Americans Call First Indian American Miss America Winner a Terrorist


On Sunday, September 15, 2013, America crowned Miss New York, the first Indian American, the winner of the Miss America pageant. The social media world had a time with this news. Many teens and active Twitter users, began making racial slurs toward Miss New York saying that she was a terrorist, a member of Al-Qaeda, behind 9/11, etc. One tweet even went as far as saying, "Miss America's talent... Building a bomb in 15 seconds!" These comments were terrible. But, as a society, how surprised were we by these terrible attacks at the newly crowned winner? These comments were not something out of the ordinary. When we see women in pageants like this that are not white and blonde and the "normal" American woman, we start to question why she is able to compete or how could she make a good Miss America. Just because Miss New York is Indian American and has dark skin and dark hair, does not mean that she has any less right to be competing for such a title as a blonde, Caucasian and does not mean that she cannot fulfill the duties of the title just as well as any other woman.

We see attacks like this all of the time, just look at Obama's campaign while running for office. We immediately attacked him for not being a white male like every President that had come before him. Society also made attacks at him for being a "terrorist" and even the anti-Christ. Why did we think that he was not as capable as holding office just because of his background or skin color?

I think that a lot of times in society, and especially in the social media world, we start to make what we think are jokes about topics like these, and kind of go along with what everyone else is saying because it may come across as comical. We may not realize that these comments are very hurtful to other people and are also very important political issues.

Politics

pol·i·tics

The word "politics" is defined as the activities associated with the governance of a country or another area. I think the term "politics" can be defined differently by everyone. When we think of politics, we probably generally think of our main politicians, political parties, and different current events that are discussed daily in the News. But, in a more general sense, I think that politics are anything that affects the way we interact and live together in our country and the world. When you think about it, we elect our politicians based on how they will best help us and how they will contribute to a better way of life. We all want a leader who is going to help us improve and help our lives in the long run. Everyone has their own opinions and own preferences, so with that being said, I think that politics are anything that we as citizens can argue or debate about. We will never all agree as a whole, but with politics, we can all have our voices heard and feel like we have a say in what goes on in the world around us.

I chose this image to go along with this post because to me, it represents the concept that we are trying to acquire peace in our world through politics. None of us will ever totally agree on everything but with political debates, we can argue and become one step closer to obtaining peace in our world through what we believe is right and morally correct.