If you haven’t heard in the last twelve hours or so, Miss America 2014 has been crowned and once again she is from New York. All should be well and good but if we know anything about Miss America, it is nothing without controversy.
No, this time a contestant did not famously flub the question and answer portion. This time the controversy is surrounding the winner, a young woman from Syracuse, NY. To get to the point, many people just feel that she should not have one for simple reasons.
First thing is first, Miss Kansas, Theresa Vail, did not win and people are very upset. They are upset because she is all American blonde girl next door. She also happens to have served in the military. Obviously she is a “real” American. Let me make this perfectly clear, I am not insinuating in any way that Vail is not a real American. I’m merely pointing out that such a differentiation between her and the winner is ridiculous.
Miss Kansas lost, as I have said, to Miss New York, Nina Davuluri. Davuluri is of Indian descent. Clearly this makes her much less American than the other contestants. Makes sense, right?
Maybe this outrage is because of xenophobia. Perhaps it’s in part due to adulation of Miss Kansas. If you ask me, sheer stupidity is the reason for all of this. Stupidity and hate, I should say.
As usual Twitter is the culprit for most of the flack that Miss America 2014 has been getting. Angry tweets about the Arab winner are saturated with notions that she is a terrorist and not American. Because being non-white makes her immediately foreign.
Let me just say that Hindu is the primary religion of India, for one. Not that this should matter. Also, let me stress that Arabs aren’t all terrorists. And here’s the big elephant in the room, well bigger than the others. Just like all of us, Nina Davuluri, is American.
How can I say such a thing?!?! I know, it’s practically blasphemy. The sad truth is that America, as a country, is founded by immigrants; in fact, Europeans came to this country illegally. Oh, and they just so happened to kill off a huge portion of the native populations, no big deal.
So before your stupidity and idiotic xenophobia destroy what should be a great day for our new Miss America, check out a history book or go to school. I’m doing this for you. It hurts my soul when I see people blatantly look like fools. It’s not a good look.
In case anyone is interested, here’s a Buzzfeed article detailing the many dumb tweets people were posting last night.
GOOD BUSINESS 