Two MAGA provocateurs arrived, uninvited, at Tennessee State University Tuesday, set up a table on the Nashville campus and dared the students at the historically Black school to “debate” their positions against DEI and in favor of mass deportations. Channeling the late Charlie Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” style, they created the scene they apparently hoped to cause and were escorted off campus by law enforcement officials. TSU officials said the two uninvited guests were escorted off campus by campus police and TSU staff because they didn’t have permission to set up a table, display signs or use a microphone, as campus policies require.
Channeling the late Charlie Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” style, they created the scene they apparently hoped to cause.
Several of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities received credible threats of harm after the Turning Point USA co-founder was shot dead in Utah on Sept. 10. The very next day, classes at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Hampton University in Virginia, Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Virginia State University in Petersburg were canceled and administrators ordered their students to shelter in place in response to the threats.
That makes the sudden, aggressive appearance of two right-wingers — claiming membership in a group called “Fearless Debates” — feel like another attempt to respond to Kirk’s death by antagonizing Black people.
Though multiple Black professors (at HBCUs and otherwise) reported being harassed, or even getting death threats, after their names were added to Turning Point USA’s “Professor Watchlist," it’s unlikely that Kirk or TPUSA was much on the minds of most Black people — students or otherwise. That’s why Black students on the campuses that were threatened have every right to ask — as Nene Leakes of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” so famously did — “Why am I in it?”
Those students would be correct in demanding to know: Why is my campus being threatened with violence after an act of political violence that we in particular, and Black people in general, had nothing to do with? Do Kirk’s supporters find the mere existence of HBCUs an offense? If so, why?
Students at TSU, in particular, are justified in asking why Tuesday’s interlopers singled them out. When the “Fearless Debate” pair was asked why they’d picked a Black school, they claimed they didn’t know Tennessee State is an HBCU. But that’s not believable. An Instagram post on Tuesday from the “Fearless Debate” account shows the pair set up at a table at TSU with the adorning caption: “We’re here at Tennessee State University in Nashville — the first HBCU that we’re visiting on the Fearless Tour! Let’s talk.”
The pair’s provocation was not received well at TSU, which, of course, was the visitors’ point: to be rejected, to characterize the Black students as intolerant of debate and to gloat that they’d won their arguments by virtue of the Black students being intolerant of their presence. It was unfortunate to see so many people on social media criticizing TSU students, suggesting the students should have responded by debating the pair, or argued that because Tennessee State is a public institution, everybody is automatically welcome.
Do Kirk’s supporters find the mere existence of HBCUs an offense? If so, why?
The proposition that the students should have debated their obnoxious guests reminds me of a theory being promoted in journalism circles some years ago — that news sites’ comments sections would be less horrible, for example, if opinion writers jumped into the discussions. We’d be showing that we’re real people, our editors insisted, and we’d be encouraging similarly civil people to participate, which would help transform the tone of such sections.
The guidance was based on the faulty premise that people were in the comments section for a good-faith change of ideas — when most were there only to be obnoxious and “pwn” the opposition. It was always foolish, though, to think that folks with such a mindset were interested in debate, and the theory about how we journalists could help elevate the debate didn’t make our engaging in the comments section anything more than a waste of time.
The better advice would have been, “Don’t feed the trolls.”
That’s good advice in real life, too. That’s why the students shouldn’t feel any embarrassment or shame in not falling into the “debate me” trap. Because that’s all it is: a trap. Real debates are intellectual exercises that take place among people who are factually prepared and open to persuasion. The ultimate goal is a pursuit of truth, not “owning” anybody or grandstanding. Honest debates are not “gotcha” affairs.
It’s a shame that since Kirk’s death, arguing in bad faith has become characterized as virtuous and edifying. It’s not. And it’s not beneficial to try to rebut people making bad faith arguments because, by definition, people making bad faith arguments can’t be persuaded of anything.
No, the students at TSU didn’t owe the so-called debaters any of their time or attention Tuesday. Like so many HBCU students since Kirk’s death, saying “Leave us alone” is enough.
