
tragedies of Katrina are “simply extreme examples of the day-to-day
problems facing non-drivers due to inadequate and poorly integrated
transportation services.”3 He suggests, failures can be attributed to a lack of resilience, or ability to absorb
the transportation options in which communities invest influence patterns of urban development
unexpected circumstances through redundancy, within the city’s transportation system.4 What is Transportation Equity?
Transportation mobility is a hallmark of American society; without it, one cannot be a full member of this society. The early
challenges related to racial discrimination and segregation discussed above involved discriminatory practices that directly limited
The effects of limited transportation
mobility persist. The lack of mobility helped create ghettos, de facto
segregated schools and housing, and social and community isolation. To cure
these ills, many promises have been made by the leadership of the dominant
society. These promises are often unfulfilled, as have been promises for
housing to replace that destroyed in “blight clearing” projects. These
were sometimes referred to as “negro removal,” sometimes considered synonymous with
“urban renewal.” Whites in suburbs have foregone physical mobility for a lack of
social cohesion, while destroyed inner-city neighborhoods have been left
with neither mobility nor social cohesion. Efforts to challenge discrimination, segregation, and
transportation access and mobility of people of color.
inequitable transportation policies have become increasingly sophisticated to encompass a broad range of related social impacts.
The term transportation equity refers to a range of strategies and policies
that aim to address inequities in the nation’s transportation planning and
project delivery system.
We are trying to get others to see, acknowledge, address, and discuss the issue at
hand. If we cannot fix the demanding issue of racism present in transportation, then
we will not be able to fix the infrastructure. Freedom is not free, however we are
already taking steps toward the tithes that we must pay in order to obtain freedom
from racism, by the debate, which we are doing.
We challenge the Negative team to debate us in this round not on the topic of Masstransit, but on the topic of Institutional Racism instead, for not only is Institutional
Racism a more pressing issue, but it is the root from which all of the problems in our
mass transit systems stem.
Therefore, we, the Affirmative will affirm the topic as an act of re-conceptualizing
transportation infrastructure by provoking discussion within debate, addressing the
problems of transportation inequity, institutional racism, and those persons affected
by transportation inequity who have been rendered invisible by the scholarship
produced by this very activity.
Furthermore, it is our duty as debaters to argue the resolution and it cannot be
achieved until the walls created by institutional racism are broken. Although we
continue to uphold the resolution, as the resolution says nothing about racism, it is
indeed our need and our goal to discuss the topic of racism, as it is a key factor that
plays in to the enactment of our plan to fix mass transit. Therefore, we view that the
resolution and a topic are two completely separate entities, and we will uphold the
resolution by debating about the topic of racism, from which originates the barriers
preventing us from reaching the resolution.
Contention one is institutional racism—a problem that not only destroys the
meaning that our forefathers set of “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but
also reveals an imposing hole in our democracy, through the form of transportation
inequity. The majority of wayfarers on the buses and taxis that run throughout a
number of cities in the United States are generally people of lower class. These
people are usually almost forced to take public transit due to the lack of resources
available for them to bus themselves around town. We saw in the Montgomery Bus
Boycott that when the main passengers on the buses refused to ride, then the buses
were ran out of business. If they do indeed make up the majority, then wouldn’t the
companies who need their business treat them with more respect? The fact is that
they do not. In comparison, the buses that run through the inner city, in the ghettos
and the barrios, and the buses that cater through the suburbs, where the majority of
the middle and upper middle class reside have completely different calibers of buses
and systems. It is not simply a coincidence that the ones that cater to the suburbs
are nicer; it is transportation inequity that stems from the racism of a post-1960s
era. We must put institutional racism and the transportation inequity that follows at
the center of the topic, for if we cannot solve the problems at the core, and then we
cannot solve transportation inequity, nor can we racism and therefore cannot repair
our broken mass-transit system.
In their book, Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism & New Routes to Equity
written in 2004, Robert Doyle Bullard, Glenn Steve Johnson and Angel O. Torres
present to us the issues that others have dismissed, disdained or are ignorant
thereof, specifically pertaining to racism, in the following excerpts:
“More than one hundred years ago, in the foreword to his classic book The Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B DuBois
declared that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”DuBois’s diagnosis came seven years after
the infamous U.S Supreme court decision regarding the Plessy vs. Ferguson , case codified “separate but equal” as the supreme
law of the land. Sadly, in the twenty first century, the problem still exists. Highway Robbery weighs in a half-century after the
landmark US Supreme court case Brown vs. Board of Education decision overturned Plessy and outlawed “separate but equal”
decades of court rulings and civil rights laws have not
eradicated the historic disparities between races or the
in 1954. Unfortunately,
discrimination that perpetuates them. The United States remains a
racially divided nation where extreme inequalities continue to
persist in housing, school, employment, income, environmental
protection, and transportation. Discrimination still places an extra
tax on poor people and people of color who need safe, affordable,
and accessible public transportation. Many root causes of this nation’s transportation
injustices have not been evaporated in the past six years. Many of these nation’s transportation-related disparities
accumulated over a century. Even with sufficient resources and coordinated commitment of the public in partnership with the
it will likely take years to dismantle the deeply
ingrained legacy of transportation racism. White racism shapes
transportation and transportation-related decisions, which have
consequently created a national transportation infrastructure that
denies many black Americans and other people of color the
benefits, freedoms, opportunities, and rewards offered to white
Americans.”
corporations and the government,
In contention two, we discuss agency, or the importance of the arguments that we
cover in this debate and how that leads to action. Discussing what the United States
might do only leads to more debating about hypothetical solutions. The United
States as an entity, or Capitol Hill as an entity is not responsive to us nor will it ever
be. Therefore, it is more effective and more educational for us to discuss what we
can and should do regarding the topic of the debate. When I first started with this
topic, I was asked the question, “What does Debate mean?” When I was asked, I had
the answer that I was given when I first started Debate. It was a good vs. bad kind of
game. You face someone who will directly oppose you and what you stand for in the
round in order to win the debate. Debate has turned into a game of finding the
biggest impact, while we commonly hear the “my impact outweighs” statement; this
is drawing away from the core of debate, which is to discuss issues. The proof that
this exists is proof that the institution of Debate has been corrupted by impacts and
soulless arguments. We do not actually STAND for what we are saying; we are only
talking about what was given to us as the resolution of the 2012-2013 school year.
The discussion of Institutional Racism in regards to this debate is far better for the
scholarship of this debate rather than mass-transit. Our debating the topic of racism
at hand gives representation to those who do not have it—it is not simply a mock
plan for Congress that is given no thought other than a game, it is a view of the
slanted and bigoted issues that people of color face daily. It is an issue that we as the
citizens can be empowered to fix. It is our duty and our goal as the Affirmative to
show you just how we can go about doing this. Therefore, it is beneficial for both us
and the Negative team to discuss the topic of Institutional Racism, as it allows for
both sides to discuss a topic with actual implications to the world here and now. We
will discuss with the Negative the aforementioned implications as well as solvency
of institutional racism, and in doing so, we will discuss the agency pertaining to
international racism.
Traditional Debate causes an insane mindset
Mitchell 1998 (PEDAGOGICAL POSSIBILITIES FOR ARGUMENTATIVE AGENCY IN ACADEMIC DEBATE,
)
The sense of detachment associated with the spectator posture is highlighted
during episodes of alienation in which debaters cheer news of human
suffering or misfortune. Instead of focusing on the visceral negative
responses to news accounts of human death and misery, debaters overcome
with the competitive zeal of contest round competition show a tendency to
concentrate on the meanings that such evidence might hold for the strength
of their academic debate arguments.For example, news reports of mass starvation
might tidy up the "uniqueness of a disadvantage" or bolster the "inherency of
an affirmative case"(in the technical parlance of debate-speak). Murchland categorizes cultivation of this
"spectator" mentality as one of the most politically debilitating failures of
contemporary education: "Educational institutions have failed even more
grievously to provide the kind of civic forums we need. In fact, one could easily conclude that the
Argumentation & Advocacy, 1998, Vol. 35 Issue 2, p41-60; Gordon R. Mitchell, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh
principle purposes of our schools is to deprive successor generations of their civic voice, to turn them into mute and uncomprehending
spectators in the drama of political life" (1991, p. 8).
In closing, we must continue to fight the shackles of institutional racism. It is only
when we sever the binds of transportation inequity, that we can fix the mass transit
system…It is only when we abolish the chains of prejudice that we can realize our
faults and mistakes.
And finally, it is only when we let go of racism that we as a nation will be truly
united not only by the land that we live on, but the past that we overcome, and the
buses we ride.