First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Miss America pageant in my life (unless you count the one in the Miss Congeniality movie), but as I’m scrolling through my Facebook timeline, one of my friends posted an article about racism in this year’s contest. Apparently some people in the twitter world aren’t too happy about Nina Davuluri, the Miss America winner (who was born in New York) being of Indian descent, making foreigner and terrorist comments regarding her in the wake of her victory. I’m not gonna go into detail because I try to avoid spreading negative energy, but you can believe it’s ignorance at best (stupidity at worst). We learn in elementary school that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen by birth right (last time I checked, New York was in the U.S.) so this makes her as qualified as any other contestant.
Now, at first I wasn’t going to post about this, but I see too much message in the mess of it all. Here we have a young lady, who represents her culture and heritage standing in front of millions to be judged, criticized, and bullied for the culture that raised her, giving America an excuse to show it’s ugly side, and what does she do? She wins the pageant and snuffs the haters. This may be a big deal to Nina Davuluri, but it means even more to a little girl who is bullied for being different to see someone as different as she is overcome the bullying to represent America in a display of beauty, and use her winnings to fund her studies to become a doctor... because she sees that it can be done. The same applies to you. No matter what obstacles come in your path on your journey to achieving your dream, don't stop pushing. It means the world to somebody else.
