By
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
 |
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Miss America Nina Davuluri poses for photographers following
her crowning in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
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The
racist reaction to a South Asian Miss America is a disgrace, but so is the Miss
America pageant
During
my Tuesday morning subway commute, I encountered a man who felt the need to
stare at me while I walked by. As I passed him, he whispered, “Miss America” at
me. I kept walking, slightly confused at this unusual catcall.
And then I
remembered: as of Sunday night, Miss America was, like me, an American-born
desi. Nina Davuluri, from Syracuse, New York—both conventionally gorgeous and
medical school–bound—had won the title. Between this new form of catcalling and
the inevitable comparisons to her by my nosy aunties, it was clear: she was put
on this planet to make my life miserable.
Of
course, this historic achievement wasn’t all roses for Davuluri either. Upon
her crowning, Twitter overflowed with angry, post-9/11 racial hatred. “Miss New
York is an Indian. With all due respect, this is America” chimed one tweeter.
Another angrily writes, “How the fuck does a foreigner win miss America? She is
a Arab! #idiots.” Actually, no she’s not an “Arab,” she’s an American-born
Hindu of South Asian descent.
Here’s
what I think those racist commenters are trying to say: We (brown people) did
it again; we managed to take another seat that had, for the most part, been
occupied for nearly a century by a white face. Miss America, like the president
himself, is an important (if illusory) signifier of who’s in charge around
here. All of a sudden “we” brown people were two for two in Obama’s America.
Understandably,
most liberals’ reaction to the outpouring of racism inspired by Davuluri’s
crowning glory has been to defend her. After all, she is actually an American.
And there isn’t a South Asian–American that can’t relate to the frustration of
being questioned about your nationality. Or the aggravation caused by flippant
racists who can’t get even their racism right—calling a Hindu-identified South
Asian–American woman a Muslim terrorist, for example, because obviously we all
look the same.
But for all intents and purposes, in this historical moment
brown people are all the same, in that we’re all subject to the same ridicule
and attacks thanks to state sanctioned surveillance and the cultural
implications of the “war on terror.” It’s publicly acceptable to be racist
against people who are assumed to be Muslim.
We
can’t let this nasty display of racism back us into a corner. As tempting as it
might be, to suggest that Davuluri’s win signifies progress for South Asians in
America is to defend the Miss America pageant itself. And there isn’t really
much about Miss America that could be considered progress for anyone (except
maybe the steady decline in ratings over the last forty years, that might be a
sign of progress).
Miss America’s role in the public imagination has always
been the product of objectification. It’s a beauty pageant after all, and the
winner embodies the ideal American woman—prized as an object of beauty.
Miss
America has always been a spectacle. The competition started in 1921 as a
gimmick to get people to hang out in Atlantic City after Labor Day—at the time
it was charmingly called “The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America.” By the
1950s it became conflated with everything that America stood for. Miss America
is meant to represent the values Americans are supposed to hold dear—a female
face and body to project onto the hopes and dreams of the nation. And
throughout the pageant’s history, that female body has typically been thin,
conventionally attractive—and almost always white.
Ideas
about what kind of woman could adequately represent America have evolved over
time. Originally, non-white women were not allowed to participate in the
contest. It wasn’t until 1970 that a black woman competed. Since 1983, eight
African-American women have worn the Miss America crown. And in 2001 the title
went to Hawaii-born Filipino Angela Perez Baraquio.
It
makes sense that some might consider the increasing racial diversity in the
pageant to be a sign of progress. And for South Asians, being integrated into
an existing cultural practice might seem like an important step toward cultural
acceptance and assimilation. But I would argue it’s not really progress when
the role of Miss America is so deeply limited in possibility and scope.
To
be sure, optics matter. The minor net good is that little South Asian girls may
feel better about themselves when they see a beauty queen that they can relate
to. But Miss America still sends a message to girls and women that what you
look like determines what you are worth.
While it’s tempting to frame Nina
Davuluri’s win as a victory for equality, let’s not get confused— the Miss
America pageant is fundamentally about objectifying women and limiting their
possibility to what they look like in a bikini.
I’m
sure my catcaller thought he was being flattering by acknowledging that I
wasn’t just any woman to be objectified, but a South Asian one—now open to my
own brand of objectification too. But that’s not the kind of “progress” I’m
going to rally behind.
- Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a digital strategist at Purpose.
Source:
The Nation, September 18, 2013
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