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particular stance on a topic through argumentation; speech, on the other hand, can be informative, inspiring, entertaining, and/or per-suasive in order to communicate an idea to an audience. In the spring of eighth grade, I signed up for two original oratory competitions and won both of them.

Throughout high school, I participated in original oratory at the local, regional, and national level. Most tournaments are open-en-try, meaning you don’t have to qualify in order to compete, but after winning my local district National Speech & Debate Association tournament freshman year, I qualified to compete at the largest and most challenging tournament in the nation: the National Speech & Debate Tournament, where 3,000 high school students vie for the title of national champion. While I failed to advance to the top 60, as a sophomore I again qualified. This time, I placed seventh in the nation in Original Oratory—only one position away from the final round. With junior year on the horizon, I set my sights on making it to the prestigious final round.

On Heroes, Villains, and Happily-Ever-AftersThat summer, I brainstormed topic ideas for my original ora-tory. A good topic must describe a problem that is relatable to an audience, has far-reaching societal impacts, and is something the speaker cares deeply about. While searching the web, I came across a TED Talk by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie on what happens when complex human beings—in this case, Africans—are reduced to a single narrative—in this case, disease-ridden, poverty-stricken, pitiable. Inspired by her TED Talk, I chose the topic as the focus of my original oratory.

In my speech, I said that humans are storytelling animals who seek to provide their scattered and confusing experiences with a sense of coherence by arranging them into stories. When the storytelling mind imposes a narrative structure on real life, we expect our world to fit neatly into such categories as heroes, villains, and happily- ever-afters. I then defined the societal problem, or thesis: Too often, we

A s a young child, I grew strangely addicted to this game; I felt an adrenaline rush whenever I found new ways to think on my

feet and express my ideas. I recall standing poised in front of family members at the Thanksgiving table, my father with hammer in hand, as I spoke effortlessly about cheese sticks.

I took table topics to the next level when I joined my school’s speech and debate team in seventh grade. We dedicated hours after school to researching articles, brainstorming arguments, and master-ing delivery to craft powerful speeches designed to change how oth-ers think and act. This is known as rhetoric, and I became fascinated with it.

Testing My SkillsBecause I joined the team toward the end of tournament season, most of the tournaments for first-year debaters had already been held. There was only one local tournament left on the calendar: The Iowa Forensics League Varsity State Tournament. The topic was “Reha-bilitation ought to be valued above retribution in the United States criminal justice system.” After researching the topic and constructing cases, I was feeling confident in my abilities and eager to compete. It was, I thought, the perfect venue in which to test my skills.

Attending a high school debate tournament was very different from what I’d envisioned, however. The image I carried, of Den-zel Washington in The Great Debaters—with his dramatic pauses, clever wordsmithing, and eloquent delivery—quickly faded. With each round I became more convinced that the key to success in var-sity debate was not persuasive appeal, but a combination of robotic speed-reading (known as spreading) and rapid-fire argument gen-eration. I lost every round.

The following year, my debate coach, Mr. McGinnis, introduced me to original oratory, a speech event that involves delivering a pre-pared oration dealing with a societal problem, as well as solutions to that problem. While speech and debate are often lumped together, the primary objective of debate is to convince listeners to embrace a

BANG! I JUMP REFLEXIVELY AS THE HAMMER SMASHES AGAINST THE TABLE. MY FAVORITE GAME,

TABLE TOPICS, HAS JUST BEGUN. THE OBJECTIVE: TO SPEAK CONTINUOUSLY, FOR ONE MINUTE, ON A

RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TOPIC. EVERY TIME I FREEZE DURING MY SPEECH OR USE FILLER WORDS—UM,

OH, LIKE, SO—THE TABLE TOPICS MASTER (MY FATHER) SLAMS THE HAMMER AGAINST THE TABLE.

SPEAKING OUT: A Sikh Student’s Journey through Speech and Debate

cty.jhu.edu/imagine imagine 19

let the simplified narrative structure of stories blind us to the complexity

of the real world.I also brought my own experiences as a Sikh to the stage. Sikhs

believe in keeping their hair uncut and covered underneath a turban in reverence to our ancestors, who fought to preserve our identity. After 9/11, however, many Americans mistakenly associated the tur-ban with terrorists. In my speech, I explained how news coverage following the 9/11 attacks led to a simplified narrative in which Mus-lims and Sikhs were seen as national villains. I went on to describe how such a dangerous narrative affected my community:

“In October of 2001, vandals spray-painted the word ‘Towelheads’

on our Sikh temple. That winter, two Sikh-owned gas stations in

our community were held up at gunpoint. In addition, many Sikh

boys who were bullied at school were forced to renounce tenets of

their faith by removing the sacred turban and cutting their unshorn

hair.” I paused for a moment. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to

flip the script.”

Preparing to WinMany weekends during my junior year, I travelled with my speech and debate team to compete against high school students from across the nation. With each successive tournament, my speaking skills improved, as did my confidence in my identity and my conviction about the importance of my message. I placed first in Original Oratory at national tournaments hosted by Harvard, Emory, and the University of Kentucky.

There was only one tournament left on the season calendar: the NSDA National Tournament. To help me prepare, Mr. McGinnis cre-ated a regimented schedule of practices and drills. Speed-throughs—performing my 10-minute speech in half the time—helped ensure I had it memorized. Because it can be easy to become fatigued during long tournaments, to maintain my stamina, I made sure to eat whole-some meals, drink lots of Gatorade, and run regularly. To correct my poor posture (a consequence of carrying way too many text-books in my backpack), Mr. McGinnis would slam his six-foot-long

SPEAKING OUT: A Sikh Student’s Journey through Speech and Debateby JJ Kapur

JJ’s Original Oratory entry, “Let’s Dance,” opened with him performing a Bollywood-style dance.N

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Congressional Debate mallet on the table every time he caught me slouching. And during the 14-hour van ride from Des Moines, Iowa, to Birmingham, Alabama, I gave a full-energy performance every hour. By the time we arrived in Birmingham, I was ready.

Speechless!The national tournament spans one week and consists of 13 rounds of competition. I made it through 12 rounds of competition in Orig-inal Oratory and had one more to go: the final round. But the day before the final round, I developed a painful sore throat and began to lose my voice. I couldn’t believe it! Of all the days in the year, and of all people in the world, how could this be happening now, to me?

I felt I had to tell Mr. McGinnis. “I have a sore throat. I can barely talk,” I told him. “I’m not going to be able to do it the way we prac-ticed.” Mr. McGinnis looked me straight in the eye. “This is not about you,” he said. “This is about sharing a message that you care about, with the hope that just one person in the audience will walk away with a different perspective. I am not going to let you blow this opportunity because of a sore throat.”

In the minutes before the final round, I reminded myself that I was giving this speech for Waheguru (God) and for every person who has ever fallen victim to the dangers of simple stories, false narratives, and cultural stereotypes. I listened to a Sikh hymn before I walked onto the stage. And on Friday, June 23rd, I was named the 2017 National Champion in Original Oratory. I became the first Sikh to champion an event in the tournament’s history.

Today I strive to be an outspoken advocate for civil rights through public speaking. My championship speech has reached hundreds

of thousands of listeners, in person and online. My message of decon-structing oversimplified narratives has been reported in the Des Moines

Register and the Times of India, among other outlets. I hope to continue to participate in speech and debate in college. I remain determined to impact our world, one word at a time. n

JJ Kapur is a senior at Valley High School in West Des Moines, IA. JJ’s experience in speech and debate led him to found the Iowa Sikh Turbana-tors, a youth-led community service group focused on removing the neg-ative stigma surrounding Sikhism. JJ will attend Stanford University in the fall, where he plans to study political science with a focus on justice and law. You can view JJ’s award-winning speech from the National Speech & Debate competition at youtube.com/watch?v=4lSFjmcld9w.

TOO OFTEN, WE LET THE SIMPLIFIED NARRA-

TIVE STRUCTURE OF STORIES BLIND US TO

THE COMPLEXITY OF THE REAL WORLD.

American Legion National High School Oratorical Contestlegion.org/oratorical

Model United Nationsunausa.org/global-classrooms-model-un

National Catholic Forensic Leaguencfl.org

National Forensic Leagueforensicscommunity.com/league/national-forensic-league

National Speech & Debate Associationspeechanddebate.org

Public Debate Programhighschooldebate.org

Resources for Exploring Speech & Debate

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