14-year-old wins spelling bee after only 2 years of practice 04:06
Shalini Shankar is the author of Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z s New Path to Success and a professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at Northwestern University. The views expressed here are the author s. Read more opinion on CNN. (CNN)The National Spelling Bee, canceled in 2020 because of Covid-19, returned in 2021 with the live prime time finals on Thursday, July 8. This iconic American contest drew particular attention in 2019 because it ended in an eight-way tie.
The remarkable 14-year old Zaila Avant-garde is the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion. Living up to her surname, Avant-garde is the holder of three Guinness world records for basketball dribbling; she can add a fourth record to her name as the first Black American National Spelling Bee champion, and a fifth for being the first winner from Louisiana.
Beeline to diversity: Young speller blazes path
Shalini Shankar
Editor s note: When Zaila Avant-garde, 14, won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on July 8, she became the first Black American to win in the competition s history. Shalini Shankar, a scholar of spelling bees, breaks down the importance of this historical moment.
Q: Why is it news that an African American won this championship?
A: It s significant because not so long ago, Black children would have faced a lot of obstacles just to compete in this spelling bee.
In fact, Black children were routinely sidelined from participating on the national stage until well after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even after schools were ordered to racially integrate in the late 1950s, spelling bees were largely all-white affairs, thanks to regional organizers who routinely found ways to keep interested Black children from advancing in the contest.
Cal Thomas
By any standard, Zaila Avant-garde is a remarkable 14-year-old girl with a positive and compelling outlook on life.
Avant-garde (her father reportedly changed her surname from Heard in honor of jazz legend John Coltrane) recently won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the first African American to win the highly competitive spelling contest. She told reporters afterward that she studied 13,000 words a day. A DAY!
There are many lessons that should be learned from her remarkable achievement. Here are two of them:
Former President Barack Obama tweeted: Three Guinness World Records (related to her prowess at basketball dribbling) and now the national spelling bee champ! Congrats, Zaila your hard work is paying off. We re all proud of you.
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Cal Thomas: Zaila and the Bee
People who are tenacious, overcome obstacles and succeed used to be part of the American story, a story we were happy to share to encourage others. What happened to it? Why do we focus less on success and more on envying and penalizing the successful? Why is there the constant drumbeat in our politics and most of the media about the unsuccessful and the proposals by certain politicians to throw good money after bad on programs that have mostly not worked?
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Cal Thomas
By any standard, Zaila Avant-garde is a remarkable 14-year-old girl with a positive and compelling outlook on life.
Zaila s Black Girl Magic Is Not An A-N-O-M-A-L-Y: 5 Other Young Black Spelling Champs From The South - Blavity blavity.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from blavity.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.