Cyrus Langhorne
A group of prisoners are making headlines this week for beating out a Harvard College team during a recent debate match.
According to reports, the one-sided victory went down at a New York prison facility last month.
The audience burst into applause. That included about 75 of the prisoners’ fellow students at the Bard Prison Initiative, which offers a rigorous college experience to men at Eastern New York Correctional Facility, in the Catskills. The debaters on both sides aimed to highlight the academic power of a program, part of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., that seeks to give a second chance to inmates hoping to build a better life. (Wall Street Journal)
Prison debate team beats Harvard debate team in national competition. http://t.co/1WXquaiL9G pic.twitter.com/67Z1Ill6LD
— Zachary Clemente (@clementeworks) October 4, 2015
Judge Mary Nugent dismissed the idea of the prisoners having an edge in their win.
“We’re all human. I don’t think we can ever judge devoid of context or where we are, but the idea they would win out of sympathy is playing into pretty misguided ideas about inmates. Their academic ability is impressive.”
Reports claim the debate primarily centered on immigration and education.
In their 4th intercollegiate debating event, the BPI division of the Bard Debate Union faced off against a team from Harvard University on September 18 at Eastern NY Correctional Facilty — and won. (BPI)
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Hopefully other people caught up in the system can get some kind of inspiration/motivation from this. I’m all about turning negative situations into positive ones.
and so are our handlers …Free workers= educated prisoners = new slaves
The average Harvard students simply have never learned to think for themselves.
Let’s remember this team had zero access to the internet … Reading lives!!
Why do we wait until these men commit crimes, sometime heinous crime, before we educate, thus civilize them? It has been obvious for a half century that our public school system has failed a large portion of our population. Unfortunately, the power of many special interests prevents the needed reforms of education system.
My point is simple: Educate and civilize our children correctly the first time and it will save our communities. But again I can only dream.
Till then I applaud this program and hope that those accomplished men will help educate/inspire others and give them hope of a productive life outside of prison.
while education is big…its not the end all problem answer…education with out understanding is nothing…you said it in your first line people have to know how to use what they learn….now when asked if all will ever receive fair and equal education the painful answer is no….a reach but fare question to reality is what would happen to the garbage men if all have 4.0….plus lets not forget that education in it self has a way of allowing people to feel superior hence making even more inequality…the dream of an American education gets sold like a corner boy selling crack with less danger…think about america from birth tells our kids get educated…hence what they are really saying is support this buisness…look at how many groups benefit…bank/ loan groups teachers with job…construction every school has a few millions attached…..theres years worth of infomation that can make us more educated laying around free….i think the real power is in understanding becoming mentally enlightened
sidenote: FEAR the Educated Prisoner….Reach yes but look at what going on…jails/ prison are privatizing at a rapid rate….what that means is under the laws prisoner have no rights hence would be business owners are provided with free workers …slavery 2.0 the educated slave that goes to jail learns how to read and works for microsoft making penny yet is unable to use those skill upon release in the real work world…
Brother I agree with you 1000%, the point I’m trying to make is they won’t ever put an effort in educating the back man before he’s locked up. It comes back to the great Paul Mooney’s line: wana see a scary movie? somebody tell Stephen King to write the script “a nigga with a brain” now that’s a horror movie for white America.
Historically, it’s been noted that up until the latter part of the 19th century, Black people were not legally allowed to read as the plantation owner didn’t want the people on whom he counted to pick his cotton to have delusions of grandeur that they could one day be running shit/become bosses …which can lead to dreams of running for office.
Off course we all know we managed to still pump our brains with knowledge despite the obstacles. But then came Reaganomics, survived that. Enter the early 90’s where there was no short lived fashion trend when Black youth, like the ones wearing women clothing today, were proudly sportin’ shirts with slogans such as “Knowledge is Power”.
This program proves my point, if given a fair roll of the dice, we can compete in this white mans world.
You think they’d start televising these debates? I mean showing The future leaders of the world catching “Meeks” to a band of convicted fellons? Hell no …they 1st rather give you Love & Hip Hop with a gay story line …wait they doing that already ?
sermon church on the internet i agree 100% well said….
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