Classic Rant #1,043 (September 17, 2013): Missed America

So what do you think of the new Miss America?

Me, I never understood the allure of this contest.

As a man--and as a self-avowed male chauvinist pig--I never understood why the prettiest girl never wins this contest.

And quite frankly, who cares about her brains?

But the latest Miss America has sparked plenty of controversy, and in the same breath, has put the pageant squarely in the news once again.

The latest Miss America is from New York, which should be news itself. Aren't most of the winners from the western part of the country? Yes, I did some research, and the last two (including the newest) Miss America are from New York, but isn't this some type of anomaly?

But the thing that has gotten a lot of people's goat is that the winner, 24-year-old Nina Davaluri, is Indian American.

She is not white, she is not black, she is not Asian, she is the first Indian American to have won this pageant.

A lot of people do not like this, and have made racist comments, saying that she is a terrorist.

Why they are equating her heritage with terrorism is beyond me, but I think that these people are scared people, thinking that minorities are taking over the country.

The woman was born here, by the way, debunking a lot of people who are saying that she is a foreigner taking away one of "our" pageants.

There is a lot of hate out there, but 30 years ago today, there was a lot of hate thrown at another Miss America winner.

Remember all the brouhaha over Vanessa Williams being crowned the first black Miss America? Today is the 30th anniversary of her coronation.

The same things that Davaluri is going through Williams went through, and Williams went through them a bit worse.

Racists said that Miss America could never be a black woman, while some blacks even said she wasn't "black enough" in her features to be considered one of them.

Oy vey!

Williams couldn't win any which way, but about a year into her reign, she was taken out for good by those nude photos of her that appeared in Penthouse magazine, photos that were taken of her a few years before the pageant.

She was "stripped" of her crown, and went on to have quite a nice singing and acting career, one of the few Miss Americas who had successful show business careers after her reign.

And let's not forget that years and years before this, Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America, also went through hell because of who she was, and she, too, had a pretty successful career on television.

The term "Miss America" should mean just that, and if the winner is black, white, green, purple, Indian, Jewish, or just plain WASP, it really shouldn't matter.

And is this pageant really that important anyway?

I wonder if people also think that the competition was rigged, so that the Indian American girl won, just so the pageant would get the press it has not had in the past number of years.

I could go along that line much more, but the people who think that "white bread" women should be the only winners of this pageant are really out of line.

I never got this pageant, anyway, and after the latest episode, I still don't.