Racist, ignorant attacks against new Ms. America without warrant
For those who may be unaware, the annual Miss America pageant took place this past week and Miss New York, Nina Davuluri, won the title. She is the first ever Indian-American to win in the history of the pageant.
Davuluri grew up in Fayatteville, N.Y. and went on to graduate from the University of Michigan, where she joined the National Honor Society and won the Michigan Merit Award. Davuluri was inspired to become a physician by her father, who works as a gynecologist in New York after moving here from India 30 years ago.
As Miss America, she will serve as a spokeswoman forSTEM-related industries (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in front of the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and, as a nation, we should be proud to have such an intelligent, beautiful and driven woman to represent us. However, the reaction on Twitter and other social media outlets in regards to Davuluri winning the title stray far from being supportive.
Twitter feeds were overwhelmed with racist remarks towards the crowning of an Indian-American as Miss America with references made to 9/11, terrorism, Arabs and many other misconstrued stereotypes that our country can not seem to shake.
First, there were the people who said because Davuluri is of Indian-American descent, she must be a terrorist. Twitter users showed their disgust and ill-guided contempt for the crowning of an Indian woman so close to 9/11, as if to suggest that Davuluri herself or all Indian-Americans were the ones responsible for the tragic events that occurred on that day. What these individuals actually demonstrated was their complete ignorance, because there is absolutely no foundation for that comparison.
Other people decided to use the stereotype of Indians working at gas stations. One tweet saidd, “only reason she won was bc her people said they would lower gas prices.” If they had listened to anything about Davuluri besides her heritage, they would realize that she has established herself as an award-winning academic with the capability to do more for our nation than any of them. The need for people to attempt to strip a deserving woman of her earned title due to a generalization that Indians can not be anything other than gas station attendees is truly sad.
While Americans love to harp on the unity of our nation, instances such as this display how disfigured that image is. While there were many, such as myself, who were disgusted and retaliated against such racist remarks, the issue is that we still can see such a magnitude of public discriminatory outbursts at all. Davuluri was born and raised in America, making her equally as deserving of the opportunity to wear the title as any of the people refuting it.