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Clip: Season 7 Episode 1 | 1m 59s | Video has closed captioning.
Anika, a novice member of the Newton South High School debate team, isn't afraid to stick to her particular style of debating. Her individuality together with talent, tenacity and an unmatched drive makes Anika a force to be reckon with at tournaments.
Aired: 03/06/23
(slow music) Are all of my judges ready?
Opponents?
Okay.
Anika and I negate resolved the United States should end its arm sales to Saudi Arabia.
Contention one is stopping starvation.
- They tell you that ending arm sales sends a signal that the U.S. cares about human rights abuses.
Three responses.
First, this concedes our third link to our case.
Their evidence talking about 20 million people getting killed by arm sales is talking about military coups and other things like that.
It doesn't actually talk about arms.
This is a really misconstrued piece of evidence, but third this...
I think debaters oftentimes fail to adapt to judges.
Go on to my point of second contention about Yemen.
The judge is just going to vote for who looks like a winner, so to speak.
Stereotypes have shown looking like a winner oftentimes isn't very feminine.
What's the warrant behind that?
- What's the warrant behind that?
- Are they of different sizes and, like, fit in different, like, you know?
Like, your evidence can tell me whatever it wants.
I'm asking you to explain the logic behind it to me.
- The logic.
The logic that I believe the evidence... - But I never really subscribed to the notion that I was supposed to be like somebody else.
You know, debate like somebody else.
You have to be successful in your own way.
Sure, but the people are hungry now.
You even tell me people are hungry right now, right?
- And they're still gonna be hungry because there's still going to be a blockade in either world.
- No.
- A lot of people would say, like, "I don't like your style of debate."
And I would be like, okay, I don't like your style of debate.
Like, I don't care.
I'm not gonna change my style of debate because you don't like it.
It doesn't matter if the Houthis are angry.
We shouldn't have to change or try to become someone else just to win.
I would say making Iran angry is more important than making the Houthis angry because you and the security umbrella you leaked more chemical and biological weapons.
That's really important because it leads to higher civilian casualties in the long term, making any type of conflict worse.
(audience applauds) (somber music)
