On Sunday, the new Miss America was crowned. For the second year in a row the state of New York won the bragging rights of their representative winning the beauty and talent pageant. Nina Davuluri became the first contestant of Indian descent to win the title of Miss America. She also was the first contestant to ever perform Bollywood dancing during the “talent” portion of the competition. While the young beauty celebrated her victory with her tearful and beaming parents, vitriol began to spread via social media.
Here are some of the hateful comments written on Twitter following Davuluri’s victory:
“And the Arab wins Miss America. Classic.”
“How the fuck does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab! #idiots”
“I swear I’m not racist but this is America.”
“this is America. not India”
“9/11 was 4 days ago and she gets miss America?”
“#MissAmerica ummm wtf?! Have we forgotten 9/11?”
“Miss America right now or miss Al Qaeda?”
“Congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you.”
No, you unfortunately didn’t misread those idiotic comments. Many idiots equated her ethnicity to a direct link to AL-QAEDA! The stupidity and ignorance of people continues to dumfound and astound me. These comments are reminiscent to the backlash Sebastian de la Cruz received for singing at the NBA Finals in San Antonio, Texas.
Nina was born in this country. She is AMERICAN. I’m not sure how you can say she is a foreigner. Mind you even if she wasn’t born in this country, yet became a citizen she should still be considered an American. Nina, who from her interview this morning on GMA, seemed like an intelligent, young lady who worked her “behind off” to win the competition. Her ethnicity should be a non-factor.
The sad reality is that racism and prejudice still exist. Yes, we’ve made progress throughout the years. I’ve been blessed to have grown up in schools with a variety of ethnicities and cultures. To me, the color of one’s skin does not define one’s character. One’s actions define their character.
Last year, I posted how I believe racism has unfortunately been reincarnated through social media. I think these comments as well as the fury over Sebastian’s heritage only substantiate my claim. Besides the fact these comments are egregiously, idiotic there maintains another common denominator amongst the “haters.” They are cowards. They hide behind the internet to spew their hate.
What are your thoughts?
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @adrakontaidis & @talkrealdebate
Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-lot-of-people-are-very-upset-that-an-indian-american-woman
