Lauran Schaefer, the head of the debate program at Whitman, doesn’t see it as just an ordinary extracurricular activity. It is also an activity that builds skills, confidence and community.
This community...
On a recent trip to New Orleans with a few other Whitties, a concierge at a hotel made a joke that made me think. Exhausted from almost a full day of traveling, we had come to the hotel for the Associated College Press conference hosted there. Amused by our dazed appearances, the concierge laughed and said, “Y’all look like you’ve never seen a black person before.†We explained our fatigue, but over the course of the weekend, I realized that the man had a point. African Americans, especially from working-class backgrounds, are conspicuously absent at Whitman. Less than three percent of the class of 2017 are African American, and while first-generation college students are more common, they still only make up 10 percent of the class. This has a lot to do with geography, of course. From sheer historical background, Louisiana will probably always have more African Americans than Washington does. The African American population of the state of Washington is not much denser than that of Whitman, representing a little under four percent of the total population.
