The Great Debaters

I went and saw this movie back when it was in theaters and really enjoyed it so I bought it earlier and just got done watching it. I know in an earlier post I put it as I think my number 3 favorite movie of 2007, but it could be even higher. It is not as artistic as Juno or Atonement, but it delivers a message that makes you feel. I think it tells a story that needs to be heard by everyone. I know that there will be some that obviously will not or have not enjoyed it as much as I have and will continue to do but I strongly encourage everyone to see it.


It involves two things that will forever be linked to my heart. The first as the title gives away debate. I will admit that in high school I was on the debate team, and for a year I helped run the team with our coach Shulz. Now I know what you are thinking......Nerd Alert Nerd Alert..... which is only slightly true. I do play and watch about every sport there is, but I think it is that I like organized competition and debate introduced me to a new type of competition that required me to do more than physically outlast my oponent. In debate I had to out think, be able to come up with a quote from Locke, Rousseau, Thoreau, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Mandela, Dr. King, Helen Keller or Mark Twain at any given moment with an accompanying historically or personally true story to equate with the quote and relate both to the topic assigned and be able to speak on that topic for five to ten minutes without any notes. It was a rush of adrenaline for me, it felt the same as standing across the net waiting for my opponent to serve the tennis ball at me, or to be tossed the basketball and have to take it down the court and initiate a play, or waiting for my turn to begin a tumbling pass. It has helped me not to be afraid to stand up in front of a large crowd and give a speech and it has helped me to control my nerves because it was easier to see I was nervous while giving a speech than returning a serve or a myriad of other sport analagies I could use. I am really glad I took the class and am glad that there is finally a movie that sheds some light on what is done in debate.


Second reason why I love this movie, and much more important, it is a movie about racial equality. For those of you who know me you most likely know how important this issue is for me. I believe that everyone on this planet is a child of God and that God is no respector of persons. This means that God does not care what the color of your skin is and therefore no one else should either. I do not think that any anyone is better than anyone else because they have lighter or darker skin than I do. I hate racist stereotypes, racial jokes, and any derrogatory term given to a racial group. I believe that race is a social concept created by man out of greed and laziness. It was a way to establish that one group of people were inferior to another and therefore deserved less. I hate it when someone is describing someone else and the second thing they refer to after their gender is generally their race. I hate living in a world where race is so central to everyone. Me being the race I am does not define who I am or the moral fortitude that I have or how I should treat anyone else. I get tired of people who say: why does there need to be a black history month because there is no such thing as a white history month. To this I say, you are taught white history, almost always from a white perspective, for every history class you have from kindergarten up. That is why you do not learn about the genocide of American Indians, the true horror of slavery and the continued shady treatment blacks receive today, or internment of Japanese Americans or the horrible treatment of Mexicans in the Southwest, in any depth whatsoever. You learn that the United States had slavery, but that thanks to Abraham Lincoln you don't anymore. Sometimes you will hear a little about Harriet Tubman and the undergroud railroad, but again no depth. You are taught that Manifest Destiny is a great and noble idea and that American expansionism west was great but you do not hear about what the cost was to American Indians. Sorry I could go on this for a very long time, it is just a topic that makes me a little irate. Racism just makes me a little sick.