Episode Transcript
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Lyle Wiley (00:09):
Well, hey, campers,
you've stumbled upon day four of
Camp One Clap 2, theClapocalypse.
I'm your camp director and hostof the One Clap Speech and
Debate podcast, lyle Wiley.
I hope everyone is ready tostand up to your fears and speak
with authority, your passionsand perspective this year in
speech and debate.
Quick reminder check the OneClap Socials for today's social
(00:29):
media challenge.
Yesterday we had a whole lot offun posts with songs and albums
that I'm totally going to checkout for my own Clapocalypse
playlist.
Thanks to everyone who's beenparticipating in the social
media challenges.
There's a new one, so check itout.
Today we're lucky to have coachIzzy Garcia back with a new
series for camp.
Let's learn a little bit moreabout Izzy.
First, cheyenne South assistantcoach Izzy Garcia cares about
(00:54):
delivering the best Camp OneClap experience and wants to
provide perspective and thoughtsabout advocacy and speech and
debate.
National qualifier in originaloratory, performer in duo drama,
poi and poetry, a newly turnedcoach, izzy is determined to not
only keep you safe in theclapocalypse, but he also wants
to ignite thinking in the massesabout all things speech and
(01:15):
debate.
Advocacy.
Education and advocacy in theworld of speech and debate is
paramount and izzy is here tohelp.
It's time for Izzy's Activist'sGuide to the Clapocalypse, part
1, platforms in Platform.
Izzy Garcia (01:31):
Hello, my name is
Izzy Garcia.
If you remember me, I was thatvery poorly motivational, always
educational camp counselor fromCamp One Clap.
Last year Mr Wiley brought meback to help you guys survive
the CLAPocalypse.
This year I wanted to dosomething a little different.
Now more than ever in our world, we see speech and debate as a
focal point for advocacy andchange in our schools and in our
(01:54):
societies.
Most people have always takenspeech and debate as a fun
weekend with friends eatingcheap pizza and performing to
our best abilities.
Last year I talked in-depth onhow to prepare for those
performances.
This year I want to talk aboutwhy we do these performances.
Welcome to Izzy's ActivistGuide to the Clapocalypse.
That's right.
(02:16):
I'm taking my short segmenthere during the Clapocalypse to
talk to you about the importanceof our voices in this event and
how we can take that into thefuture.
Don't worry, there will stillbe a very educational episode on
Poi this year that you don'twant to miss out on.
But right now we're going tostart our journey talking about
platforms and platform See, Isaid the title.
(02:37):
During the informative finalround at the NSDA National
Tournament this year, we saw avariety of powerful messages
that tackled a range of topicsthe importance of play, the
current state of air quality inour world but the one that stuck
out to me was drag theimportance and history around
female impersonation.
While this trans individualexplained the history of drag
(03:00):
and where it is today, there wasa moment in the speech where
she addressed that the currentstates of drag critique and,
more importantly, the downrightbanning of drag altogether
targets individuals who aretrans as well.
It was honestly one of the mostpowerful speeches of the night,
one that was personal to thespeaker and hit a lot of folks
in the heart that were sittingin the audience.
The only thing that was on mymind in the moment was noting
(03:24):
how young this individual wasand how important their voice
was at that moment.
This is the power of speech anddebate.
Right now, speech and debate inits current form allows for
activism in a way that is uniqueto other forms of activism.
During this episode, we'regoing to talk about the shift of
inclusion, diversity and equityin the NSDA, talk about the
(03:44):
shift of advocacy in both OO andinformative, before finally
leaving with some generalreminders on how to be a good
advocate in the platform world.
Let's talk about generally theculture shift that we saw when
it comes to equity in the speechand debate sphere.
As NSDA, through the early 2010s, gained more and more traction,
(04:06):
there was the issue of where domarginalized communities fit in
the world of speech and debate?
When looking back at thecomplete timeline listed on the
NSDA website, we see that in2014, Dr Tommy Lindsey was the
first to push an iteration ofthe Coaches Caucuses,
establishing the first AfricanAmerican caucus in order to
address issues that AfricanAmerican coaches and their
(04:29):
performers were facing in theorganization.
During the 2016 and 2017 schoolyear, the board of directors at
NSDA came up with a five-yearplan to bring more students into
the event.
They were going to achieve thisby supporting more schools
striving for inclusiveparticipation and earning
loyalty amongst the community.
(04:49):
In order to make the spacebigger and more inclusive, this
five-year plan was introduced.
Around the same time, morediverse coaching caucuses were
established.
Women, lgbt+, gendernonconforming and Hispanic
caucuses were introduced tocreate spaces for coaches who
needed more representation andcommunity with their specific
(05:10):
identity in the NSDA.
More and more people werewanting more representation in
performing and coaching spacesand it seems that the NSDA was
more than willing to make sureeveryone felt involved.
In 2017 and 2018, we saw theNSDA start to be more
transparent about thecommitments to equity Releasing.
(05:31):
Every year since 2017, the NSDAreleased equity statements and
goals that they wanted toachieve for that year.
Some of these commitments werecelebrating diversity and
inclusion and promoting safespaces for marginalized
communities.
Each year since, the NSDA haspushed for certain commitments
in order to make everyone feelincluded.
This shift of inclusion has notonly helped support the
(05:55):
behind-the-scenes support at thetournaments, but has also
changed the way we perform ingeneral.
Now let's shift into how theworld of platform has evolved
with this culture shift.
In the 2016 and 2017 schoolyear, both Informative Speaking
and Program Oral Interp wereadded as main events to the NSDA
roster.
These two events havefundamentally changed the idea
(06:16):
of activism in the world ofperformance.
Before we get too further intoinformative, we had original
oratory for a very long time.
Oo was the original persuasionevent to get an audience
assembled around an issue thatmatters to the speaker.
There has been a lot ofcriticism about OO, mainly
stating that OO is the eventwhere we shower real problems
(06:40):
with reckless optimism.
Essentially, the topics thatwere introduced in the event
prior to Informative'sintroduction were topics that
were frequently talked about orsaid on the line between talking
about an important issue orbeing purely motivational.
About an important issue orbeing purely motivational I was
a very successful oratoryspeaker and performing in the
(07:01):
time where OO was really on thatline of motivation.
I did also fall victim to thetypical motivational speech.
My speech was called PicturePerfect, essentially talking
about the underdog, the need forperfection and telling people
that, despite societalexpectations, you should believe
in yourself.
And yes, I did qualify withthat speech.
(07:21):
However, I do want to say thatoratory was always about
persuading, but the method topersuade was always different,
district to district, tournamentto tournament.
We saw a new way a speakerwould try to convince an
audience to care about theirtopic.
A lot of it would be statementslike you should believe in this
(07:43):
or we need to take action nowwith vague plans on how to
actually reach those steps.
The example that I want to bringup here today is a OO finalist
in 2014, lexi Harvey.
With her OO I'm Too Busy toMake a Title.
She talks about the reality anddehumanization around being
busy, having too much on yourplate and how it could
(08:05):
fundamentally lead to personalhealth issues and, more
importantly, societaldevastation.
I recommend you watching it.
She is a great speaker and doeshave some amazing points, and
what I'm about to say is not acritique on her or her speech.
She can honestly perform meunder the table.
However, one of her firstsolutions to this problem was a
(08:26):
concept known as downshiftingDon't answer your emails after a
certain time, rest, leave yourroom dirty.
This is the shift of lettingthings go and knowing that the
world will change around youVery profound in a work-centric
environment.
A major point in the call toaction was some advice about
deep rest and making sure thatyou're in tune with what is
(08:48):
happening around you.
In a way, it almost mirrored alot of the oratories that were
exposed to me at the time.
While there was more impact, forsure, a lot of this speech
boiled down to motivation andadvocating for oneself.
Before I go any further, let mesay this one way to do advocacy
(09:08):
.
I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is we need tolook at the difference between
evolution of advocacy then andevolution of advocacy now.
Something has shifted from thismethod to what we see now.
After the introduction ofInformative, we saw call to
actions revolutionized in speechand debate.
Oo and Informative, especiallyafter Informative's introduction
(09:31):
, brought the new normal on howto become more of an advocate in
these platforms.
Now, the whole reason why Iwanted to talk about advocacy in
speech and debate was for thisreason alone.
At this year's Nationals, inoriginal oratory, solomay
Skimironi, with her speech If itBleeds, it Leads, conducted her
own personal study about theattitudes around trauma in
(09:54):
speech and debate, somethingthat I'll be touching on in the
second episode.
On top of her own personalstudy, she also called out the
NSDA and its members about thetraumas that we perform and how
it could hurt advocacy.
This is a fundamental shift inwhat we talk about on the
national stage.
The shift of conversationcontinued.
(10:14):
The entire round.
Topics such as bad faithpolicies, controversy, public
humiliation all hit the nationalstage and made us reflect on
what we do with our voices andhow we can make this world a
little bit more tolerable.
This wasn't something that wasdone overnight.
More tolerable this wasn'tsomething that was done
overnight as time to move on.
(10:34):
Our world has moved on.
2014 was a very different timefrom where we are here in 2024.
Politics have changed,societies have changed.
How we performed has changed.
Now we have to go into platformwith more of an agenda.
I'm not discouraging you to talkabout fairly motivational
topics, but what I'm saying iswe need to have a little bit
(10:55):
more meat on the table.
Why are we talking about thistopic now?
What makes this topic stand outfrom the rest of the crowd?
No longer can we throw generalmotivational statements or
copy-paste someone's speech fromyears ago.
We need more Platform, as anevent category is the truest
(11:15):
form of speech.
It is a written and memorizedevent that brings attention to
something in this world.
There was this piece of advicethat I got from my former coach
a couple years ago.
You have the unique position tostand there and talk for
roughly 10 minutes aboutanything you want in the world.
(11:36):
Make it count.
The point that I want you totake home with you today after
listening to this episode isunderstanding that there is
something you need to care aboutin this world, and if you're
doing these events, what youtalk about needs to matter to
you too.
I know this is the most obvioustakeaway.
(11:56):
I know that you may think youhave this cheat code figured out
, but there's a reason I'msaying this At this point.
In my coaching and performingcareer, I have heard so many
speeches that talk about veryimportant issues but didn't do
well because there wasn't anyheart behind the speech.
Sadly, there are people whotake these events and do them
(12:19):
because they're good speakersand they can get the points
associated with it.
It is my personal belief thatthose performers will never find
the success of these eventsbecause of that.
More importantly, they're doinga disservice to the events by
performing just for points, justbecause it's another event to
be entered in.
Platform is the category thatcalls out institutions that are
(12:43):
oppressive and dehumanizing, andwe need the voices that want to
talk about these issues andthese events.
So please, if you're consideringan OO or an informative speech,
take the time to sit withyourself and ensure that you are
passionate and willing to takethis speech to the national
stage.
It matters Whoa.
(13:04):
I know that was a verydifferent approach to the
survival guide, but I think it'stime for us to talk about the
importance of our voices.
We are in this event for areason, and, while we all have
our unique motivations to stayin these events, it should be
noted that what we do with ourvoice matters.
I want to thank you for tuningin to the first episode of
(13:25):
Izzy's Activist Guide to theClapocalypse.
In a world full of loud voices,yours is important, to make
sure to use it Well.
Just a casual reminder to wateryour goldfish today and, as
always, stay awesome.
Lyle Wiley (13:40):
Hey, thank you so
much to Izzy for your thoughts
on advocacy and speech anddebate.
Don't miss Izzy's part twoperforming advocacy a week from
today, so next Sunday.
What's going on in theclapocalypse tomorrow?
Well, I have another greatinterview with Cheyenne central
coach, whitney Brooks, thatyou're not going to want to miss
.
Also, uh, don't forget thosesocial media challenges are live
(14:03):
for every day that we have campthis month, and today I'm
hoping to get some spookyreading recommendations from
everyone.
So please keep engaging.
It's been great to have allthis engagement.
Well, we'll see you tomorrow.
Campers, if you get a chance,you should totally befriend a
bat here in the Clapocalypse.
I mean, they're always game tojust hang out with the crew.
Get it?
(14:24):
Yeah, oh yeah.
So for Camp One Clap.
This is Camp Director Wileysigning off.