The beautiful young lady in the picture above (from the website Forward Progressives) is Nina Davuluri, and she is the newly crowned Miss America. And if her being chosen has shown anything, it is that racism, bigotry, and idiocy are all alive and well in the United States. The internet has many instances of anger over her victory in the pageant.
She has been called an Arab (not true), a muslim (not true), and the inference has been made that she is not even an American (not true). Perhaps the stupidest comment of all was made by a Fox News Radio host, who said she doesn't "represent American values".
Let's be clear here. While Miss Davuluri has ancestors that came from another country (India), she is no different from almost all other Americans (who also have ancestors from another country). Unless you are 100% Native American, which very few Americans are, then you have ancestors that came here from another country. That is just a fact, and it makes no difference if those ancestors are one generation or many generations back.
Miss Davuluri was born in the United States, and raised in this country. That means she is just as American as anyone else in this country -- and since she is an American, her values are "American values". In fact, I think I would probably prefer her values to those of that Fox radio host -- since one of his values seems to be racism, while to our knowledge she has not exhibited any kind of bigotry.
This just shows once again that we are far from being in a "post-racial" period in this country. The election of President Obama did not do away with racism -- it just made the racists bolder, and they have now crawled back out from under their rocks to expose their perversions to decent people. And frankly, I'm getting damn sick of it. Race and color (or any other physical characteristics) have nothing to do with the quality, worth, or citizenship of any person -- and anyone who thinks it does is a bigot.
The days of "white privilege" are slowly dying out in this country -- and personally, the faster that happens the better. The idiotic perversions of racism and bigotry have already lasted too long. It is time for decent people to stand up and finish the job of stamping them out for good.
