What Privilege?

The Scripps National Spelling Bee finals was held last night.

Here are the nine finalists that qualified for the final round.

Source: https://spellingbee.com/meet-the-spellers?finalist_type=champ_finalist

What do you notice about them?

There was not a lot of white privilege in evidence on the stage last night.

It was the same eight years ago when I also wrote about the National Spelling Bee.

The same has been true in the Spelling Bee for most of the last 40 years.

We hear a lot that the deck is stacked against this group or that group in the United States.

Some argue that reparations, affirmative action or DEI programs are necessary to level the playing field.

How is it that so many children of Asian immigrants who came to this country where English was not even their native language can produce these kind of results in a national spelling bee in the United States?

In fact, 30 children of Indian immigrants in particular have won the national spelling bee over the last 40 years.

No affirmative action program or reparation payments put these students on that stage.

The affirmative action that got them to the top of their class was their own dedication and hard work.

Nothing more.

It should not be forgotten that the Japanese, Chinese, Indians and others from Asian countries have also had their share of being demeaned and discriminated against over the years in the United States.

However, it does not seem to be holding them back from succeeding today.

It should be a lesson for all to remember when considering the wisdom of DEI or affirmative action programs.

Could it be that purpose, preparation and perseverance are going to outweigh privilege every time?

Faizan Zaki won last night's spelling bee after being the runner-up last year.

The final word he spelled to win the competition....eclaircissement.

Can it be any clearer than this?

Spelling It Out

(originally published June , 2017)

Do you recognize any of these names?

Ananya Vinay
Rohan Rajeev
Mira Dedhia
Shourav Dasari
Raksheet Kota
Tejas Muthusamy

Do you have a guess at what ties them all together?

These are not typical names you hear in the United States of America.

However, all of these people live in the United States. 

In fact, they all are going to school in the United States.

These are the names of the six finalists in the recently concluded 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

They are all immigrants or children of immigrants.

English was likely not the native language of their parents. However, these are the six best spellers of English words in American schools.

It goes beyond the top six as well. Here are the names and pictures of the 15 finalists.

Ananya Vinay, the 2017 winner, is of Indian heritage as are the winners from the last ten years.

We hear people throw around the term "white privilege" and statements like the "deck is stacked" against minorities and immigrants in this country. We hear that the color of your skin defines you and makes it hard to succeed in America.

These students did not listen. They dedicated themselves and worked hard. They did not allow anything to define them other than their results.

I would guess that they also had supportive parents who encouraged their hard work. They did not tell them that the system was stacked against them. They told them that in America you could achieve anything you set your mind to.

The reality of America is that a great deal of success has resulted from those who had something to prove. Often times it was those of ethic, religious or national origins who were considered on the fringes or were discriminated against. These people believed they had something to prove, to themselves and others. Often times these were the children of immigrants who pushed their children to realize the American Dream.

Take a look at this graphic that shows the composition of the U.S. Math and Physics Olympiad teams and the College Putnam Math winners over time. The mix of who are the high achievers has changed over the years. A couple of groups have dominated relative to their share of the population.

It used to be that these awards were dominated by Jewish students. My guess is that many of these students were also children of recent immigrants.

Today these awards are dominated by Asian students, much like the Spelling Bee is, although Asian-Americans only make up about 5% of the U.S. population.

Consider the most recent numbers this decade. Asian-American students have made up 81% of the Physics and 72% of the Math Olympiad Teams for the U.S. 50% of College Putnam Math winners are Asian-American.

These results and The National Spelling Bee finalists shows that preparation, practice, perseverance and parents can make a huge difference in achieving success.

The finalists in the National Spelling Bee should be an inspiration to us all that the American Dream is still alive for those who want to work for it.

It can't be spelled out any better than that.

Postscript:

Here are the winners of the National Spelling Bee between the time I wrote that blog post and the winner last night.

Note that there was no contest in 2020 due to Covid and multiple winners were crowned in 2019.

The word at the far left is the competition end word that the winner (s) spelled correctly

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee_champions