Campus Carrier Editorial Board

Beauty pageants are not typically what someone waits a whole year to watch, but they are usually entertaining and amusing to say the least. As many of you know, the Miss America beauty pageant this year was held on Sept. 14. Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America 2014. What’s so special about this year compared to any other year? Davuluri is the first woman of Indian descent to win.

The issue is that people think that being Caucasian and American are synonymous. Another big issue is that those people are wrong, and not all of them know it. There have been multiple negative comments made about Miss America 2014. People became more concerned with her race rather than her overall performance in the pageant. The racism is more than appalling, it is an issue like this that reminds us that racism still exists and we have to do our best to speak up to defeat it.

Finding a solution to stop racist and hateful remarks is more difficult than it sounds. Racism is never okay, but what’s worse is when we accidentally glorify the people who made the racist remarks by republishing their nasty statements. When we do this, we end up doing exactly what those people want us to do. It then makes more of a story for them when it shouldn’t be.

In response to all of the offensive remarks, Davuluri said, “I have to rise above that. I always viewed myself as first and foremost American.” The story here should not be the hateful things that ignorant people have said about Miss America this year. The fact of the matter is that according to the First Amendment they have the right to say what they want. But so do we. Drown out the unnecessary hateful remarks that are filled with racism. How do we do this? Fill the space with positive remarks on why Miss Davuluri winning is a big deal. Drown out the racism by having a louder voice that reinforces positive and informed beliefs.

So, let’s look at the winner of Miss America 2014 from a different standpoint. Although having a winner of a beauty pageant with Indian decent means that we are steering away from racism one step at a time, it also shows that we have more steps to go. We have identified that having her win is a huge deal, but that’s just one beauty pageant. What about those of a different race than Caucasian attaining anything else? That’s what we need to get people to pay attention to so then we can continue to keep moving forward— away from racism.