Originally published at: 14-year-old from New Orleans first black youngster to win national spelling bee | Boing Boing
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Oh, but that’s not all
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I love her name. Also, I bet there are people who couldn’t spell it! 
Also… WTF, the first Black American to win it! I mean, I’m not surprised, but I’m annoyed. Why does this shit take so long?
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Super-Hero name to boot, so happy for her!
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From the history it seems there were are couple of black kids who were not permitted to win, or at least severely hampered through rules lawyering and jim crow nonsense.
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I’d like to think that white supremacists are grinding their teeth over this but, judging from the comments they post on social media, spelling is something they seem to have given up on years ago.
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For her winning word ‘murraya’, she asked the judges “Does this word contain the English name Murray, which could be the name of a comedian?”
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It is truly pathological that, with any event in the news, we (are forced to) consider:
how will the deranged right-wing construe this, and what will be their reaction?
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Something like this, I imagine.
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Funny, but I wouldn’t for one second ascribe right wing lunacy onto Letterkenny. Such would be a travesty of a beautiful thing.
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Forgive me, but I have to wonder how someone acquires the surname Avant-garde.
I mean, I can theorise, but even so - that’s a weird choice.
(And of course, I can be in before anyone else says, ‘her win certainly places her way ahead of the rest of them’.)
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People from Harvey?
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Maybe the G in Garde should be capitalized. And so, maybe that surname is a double-barrelled surname; some generations ago, maybe someone in the Avant family married someone in the Garde family, forming the Avant-Garde family.
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But it is not. And this multi-skilled girl is very clearly in the vanguard of something, so it fits.
I would love to know the origin story, nonetheless.
Maybe one of her ancestors was a literally a van guard on the railway. 
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Her father changed her name from “Heard” to “Avant-garde” because of John Coltrane 
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Don Cherry just gets no respect…
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Why are so many white people so very fragile…
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Nonetheless, respect. A long time coming.
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I don’t think white supremacists are likely to follow any contest that involves intellect. If they did, they probably would have already complained about the fact that there have been very few white National Spelling Bee champs over the past twenty years.
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