Bill Ayers and Dinesh D’Souza are debating racism on C-SPAN right now. After reading Ayers’s most recent book, I like him but, I have to say, the ultra-white super-rich American Ayers looks really bad lecturing the not-so-white immigrant D’Souza on racism. They should have chosen a different topic. And if that opportunity was not present, Ayers should have refused to participate. He is making a horrible impression in a debate that he had every chance of winning.
P.S. D’Souza has now chosen to veer off into the area of tenure review and has made himself look like the biggest fool on the planet. This is the hallmark of a lousy public speaker: he can’t quit while he’s ahead.
P.P.S. And Ayers has chosen to bring the discussion back to racism. Is he stupid? This is one subject where he simply can’t win over this particular opponent.
P.P.P.S Why did the question about Israel have to be asked by an overfed fella burping contentedly between meals? Of course, D’Souza wiped the floor with him in two seconds with the question of, “Do you deny the right of the Jews to have a Jewish state?” The whole thing was made even worse by Ayers’s “Israel has systematically wiped out the indigenous populations.”
I also have to say, it’s kind of obnoxious that the debate just has to be held at Dartmouth, a super-expensive place for kids who have only seen the world out of the windows of their parents’ jets. I expected better from Ayers.
See the full debate:
Clarissa's Blog 
Ayers, possibly the most hated academic in America (by the Extreme Right) is coming full circle. His anti-war position of the 1960’s and 70’s (Viet Nam) is now being seen as something good and gives us (peace loving hippies ) something to be proud of in our old age.
I liked him then, I like him yet. The reality of his being correct, afterall…still causes the likes of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to double down on their hatred!
Observer Jules
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His 2013 book is very good. But he is shooting himself in the foot in this debate because this topic with this opponent just doesn’t work.
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Ayers v. D’Souza: clown-show in the making for ratings. Regardless of how intelligent they might be and what they might say in other venues; nothing new or educational will be said in this format because their caricatured personas will take over.
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No, it’s an interesting debate. When Ayers stays off racism which doesn’t happen often.
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That seems deliberately baited/slanted somehow. Like inviting a pro-choice man and a pro-life woman to debate reproductive rights.
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Exactly. This will look bad, no matter what. 🙂
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From the times I have watched him speak, he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’ll burnish his immigrant credentials to win a debate. If anything, he tries to ‘out-white’ everyone in the room with his Christianity, racism, and why-don’t-they-teach-latin-in-schools conservatism. He’s the brown William F. Buckley!
It is very funny to me, though, that a man who pledges allegiance to a party that believes voter suppression to be the only way to win elections, will never be able to vote again in his life because of his convicted felon status.
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No, he doesn’t burnish but all he has to do is just stand there and he already wins this particular argument. Ayers is not just white. He is what he himself would call an ultra-privileged white.
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Yeah, you’re right. Bill Ayers teaching a brown man the mechanics of institutional racism does sound cringeworthy. Fuck, now I want to watch it. I hope it’ll be on CSPAN’s website soon enough.
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Bill Ayers wiped the floor with him on religion, though. And the constitution. That was fun.
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I inserted the video in the post!
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It’s in the post!
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Dartmouth is an Ivy League college, and D’Souza is an alum. I saw D’Souza speak when I was in high school and his logic, even then, seemed off. He’s a very intelligent man, but he’s so intellectually dishonest it throws his intellectual bona fides into shade.
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Ayers managed to reduce him to dust a few times. But what’s shocking is that the room is half empty. Shame on these stupid kids.
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Oh man, it was streaming live on CSPAN’s site. Missed it, ugh. Would’ve been awesome to have a shared experience with you guys and comment here in real time.
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Loved the Dartmouth Debate Clarissa…thank you for posting it…
nice to see Ayers becoming more and more relevent as we witness a new American created folly unfolding in Iraq.
observer Jules
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It was very interesting to hear them discuss Iraq while not knowing that a new invasion was about to begin.
D’Souza was trounced completely on the subject of Iraq.
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