I am no beauty pageant queen; queen, yes; into beauty pageants, no. Unless, and here’s where I go all shallow and hypocritical-like, it was a male beauty pageant. That’s a horse of a different color, you know.
So, not being into beauty pageants—and not even the scholarship contest they pretend to be these days though what winning a scholarship has to do with evening gowns and bikinis, I do not know—I didn’t watch the Miss America pageant last weekend.
But I did hear the news the next morning that Miss New York, Nina Davuluri won, and became the first women of Indian descent to win the tile, and I thought that was a cool thing. I mean, Miss America is usually blond and has big teeth and comes from one of those square states in the middle, so this was kinda cool.
Until the asshats and the racists took to — what else? — Twitter to spew their particular brand of ignorance mixed with stupidity topped with racism and served with a side of xenophobia.
Upon receiving her title and a crown and flowers because that screams scholarship, Davuluri, who is studying to be a doctor, said:
“Everything happens for a reason. If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be. It’s a win-win just to be in it.”
And maybe that’s true; maybe it happened because we needed a dose of diversity training in this country, if what some folks felt about her win is any indication of where some of our heads are located. See, not all Americans are happy with the win, and some of those who were unhappy, took to social media to whine and complain, like an asshat by the name of Luke Brasili:
I guess he's saying that because she’s a dark-skinned woman of Indian descent—who, by the way was born in Syracuse, a city in one of the fifty states which Little Luke failed to realize—that she had something to do with 9/11. Or that it’s a dishonor to those who died twelve years ago to have an Indian-American wear a crown.
Aly Walansky, another moron with too much time on her hands and access to media, tweeted this:
I guess you’re only American if you come from Kansas, so screw off you other 49 states, you don’t belong here.
Toss into the mix one Todd Starnes, a Fox Radio host—wow, color me shocked—who thinks that:
I guess had Davuluri shot a deer onstage with her own gun, that would make her more American.
Then we have someone who calls themselves Adam of Eve, who Tweeted his blatant racism proudly:
Um, Adam of Eve? You delusional tool? The Miss America pageant has nothing to do with India, and, frankly, neither does Davuluri; just like I don’t qualify to represent Germany or Ireland because that’s my heritage. If you wanted a true, full on American to represent this country, then maybe we should close the competition to anyone who isn’t Native American, the only really true Americans here, since everyone else, including you, comes from somewhere else.
But, not all the Tweeters are ignorant morons; some of them had some fun with it, and so, let’s share a couple of those from Grand Old Parody and Questlove Jenkins:
See, that’s the issue. Nina Davuluri is an American born in America to parents who came here from India. She is not un-American because of her skin color or her name or her ethnicity and heritage.
For me, she’s more American than those morns with Twitter accounts.
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