Shortly after Nina Davaluri was crowned Miss America Sunday night, the world took notice. In an instant, a beauty pageant that symbolized “all-American” standards of beauty crowned a woman who ran on a platform of “cultural diversity” and performed a Bollywood dance routine to a song sung entirely in Hindi.
But her glitter on her tiara had barely settled before exuberant fans took to social media to moan about the prevalence of racist Tweets denouncing Davuluri’s win. Instead of focusing on her platform, her dancing or her impressive resume — the focus shifted immediately to…her haters. Come on, Internet. HATERS GONNA HATE! It’s the number one rule on the web.
Within minutes, BuzzFeed had a list of racist tweets and more mainstream news outlets like The Atlantic and CNN soon followed. An hour after the pageant ended, Twitter and Facebook were overflowing with angry posts linking to hate-filled messages from across the nation. Ultimately, the online conversation over the negative tweets hijacked the exuberance of Davuluri’s win.
Back to the win. Let’s be honest. It was a symbolic moment — even for our hardened pageant hater-hearts — when the 24-year-old walked down the stage in her yellow evening dress and sparkly tiara.
Moments earlier, as she tearfully clutched the hands of Miss California Crystal Lee, Nina told host Lara Spencer, “We’re both so proud. We’re making history standing here as Asian Americans.”
Awwww. How could you not love her?
The Aerogram’s readers probably noticed that we didn’t do a post on the racist tweets that polluted the #MissAmerica hastag after Davuluri’s big moment. There’s an important reason for that and it can’t be said enough: Racist tweets add nothing to the conversation. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. While the BuzzFeeds of the world thrive on page views and controversy, sometimes it’s important to take a step back and ask what a post that consists of a handful of sentences followed by an endless stream of racist bile brings to the table.
Surely it isn’t news that some people can’t find India on a map, that there are those who are instantly suspicious of those of us with dark skin and that so-called “unpronounceable” names drive ignorant people crazy. (And if those things are news to you, you’ve never been a South Asian American student in an American middle school). So what is accomplished by broadcasting the hateful views of some person with eight Twitter followers to readers all over the world? And since when was racism in America the only news story worth pursuing?
Sometimes you just have to check yourself against The Gospel According to Aasif Mandvi. The Daily Show correspondent tweeted:
yo @BuzzFeed when u give wider platform 2 the tweets of a few crazy racist morons out there, u become part of the problem. #MissAmerica
— aasif mandvi (@aasif) September 16, 2013
Amen.
The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar had similar thoughts, tweeting,
https://twitter.com/kunalnayyar/status/379698590463303680
Preach.
It’s unfortunate that Nina Davuluri’s crowning achievement was pushed to the side so quickly because it means media outlets are making a deliberate choice to highlight hate and ugliness over her accomplishments. (And whatever you think of pageants, Davuluri is an incredibly accomplished young woman.) For her part, Davuluri is taking the high road, simply telling reporters, “I have to rise above that.”
So let the haters choke on their own Haterade. America, bow down to your new queen. Your Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri.
Follow Lakshmi Gandhi on Twitter at @LakshmiGandhi and follow Kishwer Vikaas on Twitter @Phillygrrl, or email them at editors@theaerogram.com. Find The Aerogram on Twitter at @theaerogram.
Lakshmi, I read a news article which had a comment by you saying something to the tune that the darker skin tone is not considered beautiful in bolloywood. Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra are among many darker skinned bollywood actresses who everyone including myself, raised by the ‘supposed’ fair skinned loving bollywood consider pretty damn hot and are also most in-demand. No hating, I have nothing but love for Indian Americans, and I’m assuming you are one, but unfortunately they don’t always know what todays about India is about, and thats obvious because they are not from there, and their opinions are based on scarcely believable foriegn media. Hell I thought every American is obese, lazy and lives on welfare, but thats not true is it, well mostly not true. But when you opine as a writer of an Indian-American blog most people are going to think its legit. There are a lot of things we need to work on as a soceity, but don’t paint us in racist hues based on second hand information.
I as a British/American think She is a Beautiful Indian/American i am sick of all this anti Indian stuff and hate crimes my great great Father was a Young British Cavalry Officer in the Bengal 19th Cavalry and Married a Beautiful Indian Lady I was Lucky to know her. I Love India so much that in 1971 on exchange from the RAF i was Sent to fly for The IAF in the Indo/Pak war My late Wife and Son were Indian. the trolls are stupid fools . have never traveled outside the usa. JAI HIND INDIA