There was a recent podcast (Snap Judgement, probably, or maybe it was the Moth) that had this story about two Asian kids who won their school spelling bee and went on to the next level. At some point one of the boys was given the word "oriental" with a judge sniggering that he should have no trouble with the word. …

Yup, yup. That was a mantra in my household growing up (I'm Black). "You can't be just as good as your friends. If you want to succeed you're going to have to hold yourself to a higher standard and be better."

It doesn't. Clearly. But if people are going to freak out about this kind of thing (which they shouldn't), they should realize that tilting the field doesn't actually improve their own accomplishments. Asking "why are they here?" instead of "why aren't we competing well?" probably tells us all we need to know about…

Seems like "focus on raising the supremacy of your kids" is damned good advice regardless... why does it only apply to putative "white supremacists"?

All the racism in the posts aside (That's appalling in and of itself) It REALLY bugs me when someone says "Now I don't mean to sound offensive". Horseshit.

Give it a few hours.

Well, you people can't even spell "color" or any word that ends in "ize" right, so clearly spelling isn't very important to you.

Sounds about right. I remember winning the school spelling bee and moving on to regionals (whatever it was called, the newspaper was sponsoring the next round), and remembering some of the students saying, "Of course the Indian won." Yep, good times. And I'm not even of Indian descent.

I think most of these Twitter threads explain exactly why there are very few white kids participating. Fucking idiots.

These people are complete idiots.

It's telling that their reaction is to pull high achieving kids of color out of competition with Euro-Americans instead of, oh you know, asking why Euro-American families aren't raising better competitors.

And, once again, Native Americans roll their fucking eyes so fucking hard, they run the risk of injuring themselves.

Where are our American kids?

They could always just go back to Europe if they don't like the spelling bees here.

These kids are not American? In other words, why aren't there many white males? I will tell you (you being the racist assholes making these stupid assertions) why. When white boys stopped being cuddled and was made to compete with everyone else equally they crashed and burned. That sounds like a fragile superiority…

WHOA, HOLD ON. Racists have heard of spelling?

These are likely the same people who would argue against affirmative action and for merit/achievement above all. They don't realize what they are arguing for here, and what they have always argued for, is white affirmative action.

Most white Americans feel this way. Word to "No, where are you REALLY from?"

In all fairness, when are racists not angry?

I was waiting for this.