If you’re not angry about racism, you’re part of the problem

I didn’t watch Sunday night’s Miss America pageant.

I was caught in a loop somewhere between Breaking Bad, Sunday night football and baseball. Actually, I didn’t even know it was on. I only learned of it when the pageant made national news Monday morning—and not exactly for the right reasons.

 

Browsing CNN.com, I learned that 24-year-old Nina Davuluri had become the first Indian-American Miss America. She is also the second consecutive Miss New York to take the title. Oh cool, I thought, while slightly bummed that my home state of New Hampshire is still shut out (next year!).

And that’s where my attention would have faded, at least until next year, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the main focus of the CNN article was the racist comments that sprung up immediately in the wake of Davuluri’s victory.

The remarks range in flavor from ignorant and almost laughable to hateful and accusatory. Here’s a sampling:

“How does a foreigner win miss America? She is a [sic] Arab #idiots.”

“Miss America right now or miss Al Qaeda.” (Davu- luri is not even Muslim, but that’s beside the point.)

“If you’re #Miss America you should have to be American.”

“WHEN WILL A WHITE WOMAN WIN #MISSAMERICA? Ever??!!”

Apparently that last commenter missed the outgoing winner Mallory Hagan, a white woman, handing off the crown. It’d be one thing if the comments came solely from ignorant trolls cloaked in anonymity. But even public figures felt comfortable speaking out. FOX News commentator Todd Starnes tweeted, “The liberal Miss America judges won’t say this, but Miss Kansas lost because she actually represented American values.”

Their comments disgusted me, and I shared the news story with my mother, expecting her to have a similar response.

I was in for a shock, because instead, she replied, “Well, they do have a point. It’s sad to say, but in our politically correct day and age when someone like this wins, you’re forced to ask if she won because she was the best contestant or because she was diverse.”

This comment isn’t fueled by the same level of vitriol that others are fueled by. Rather, it is thoughtfully reasoned—and I argue that that makes it all the scarier. My mother was as ignorant about the pageant as I was. She had no particular other contestant who she had been rooting for, who she felt was the best pick and was unfairly robbed.

I do not mean to argue that no one has ever unfairly won anything for the sake of “political correctness.” Such extremes are generally not the case. I am horrified though that my mother’s sympathies—and those of others— should immediately lie with Miss Davuluri’s detractors.

We have the right to free speech. We also have the right to call out bogus and ignorant speech when we see it. Stop making excuses for people who are just plain wrong. Such comments aren’t funny. And I’m not laughing.

Davuluri attended the University of Michigan, where she was on the Dean’s List and earned the Michigan Merit Award and recognition from the National Honor Society.

She graduated with a degree in brain behavior and cognitive science. Her father, who emigrated from India 30 years ago, is a gynecologist. Davuluri also wishes to become a physician and plans on using the monetary prize from the Miss America competition to attend medical school. She performed classical Indian dances fused with Bollywood influences for the competition’s talent portion and is passionate about encouraging healthy lifestyles after battling both obesity and bulimia.

Questioning Davuluri’s legitimacy does not just do a disservice to other young Indian-American girls who look up to her. It poisons all semblances of basic goodwill. Do you have your job because they felt it was a time for a woman? Is that

board member only there because they felt they needed at least one person who wasn’t white? Behind these comments lurks the hidden, prejudicial notion that such a person couldn’t have made it on his or her own merit. There has to be a reason

that woman was elected other than her own worth alone. Again, I’m not saying this never happens, and the point of this article goes beyond the superficial mes- sage, “racist, ignorant tweets are bad.” My point is that it’s time to stop trying to defend these people. To stop grasping at straws to try to find an ounce of wisdom in the purely ignorant. To never lower ourselves to their standard simply because we do not want to notice what

such opinions say about our society. Let’s use due diligence and find out more about Miss

Davuluri other than just her name before we question the legitimacy of her victory. If you’re not angry yet, you’re part of the problem. Davuluri graciously dismissed the haters, saying, “I have to rise above that. I always viewed myself as first and foremost American.”