Extemp and Genocide: A Story of Belief

By: Brady Condon

Extemporaneous Speaking can often be the loneliest events in all of Speech and Debate. Not only are we isolated to the Prep Room, where most people just do work when not actively prepping their next speech, but the opportunity to see another Extemper speak is rare, only really possible in break rounds: either the whole round as a spectator or the person immediately after you if you’re competing. If you avoid break rounds, you could theoretically go your whole career without speaking to a single other competitor.

This isolation was only made more prevalent due to the Coronavirus. Unlike the other speech events, which are forced to be pre-recorded for the time being, Extempers compete live, and have to attend a virtual Prep Room. In most instances, the Prep Room is just another Zoom call. Like most Zoom calls, long periods of awkward silence permeate. This is the problem I faced when competing at the University of Kentucky Season Opener. My solution was to  combat the awkward silence with a few ice-breakers. Where are you guys calling in from? Do you guys traditionally do International or Domestic Extemporaneous? Vertical prep or horizontal prep? In most cases, a small conversation would start, before being fizzled out by the beginning of the round. However, my third round was different. 

At most of the big National Circuit tournaments, each round has a different theme. It can range from a region like the Middle East or an event like the 2020 election. The theme of the third round was China. Before the round started, I asked if anyone had seen the controversy about the live-action remake of Mulan. For those who don’t know, Disney has been accused of complicity in the insidious trends of the Xinjiang Province, where they had filmed most of the movie. In Xinjiang, China is currently holding between one and two million Uighur Muslims in “re-education” camps. Not only were they near several internment camps, but they also actively thanked several Chinese government agencies in their credits. These are only two of the many flaws within the movie, not even to mention the extra $30 charge on top of a Disney+ subscription. Needless to say I pretty bluntly mentioned my distaste for Disney for this, accusing them of accepting a genocide for profit.

Everyone actively in our conversation, if not in absolute agreement, at least didn’t challenge me - that is, until one Extemper unmuted his mic and turned on his camera. 

“I’m actually a Student from China, and the American media isn’t covering the whole truth.” I froze and looked at the guy. He was a handsome man with a well-defined chin and a silky voice, confident in what he was about to say. 

“In reality, China is combatting terrorism in the region. There is a lot of trouble going on there, and China is just protecting the people.” He went on for a little bit, but I don’t remember the details of what he said well enough to paraphrase them; I was too worried about what I had just said. At the time, I thought he was currently within China and, paranoid of saying anything to further upset him or anyone who may have been listening in, I back-pedaled. I told him that I wasn’t sure if I had the full story, since I had not read China’s side of the story, and that America and China had their differences which may have muddied the waters. Everything I corrected myself with was at least a partial lie. I had done enough research from enough sources to know that something bad was happening in Xinjiang; I had known what China said about the situation, which was very similar to what he was saying; and I knew that the American press was separated enough from the US Government to truthfully write on the situation. If he was in China, and I told him what I really thought, it would do no good. If there were outside listeners, then not only would I have bought myself a spot on a CCP watchlist, but I would have also put my fellow Extemper in jeopardy; even if he didn’t believe me, he may be barred from future American tournaments and if he did, he may personally find himself in the very Uighur internment camps he downplayed. 

Later on, when checking through Tabroom.com, I found that he was competing from some state in the Midwest; he was on American soil. I began to think about the situation. If he had no reason to lie, then did he really believe the Chinese Government over hundreds of reports stating the exact opposite? In that answer lies the true terror of China’s totalitarian regime. An authoritarian can kill countless of their own population, deprive even more of their liberty, but their downfall is inevitable thanks to the freedom of information in this modern era. However, if you can convince the population that nothing is wrong, reorienting government “truths” into societal foundations, then you can get away with anything. China has committed multiple massacres and is destroying the rights of citizens in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and, most recently, Outer Mongolia. Despite the undeniable evidence that they are doing this, the CCP has been so effective in transforming society in its image that they can deny it entirely or, even worse, spin it into a positive action. Because of this, the CCP’s rule is secure. 

Although this Extemper cannot be faulted for being born into such a society, I wondered if I was at fault for not using my own freedom of knowledge to better educate him. Should I have dug my heels in and challenged his beliefs? Should I have shown him the evidence, and explained to him that his country of origin, everything he had grown up with was the result of a corrupt and dictatorial cult of personality who cared more about power and security than his own life? Would he have even believed me? I chose to leave it at back-pedaling, to save myself the trouble. Needless to say the conversation died after our brief confrontation, and the round started a few minutes later. I went on to the semifinal and final rounds of the tournament; he did not. As I walked into my final round of the tournament to give a speech about the rights of minorities in our own country, I thought about this Extemper, and the billions who were taught to believe the same things and wondered if Extemp was isolated because nobody chose to listen.