What Does It Mean to be American Anyway?
This will be brief and unedited. I completely missed the hell some people were raising regarding an Indian American winning the Miss America Pageant; but I read about it this morning.
Judging from some of the Twitter feed comments such as:
“This is America”
“So Miss America is a terrorist?”
“Have we forgotten 9/11?”
“I swear I’m not a racist, but this is America”
It is clear that there are some folks who have not only an antiquated understanding of what America is, what it means to be American and who can be American. It’s a no brainer to say that America is not this lily White place of privilege and power. Instead it is a diverse nation of people from all over the world, many of which we claim as American citizens – at least that’s what is said on paper/what is documented.
I do not want to take away from the commemoration of 9/11 when thousands of lives were snuffed out because of the evil of others. But I can’t help but wonder if our statement of “Never Forget” is misinterpreted and misused as an indication of the hatred and bitterness we have in our hearts. Could it be that we are not only remembering the victims, but feel obligated to be on guard and view as enemies anyone from a different country? And if not enemies, they are those that we tolerate and though they have American citizenship, we are only comfortable with them sharing in partial rather than full privileges of an American citizen. For shame!!!
America is a diverse group of citizens, not even close to being as “White” as it used to be and I think this is something to celebrate. So, I say congratulations Miss Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014! Your crowning demonstrates the true spirit of America.
Intersexion 