Imagine that you have just been crowned Miss America. The feeling is pretty great, right? Well not if you're an Indian American - based on our current society. For the first time in pageant history, the new Miss America is neither white, African American, or Latin. This should be something new and exciting to celebrate in our society, but instead it's something that has caused a flood of racism comments.
On Sunday night, after Nina Davuluri was pronounced Miss America, the social media world went ballistic. The hashtag #missamerica remained the worldwide top trending topic for the whole night following on until the day after. People were tweeting such things relating to Al-Qaeda like "Congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you." - @Blayne_MkltRai. Targeting a more cultural aspect, one person tweeted: “Miss America? You mean Miss 7-11.” - @JPLman95.
Most of the racism comments put on social media targeted Nina as if she was a Muslim. Comments relating to Al-Qaeda and 9-11 just goes to show how completely and utterly ignorant people can really be. Nina isn't a Muslim. The fact that Nina's dark skin and hair automatically categorized her as a terrorist worries me for the future of our society. Even if Nina was a Muslim, it is not right to generalize a person to a specific organization based on their religion or race.
Lets not forget the fact that Miss America is a BEAUTY pageant. Contestants go on this show so that they can prove to America they are beautiful inside and out. There is obviously something in Nina that the judges saw as beautiful and that could benefit to our society. People who are making these derogatory comments against her fail to see the beauty in her and just go right to the physical aspect. The insensitive racist reactions toward Nina portrays the inability of Americans to accept the fact that there are other types of beauty out there that are less Vanilla and more culture based.
