Miss America: American Dream Realized

Photo courtesy of AP.

Nina Davuluri was crowned "Miss America" last night, the first Indian-American to hold the storied title. Immediately following the crowning, Twitter exploded with racial slurs, including calling Davuluri "Princess Jasmine," "Muslim," and "al-Qaeda." The caption "This is what a REAL Miss America looks like" was put next to Miss Kansas's photo, a bombshell blonde in her Army fatigues. One twit tweeted, "Only in America can #MissAmerica not 'look American.' #GodBlessAmerica."

Before I get to the obvious smack-down of stupid, here are a few tidbits you should know about the new Miss America:
1. She was born in Syracuse, New York. She is American-born, just like everyone else in that competition.
2. She is not Muslim.
3. India doesn't have any al-Qaeda ties. Neither does Miss America.

Now. One of the tweeting haters has the last name "Clearkin." What is the origin of that name? Irish? Another one of the tweets came from someone with the last name of "Priest." English. Another was "Dague." French. Unless you are of Native American descent, your ancestors came to the United States and you hail their success as "the American Dream." You tout your family's business ventures and climbing of the societal ladder as coming out of our "melting pot" of a country. You see yourself as a third-, fourth-, or fifth- generation "American." Do you think your grandparents or great-grandparents should have been treated as American, even if they were immigrants or children of immigrants? Of course you do!

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Miss America Nina Davuluri is the daughter of immigrants. Her family is the epitome of the traditional American Dream! Unless you don't count brown people coming to America to have a better life as the American Dream. I mean, come on, our country is white, right? We are the Americans. Yeah, I guess our ancestors were English and Irish and German, but hey, we are American. Because we are white. And brown people weren't included in the "traditional American Dream." Because they worked for us, the white Americans. And when did brown and yellow people get to start coming here and taking our dream anyway? This is still white America. A melting pot of WHITE.

I really hope you can see how full of crap that previous paragraph is. Any of you who say that Nina Davuluri doesn't deserve to be Miss America because she's "not American enough" need to stop talking or tweeting or whatever it is that you do to perpetuate racism. The fact that this Miss America did a traditional folk dance for her talent and won is amazing! She's embracing her heritage at an iconic American event and being rewarded for it--that is the American Dream.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi