Curtis Ortega (CSU Long Beach) · 00:40 – 00:49
Summary
- Reframes the ballot as a spiritual referendum on the labor topic: after eight months, "collective bargaining" debate never left its comfort zone and only reproduced "white nihilism," so the aff prays for and affirms black nihilism instead of defending the resolution.
- Argues the topic's liberal political economy renders blackness external to European humanism, and that debate's own norms — framework, fairness, judge deference, switch-side — operate as a "racial contract" that forces black debaters to justify their existence.
- Role of the ballot: voting aff is an invitation to think labor "insurgently" and affirm black vitality; voting neg is an "empty invitation" to keep debate as it always is. Delivered as prayer, closing in call-and-response ("Can I get an amen?").
Framing — The Topic as Racial Contract
- Comfort zone: Eight months of the labor topic never stepped outside nuclear-war and economic-decline framing; the "false promise" that union/democracy education would teach organizing is embedded in a racial contract.
- White nihilism: European humanism's value system makes blackness the excluded foundation of the universe; labor and power are coherent only through anti-blackness.
The Libidinal Economy / Psychological Wages
- Double incentive: Non-black workers reap "psychological wages," giving them a motive to exploit black people both economically and psychically — the two cannot be separated.
- Master–slave narrative: The drive to mastery reproduces black "inhumanity" and liquidation; liberal inclusion only offers recognition that pulls black people away from class organization.
Litany — "[ __ ] That"
- A prayer-style enumeration rejecting racist judging, framework, fairness, procedure, speaker-point norms, and switch-side debate — all read as mechanisms that force black debaters to negate their own existence for the ballot.
Role of the Ballot / Solvency
- Vote aff to affirm black nihilism as spiritual insurgency; the season's final ballot is an invitation to reconsider what labor means. Voting neg endorses "debate as usual." Closes with call-and-response affirming the room.
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On July 18th, 2025, the community came together for a holy day of prayer. This day was preceded by paragraphs of commentary and scholarship, and weeks of deliberation across the nation-state about the exact form this day should take in order to develop more godly values and attitudes. After one democratic vote, the community prayed to God requesting Topic B — collective bargaining and labor in the United States.
The justification for debating this topic was that it would step out of the comfort zone. But you have been debating this topic for eight months now. If you think about it, what has the topic done to step out of the comfort zone? Debate has not stepped out the comfort zone one bit for the past eight months. The topic has basically been at an all-time policy low for most of the season, the only new argument being about the comfort zone itself. Debate is always occupied with nuclear war and economic decline and does not even begin to get to the question of power and labor of the topic proper.
This is not a bug. It is the future of racial conflict. When European Enlightenment embraced the figure of the human, it created an anti-black value system and the political decision that white existence is the spiritual — what will be called white nihilism, which functions as the foundation of the universe, the value itself of European man. Labor and power are coherent to anti-blackness. White consciousness has become infected as power turns: the racial order forces black people to suffer, to engage in the middle of an economic pledge that fills every economy and workplace.
For debate to offer liberal inclusion is for racial liberalism to engage in racial fantasies, providing non-black people with psychological wages and black people with abandoned inferiority. Black inclusion and recognition function to make white liberal guilt disappear while pulling black reactive disappointment away from class organizations. This is a coherent universal, and it reproduces the master–slave narrative: it creates a drive to mastery that reproduces slavery to maintain black inhumanity.
Black lives and black noise have historically moved the needle on racial progress in debate — from Louisville and Towson using metaphorical interpretation of the topic, creating black liberation theology and a quad of black practice. Debate has adjusted intellectual and policing norms, but it still starts from the states of a world that is anti-black. Even after a president's black line, debate still refuses to meet black participation at the table. The topic starts off with a conversation about strengthening collective bargaining rights, yet the space refuses to actually debate about strengthening those rights.
[Prayer / litany] [ __ ] that — we vote a strike vote, we vote a united black [ __ ]. [ __ ] that. He said involve the eliminated from black relation. We care what the person says. Unreasonable — from the reason, we didn't create reason. Society, the human — we are promised fair education even though we know judges are racist and biased and will not judge fairly if it means betraying their beliefs. [ __ ] that. We are promised a topic and that people's paradigms reflect their judging. [ __ ] that — even after we attempt to cater to a belief just to have people email us after we lose, saying they suddenly changed their minds.
[ __ ] that. We are promised judges will stick to the flow, even though people like those in the Republic are deemed not to vote for a political act even if they win the flow, because they care about procedure, fairness, and racism. [ __ ] that. We are promised the entire tournament that every participant expects the same outcome, while some teams tap the tournament to get pairings earlier than the rest. [ __ ] that. We are promised teams should lose in-round for making in-round arguments, and we get judged even after that's bad. [ __ ] that. We are promised the topic will provide new argument innovation, that policy teams will incorporate arguments we've never seen before — which still believes black debaters actively vote on framework, telling us that if we switch sides we'd actively engage arguments that erase the ballot. A prayer to the black youth. [ __ ] that. Amen.
Amen. I love you all, but [ __ ] that — it's time to change our reflection of the norm. This debate and the ballot should be a reflection of what labor means and what we've learned from it and what we take away from it. Framing A says that the way we've currently done labor policy is unstable and must become inserted. The entity ceremony says the future is in our hands: in the face of ICE cracking down, we have warfare, racialized violence, xenophobia, and we need to recognize the pragmatic question in this debate — and any debate — of what we want our laboring conditions to be. That question starts here, with this ballot, by you voting affirmative. This is all we've got, including our community voting as an invitation to think of labor insurgently.
Voting negative is an empty invitation that says we should just do debate how it always is. The NDT circular talked about how we need to break away from politics now. Framework is the idea that if we debate in certain manners we get clash and argument refinement — but that fails, because they have to win that the topic was good and that debating labor is better than the opposite. There is none, and framing proves that voting aff is the better reason, because the legacy of debate shows we can think of policy in a different way. They're going to say clash — [ __ ] that. They're going to say we should be topical — [ __ ] that. Can I get an amen from the crowd? Can I get an amen?
Amen. Can I get an amen? Amen. Can I get an amen? Amen. One more time — amen. [ __ ] that. Black nihilism. Good.
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