Identity Ks

*If you do not know what a kritik is, go check out our Intro to Ks guide before diving deeper into this one!* 

What Is an Identity Kritik?

An identity K is a critique based in critical literature or on identity. Identity Ks make the claim that something that the topic does, your opponent has said, debate, etc. reinforced some oppressive force.

Identity Ks are a key part of modern debate, as they allow for people to check back against problematic representations or actions in the debate community. Identity Ks also give people a place to express themselves and engage in critical literature.

Core Components of an Identity K

A. Link

• Like most Ks, the identity K will have one or multiple links, which are usually cards that show how the aff links to the K. There are a few main types of links:
  
  

  • Topic links: Topic links are cards that show how the topic is grounded in some form of oppression ie. cards talking about how plea bargaining are a tool of the state against black people from the septober 25 topic.
    
    

  • Language/discourse links: These links are links that will talk about how the language the aff uses reinforced oppression ex. Gendered language being used in the 1AC reinforces gender binaries causing anti-queerness.
    
    

  • Representations (reps) links: These links are some of the most common links, reps links talk about the representations of the aff, or what the aff says and the authors the aff uses. 

B. Impact

• Identity based impacts can be difficult to deal with because they are something that not everyone has experience with. For example, most judges will know what it means for someone to die physically, but explaining the concept of the social death of blackness to a judge can get pretty tricky. In my personal experience, it is good to read the impact, explain what it means and use examples. It is much easier to understand what these sometimes more abstract impacts look like, when you are able to provide a concrete example of the impact happening in the real world.
  
  

• Common impact claims:
  
  

  • Erasure and silencing: These claims talk about how the link causes the erasure of people of a certain identity or the silencing of them.
    
    

  • Material violence: These are probably the most self explanatory impacts, they basically talk about how the aff causes material violence ex. Genocide impacts on set col Ks, or overkill impacts on Queerpessimism Ks
    
    

  • Ontology: Ontology impact claims are claims about the way in which certain identities exist in society, or the lack thereof. Ontology claims will talk about how people are constructed in society ie. black people being pathologised as slaves, or queer people being unproductive, etc. And from that it will talk about how the aff specifically reenforces that.

C. Alternative

• What the K proposes instead of the aff
  
  

• Common types of alternatives:
  
  

  • Reject the aff: Pretty simple, the aff is bad so we should reject it. These can be strategic because it can pretty much always beat the perm.
    
    

  • Refusal/withdrawal from structures: These alts are more common with more pessimistic Ks, they are basically talking about how we should remove ourselves from the harmful structures as a survival strategy, rather than more actively trying to solve them.
    
    

  • Methodological alternatives: these alts are fairly common, they basically say that the aff does something bad and causes the impact, so we should do something to solve for that ie. embrace decolonization, gender abolition etc. These are good, but be ready for the perm debate.
    
    

• Alts come in 2 main forms: fiated and not. Both can be strategic, but in general, with identity Ks it is probably more strategic not to fiat, because it offers better solvency claims, is probably unnecessary, and avoids unwanted theory debates.

D. Framework

• Framework basically tells the judge why the K matters, what they are doing, and how to weigh the round. Many frameworks will say the 1AC is a research project because voting aff won’t actually solve for extinction or the impacts of the aff, but the neg will make a solvency claim in one of three main ways: models, subjectivity shift, or microagressions. 

• Models is the tech right now, and it is basically saying that the ballot is an endorsement of the neg’s model of debate ie. a model that rejects fiat, or that is based on decolonization.

• Subjectivity shift says that the ballot changes people’s subjectivities which is how people think so voting neg is good to make people think differently. 

• Microaggressions is not a very strategic claim, but it is basically saying that the link shows how the aff is committing a microaggression or “a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.” This then causes psychic trauma to marginalized debaters. This can be unstrategic mainly because A. it trivializes actual microaggressions and B. it loses to tab solves argumentation, in which an opponent says that the K debater could have just gone to tab and launched a complaint if an actual microaggression was committed . This is not to say that there is not a time in which it might be ok to pull out a microaggressions framework, but in general, either it is bad enough to stake the round or better to go for one of the other frameworks. 

• There is also ballot solvency which basically talks about how a neg ballot solves for the harms of the aff. A few common claims include A. NORMING---evaluating competing models ensures the best norms---disclosure, paperless debate, plans, negative fiat, and Ks would have been incomprehensible 40 years ago, but individual decisions normalized them---alternative accounts boil down to a glorified sand paradox. B. COMPETITIVE DISINCENTIVES---voting them down deletes their arguments from the meta. That’s sufficient, minimizing exposure to violent research is good. And C. GOLDEN RULE---unconditionally reject violent practices regardless of consequences. Anything else tells minority debaters that violence is acceptable, magnifying exhaustion. 

• Also, framework should include that fiat is illusory so voting aff does not solve for extinction, but the neg ballot does solve for the harms that the aff causes.

Common Identity Ks in LD

A. Race-Based Kritiks

• Afropessimism: Afropessimism is the argument that blackness lives outside of what it means to be a "human". This is proven through the 3 pillars of social death. First, is Natal Alienation which is the fact that the middle passage marked the separation of black familial ties I.E the way the black body was born into the world absent the things that are intrinsic to life (black culture is still being made). Second, is General Dishonor, the way that blackness is viewed as "lower" by society this is proven through stuff like blackness being prescribed as "negativity" or "criminals" regardless of social location, whatever blackness does, it will always be at the bottom of the civil society. Lastly, in Gratuitous Violence, which is the irrational violence inflicted upon black individuals such as like lynching parties (the greenwood massacre), or like shootings that ONLY black folk face such as like the way Trayvon martin was killled, the way Laquan McDonald was killed, etc which exceeds any contingent rationale. Wilderson tells us the ONLY way to move past this would be to end the world IE imagine a new world outside of the one we currently live in. The Alt I run is to burn the world (yes physically burn the entire world).

• Settler colonialism Ks
  
  

B. Gender & Sexuality Ks

• Feminist Ks - Feminist Ks are fairly common, and like most others come in many forms. These could include the killjoy K, feminist international relations, or more. Important readings include the works of Sara Ahmed and of J. Ann Tinker.
  
  

• Queer Ks - Queer Ks fall into two main camps, pessimistic and optimistic. Pessimistic Ks branch off from Edelman, a psychoanalyst who wrote about how people’s desire for the Child constructs sex as a site for production rather than pleasure, so the queer is must be destroyed because it uses sex as a site for pleasure rather than production which is a threat to heteronormative futurity. The alt will be something like queer negativity or embracing the death drive. Optimistic Ks on the other hand make claims about why the aff is bad, but then say that we need to be futurist in our thinking, such as how Munoz writes about queer utopian worldviews. Key readings include No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive by Lee Edelman, the works of Judith Butler, Jose Munoz, Jasbir Puar, Jack Halberstam, and Atmospheres of Violence by Eric Stanley.

C. Ableism

• Ableism Ks - Ableism Ks will usually be centered around things like accessibility issues and similarly to Queer Ks can be pessimistic and optimistic as well. However, unlike many other identity based Ks, you do not need to be disabled to run the Ableism K as a focus of the literature base is inclusivity and ideas of community. Authors or readings to look into can include things like Nietzsche’s der Ubermensch or Foucault’s ideologies on biopower as well as authors like Puar or Mollow. 

Ethical Considerations

• One of the most important things to consider is how you are running identity Ks and your relationship to the literature. When debating, you should try to avoid performative or exploitative use of identity arguments, meaning that if you are going to read the argument, at least understand the literature. Also, it can get problematic at times when people use literature of identities that they do not identify with, especially with pessimistic arguments. This is for a few reasons, but mainly, remember that this literature is written about the suffering of real people, and it was NOT written with the intent of being used as a tool for competition, so if you are going to use it, build a respectful relationship with the literature, read it, and realise the claims that you are making and their real world implications. That being said, identity based arguments allow for education that is not accessible in many other places and should be engaged in.