I have no idea the event you’re talking about, but let’s look at some possible explanations: - the rise of CTR in our public schools and the idea that standardized tests are racist could theoretically extend to a spelling bee including “diverse” words like those from the AAVE lexicon - while it is true that Africa has some of the lowest average IQs on the planet, that does not mean that nobody of African extraction is intelligent. Just that genius-level IQs are more rare among that population. Too, recent immigration tends to favor the high intelligence group. - American blacks have an average higher IQ than Africans. This could be because of environment or the fact that African Americans tend to have Europeans ancestors as well. - it could be cheating, but I don’t know how one cheats at a spelling bee. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s just an IQ outlier. IQ really only matters in large groups because in large groups, people’s behavior tends to devolve to the lowest common intelligence denominator. Africa is fucked because no matter how many people there might be highly intelligent, they are in a distinct minority in societies that evolved without the driving need for innovation as a tool of survival. It wouldn’t surprise me if high intelligence is selected *out* of hunter-gatherer populations. But regardless, that’s a pretty hard cultural current to swim against.