How do you spell “domination?” D-E-S-I.
There’s a fast-growing trend in the world of sports that many people are ignoring. You may have noticed it, and not given it much thought, so I’m gonna put it out there right now.
South Asians dominate the world of competitive spelling.
You may have heard that 13 year-old Kavya Shivashankar (representing Kansas. Word?) recently won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, an annual gathering of the best young spellers in the nation. What you likely did not hear is that desis have been winning this thing on the regular for years. After doing a rudimentary scanning of their names, it seems that 7 of this year’s 11 finalists are of South Asian descent: Ramya Auroprem, Aishwarya Pastapur, Kavya Shivashankar, Sidharth Chand, Tussah Heera, Neetu Chandak, and Anamika Veeramani.
Glancing back through the annals, it looks like brown folks have been coming out on top for years – including this year, 5 of the last 8 champions appear (again, based on name) to be South Asian. And of course, the biggest star in Scripps history is Samir Patel (aka the Dan Marino of Spelling), who has never won, but placed 3rd when he was the most adorable 9 year-old ever. (He also placed 2nd two years later, but wasn’t as cute by then.)
ESPN may soon be doing articles about “the disappearing white American speller” – just like they did about the NBA last year.
But yall need to accept it America! Someone is better at your language than you are!
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I didn’t know “Americans” owned the English language and wait, isn’t she an American?
Oh, right, she’s not German American or Italian American, or Jewish American.
But what do I know, I’m just a stinking Canadian.
Fuck claiming “American” – how you like that?
i’m not sure if you’re being cute or sarcastic Eugene.
either way, to expound on my above comment:
if she wants to go around claiming some colorblind “we’re all Americans” shit, then that’s her prerogative. if she wants to say “I’m just another American just like you” then fuck it fine. that’s what we’re “supposed” to do – according to good government, school, and media. if anyone wants to do that, then that’s fine – but in order for it to have any truth, history would have to have never occurred.
so again, fuck claiming the phrase “American” – in this country, i actively and wholly disassociate from the word.
the phrases “America” or “American” are not simple representations of dictionary-able definitions. they represent philosophy and attitude as much as country or national origin. you can’t separate a word from its popularly-understood definition and rely only on its official definition. Nor can you exactly do the opposite.
So do Americans own the English language? Yes; for the point I’m trying to make – they absolutely do. Are brown people – or for that matter anyone non-white – Americans? As far as I am concerned, no absolutely not.
I was being sarcastic.
She’s probably not viewed as American. And, maybe it is better that way. Maybe trying to get recognized as American isn’t worth it anyway.
I like that sentiment G.