"Come on Folks!..Spelling Bees dont follow the script for a Brave New America "
Posted on 06/11/2014 9:28:07 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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On television, the bee plays out as pure meritocracy. You spell the word correctly, you move on in the competition. No quibbling about home-field advantage, no refs making questionable calls. In this context, Indian Americans have been perfect winners, affirming the perception of them as model minorities. They are quiet politically, loud academically—characteristics ostensibly emanating from Asian cultural values. They are perceived as geeks, not only in the pejorative sense, but also as studious kids who represent the American ideal. Every time an Indian American wins, one more angel of America gets its wings.
Meritocracy and the existence of “model minorities” are seductive ideas because they suggest race doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Asian American success can be understood as the triumph of cultural values—hard work, family—over structural impediments such as race and class. In the bee especially, cheering for the Asian kid means cheering for a colorblind society.
Last year’s winner, Arvind Mahankali, was a media darling, before and after the bee. Mahankali had three previous top 10 finishes before he finally won. Some of the coverage on Mahankali was notable for not making mention of his race at all. When he appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN, the host, perhaps himself cognizant of how too often particular markers of identity tend to overdetermine other parts of one’s life, stuck mostly to spelling. Similarly, Grantland sent a writer to talk to Mahankali as he was working through the rounds of the bee. In the piece, Shane Ryan goes out of his way to show that the only different thing he notices about Mahankali is his remarkable devotion to words.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Rereading the article, I think the answer to my question is that non-whites succeeding suggests that America is not the racist society that liberals love to trash. So evidence of non-white success that is not attributable to government assistance (like racial quotas) needs to be belittled. I'm Indian-American. The author of the article is Indian but certainly does not speak for me.
“the answer to my question is that non-whites succeeding suggests that America is not the racist society that liberals love to trash.”
That is exactly the point. The left hates mainstream conservative America that looks at content of character, and ability, and not color of skin.
It is 100% in line with Biblical Christianity as well, and they hate that.
I’ve noticed there is a concerted push back effort to smoke screen the success of massive numbers of minorities.
I can see the left making up a new term to hide it called Non-Caucasian White so they can go around saying that whites have all the jobs and wealth etc...
If someone travels to this country from somewhere, anywhere- puts their nose to the grindstone, works hard and studies and keeps out of trouble, that’s America. You literally can be whatever you want to be using that formula, with a supportive and intact family. Unfortunately, we’re bussing in millions of people who just want free Doritos
Looking at the source article, I saw one feature of the contest that was of concern to me — the fellow who fainted on stage. I would not care if it was Indians from India or white hillbillies from Appalachia — too much pressure takes the joy out of it.
The spelling bee is not subjective, so you can’t just declare the black team the winner, like in a debate contest.
I am an American of Asian ascent. I am NOT a hyphenated anything................
The author also avoids a very large elephant in the room: many white spelling bee contenders are home-schooled. A disproportionately large number versus their peers, in fact.
Black student is asked to spell "pill."
White student is asked to spell "aspirin."
Asian-American student is asked to spell "acetylsalicylic."
I feel the same way, but “Indian-American” is more concise than writing “my parents came from India”. I don’t think it’s worth getting stuck on nomenclature.
Oh, groan!
The author is looking for racism through a microscope, and still not finding it. As long as everyone obeys the same rules, there is nothing wrong with Indians winning a disproportionate amount of bees. There is also nothing wrong with others noticing this and wondering why, and trying to do better, as long as the answer is not to tear the Indians down, but to raise others up.
I am a strange mixture of human DNA. People don’t readily know what ‘race’ I belong to, be they white, black or even Asian. I have been asked by many people what group I belong to. To make things even more difficult for them, I have a deep Southern accent because I was raised in rural Mississippi.
Just two days ago, our neighbor of 12 years from across the street, a Korean lady, asked my wife what I was.....................
The national spelling bee now has a vocabulary component.
Doesn’t surprise me. While I’m not sure that home-schooling is the only answer, public schools impart a pretty minimal amount of education to their pupils considering the amount of time they have with them. That’s especially so for gifted students, who from what I can tell are largely ignored by the school system with a “they’re smart - they’ll do OK without extra attention” attitude. Schools also spend too much time (IMO) trying to impart detailed information, which will be largely forgotten over time, to younger students, while spending far too much time in the higher grades teaching things that should have been well established much earlier.
True, it doesn’t really seem like a particularly good use of time, although I’m sure that in the process of studying for spelling bees these kids are learning a lot of related information which actually will be useful later (like Latin roots, and foreign languages). In any case, it’s no worse than a kid spending nearly every waking hour practising a sport which they most likely won’t ever even reach the college level in, never mind making a career out of it.
Well, how can this be? Minorities are not winning the spelling bees! This must be due to discrimination! Got to change the bees. Eliminate culturally biased words. No words like Autochthonous. Instead use words like ho, bling, da hood and crib.
That’ll even the obviously unfair playing field, and get more of those underprivileged oppressed minorities to win dat spelin be!
So, you’re an American, then.
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