2 Indian-Americans winning Spelling Bee draws racial comments

Washington As two youngsters of Indian descent spelled history by jointly winning the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee for a record seventh year in a row they also stirred storm of racially charged comments in the USSriram Hathwar 14 and Ansun Sujoe 13 created history by winning the competition the first time in 52 years that two participants have won the contest The two clinched the title after a thrilling final in which they almost exhausted the 25 designated wordsSriramHathwarR and Ansun Sujoe L hold their trophy at the end of the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee competition on Thursday PicAFPSujoe a 7th grader from Fort Worth Texas and Sriram the lone repeat finalist of Painted Post New York were declared cowinners after a gruelling duel in the final of a contest that attracted 281 spellers from eight countriesThis was the seventh consecutive year that IndianAmerican students have retained the spelling bee title a trend that was started by Sameer Mishra who won the contest in 2008The win by the two youngsters has however lead to some US audience making racial comments about how only Indians have been winning the spelling bee for some years nowIt was for the first time in more than 50 years two young wordsmiths were declared cochampions as the Washington Post notedHowever some on social media seemed more preoccupied with their heritage than their way with wordsAmong the tweets cited by the Post were Where are our American kidsAnd Nothing more American than a good spelling bee Oh wait all the Caucasians are eliminated Cale Pieczynski CalePieThe Post also cited other comments on social media arguing race has nothing do with where these spellers were bornwow that blows the spelling bee ends with a tie thats so friggin unAmerican no wonder the kids that won it are Indian tweeted Chris Uhl Jr from MassachusettsWait a minute Where is the diversity Why are there not women or nonAsian minorities winning Sounds racist to me a person commented on the Washington Post websiteAnother reader said How is it that foreigners who are new to America are able to win the spelling bee like this while another reader posted First they took our beauty queen title then they take our bee Whats next they take away our jobsA comment on Twitter by one Matt Marzullo said We need an american to win this spelling bee tiredofindiansmattAnother said The kids in the spelling bee should only be AMERICAN Another tweet said Shocking that neither of the Spelling bee champs have names that sound American Sriram AnsunJournalist Jeff Chu collected the tweets and commented Why did the tweets hit me hard I was a bee kid91 lost on rimur And I want those kids never to be asked Where are you really fromAnother commentator Ezra Klein tweeted Turns out spelling bees bring out a lot of racists httpbitly1kPI0n3so according to these geniuses only Caucasians are American when it comes to the spelling bee responded Nicole Forbes from Austin TexasJust because the face on the screen isnt white it doesnt make the spellingbee finalists any less American commented Rebecca HongOh come on What is so unamerican about them Not satisfied with their buttoned up T shirts and a bow tie tweeted amkereIn the name of diversity and political correctness dont whites deserve affirmative action such as a spell checker app on their cell phone NPR and ESPN cant object to its political correctness responded DelonglThere were some readers who said parents and families of IndianAmerican students encourage hard work and learning which leads to such students performing well as these competitionI find the comments here very interesting regarding how foreigners can win these contests It is so simple it amazes me that everyone doesnt recognise the answer The families of the winners value and encourage learning and hard work They dont spend their time blaming others for their problems a reader saidThis is exactly why US students are in many cases falling behind The parents do not value and encourage education and all the money and best teachers in the world are not going to educate someone who does not want to learn the reader said